My MPU co-host has been playing with the new Focus feature that is coming with Apple’s updated operating system. As soon as I saw this in Monday’s keynote, I knew I wanted to hear his take.
posts
On Shortcuts for Mac⇢
Yours truly, over on Six Colors:
Over the last several years, there has been a lot of hand-wringing about what Shortcuts would mean for old-school Mac automation. It is clear to me that Apple thought about this, and has designed Shortcuts for the Mac to be able to support the old and new, all at the same time. That’s not always Apple’s modus operandi, but it was the right move in this case.
Apple Announces macOS Monterey⇢
Today at WWDC, Apple announced the next version of the Mac operating system, macOS Monterey.1 It doesn’t bring as much change as Big Sur did, but I think most Mac users will be just fine with that. However, I don’t think Monterey is a release worth sleeping on; there is a lot here this year.
All Children are Loved the Same
My initial impression, right after the keynote, is that I am pleased that the almost all of the headlining features in iOS and iPadOS are coming to the Mac this year as well.
Kbase Article of the Week: Macintosh IIvx: Displays Larger than 14 Inches⇢
While we all wait for the WWDC keynote to start, I have some reading for you:
Why doesn’t the Macintosh IIvx support monitors larger than 14 inches?
The Macintosh IIvx (Performa 600) has internal video support for the 12-inch, 13-inch, 14-inch, and VGA (Video Graphics Array) displays. However, the internal video doesn’t support monitors greater than 14 inches.
Macintosh IIvx video logic is based on the Macintosh LC II. Time to market urgency made major alterations of the Macintosh LC ASIC impossible.
Sponsor: Loopback from Rogue Amoeba⇢
With Loopback, it’s trivial to pass audio from one application to another on your Mac. Need to play a recording into Zoom? Add sound effects into a podcast? Include music in a streamed event? Loopback gives you the power to do just that with just a few clicks. It’s like a high-end mixing board, right inside your Mac.
Loopback creates virtual audio devices, which merge audio from multiple applications and input devices into a single source. These virtual devices appear on your Mac just like a real, physical device, and can be selected for use in any audio app on your Mac. It’s incredibly powerful.
Considering a More Mindful Apple Watch
Yesterday, Khaos Tian reported that a text string saying com.apple.Mind had popped up in conjunction with the App Store ahead of WWDC.
Mark Gurman chimed in later saying that Mind is an updated version of Apple’s rather basic Breathe app.
Assuming Mind is being announced tomorrow as part of watchOS 8, I have some wishes for the app, as someone who uses Breathe more than most probably do.
I’d love to Mind be more expansive than Breathe in terms of the types of mindfulness exercises it offers. For the last couple of years, I’ve used the uber-popular Headspace app on my phone and like the variety of guided sessions it offers, especially the ones designed to be used while trying to go to sleep.
Mac Power Users #591: HyperCard All the Way Down, with Adam Engst⇢
With over 30 years of history, TidBITs is the longest-running tech publication covering Apple in the world. This week, one of its founders, Adam Engst, drops by the show to talk about his writing workflow, unusual input devices and how WWDC has changed over the years.
HomeControl⇢
My thanks to HomeControl for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week. With it, you can control HomeKit devices and scenes, view sensor measurements and automate actions with HomeControl — right from your Mac’s menu bar.
Bloomberg: New iPad Pro, iPad mini Design Under Development⇢
Mark Gurman and Debby Wu at Bloomberg:
The Cupertino, California-based company is planning to release the new iPad Pro in 2022 and the iPad mini later this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The main design change in testing for the iPad Pro is a switch to a glass back from the current aluminum enclosure. The updated iPad mini is planned to have narrower screen borders while the removal of its home button has also been tested
Flashback #20: Windows Vista⇢
This time on Flashback, Quinn Nelson and I jump into the world of Aero and UAC:
The story of Windows Vista is a complicated one. Born from a long and troubled development cycle, it wasn’t free of problems at launch, but hardware OEMs and others didn’t do much to help its reputation.
Sigh.
Apple Tweaking AirTag Privacy Measures, Building Android Detector App⇢
The tech giant said Thursday it’s begun sending out updates to its AirTags, changing the window of time they’ll make noises when potentially being used to track another person. Initially, the Apple device would play in three days. Now it’ll begin to play at a random time inside a window that lasts between 8 and 24 hours.
To further reassure people about its AirTags, Apple said it’s developing an app for Android devices that will help people “detect” an AirTag or Find My network-enabled device that may also be unsuspectedly “traveling” with them. Apple iPhones already have a similar alert system built into their devices. The Android app will be released later this year.
On the Apple IIe Microloop System 1100 Spirometer, by Medical Graphics Corporation
I was recently idly scrolling through the vintage Apple listings on eBay and came across something I’d never seen before: the Microloop 1100 Spirometer.
According to the listing, this beast hails from 1987 and is built around an Apple IIe and a 9-inch CRT, with some extra goodies:
- A 5.25-inch floppy drive
- 80 column / RAM expansion
- An Apple CAT II modem
- An Apple CAT expansion card for 1200 Baud
- A Microbuffer II
- A Disk II card
- An 16 channel Interactive Structures A113-A A/D card
- A Titan accelerator
- A Titan 128K RAM expansion
This machine was crammed into a custom case and was hooked up to a spirometer, which is used to measure the volume and movement of air into and out of the lungs. This medical instrument interfaced with the Apple IIe via that 16-channel Interactive Structures A113-A card, which operated as an analog-to-digital converter for incoming data.