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Apple Beige⇢
Apple’s second computer — its first to have a case — launched in 1977, and that boxy beige Apple II was soon everywhere: in classrooms, living rooms and offices. At the vanguard of a generation of personal computers to come, it featured a particular and carefully-chosen beige. But what did that look like? Those first machines — the ones that have escaped landfills anyway — have shifted in color over 40 years. The documented public record is sketchy and confused. But I stumbled upon a way to investigate what Apple Beige was like.
Connected #329: The Smell of Broken Glass⇢
This week on the show, we plan the WWDC Olympics, talk about what’s inside the AirPods Max and what the future of the Mac Pro may look like. Lastly, a report about folding iPhones is considered.
On Connected Pro, we reflect on the Inauguration, Ticci talks about TIDAL and I give an update on my foot.
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What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say⇢
John Hendrickson, writing at The Atlantic:
Maybe you’ve heard Biden talk about his boyhood stutter. A non-stutterer might not notice when he appears to get caught on words as an adult, because he usually maneuvers out of those moments quickly and expertly. But on other occasions, like that night in Detroit, Biden’s lingering stutter is hard to miss. He stutters— if slightly—on several sounds as we sit across from each other in his office. Before addressing the debate specifically, I mention what I’ve just heard. “I want to ask you, as, you know, a … stutterer to, uh, to a … stutterer. When you were … talking a couple minutes ago, it, it seemed to … my ear, my eye … did you have … trouble on s? Or on … m?”
My Backup Strategy (2021 Update)
This post by David Sparks reminded me that I haven’t written about my backup strategy in some time.
The basic tools I use are unchanged from the last time I wrote about the topic. Time Machine is still my first line of defense, with Carbon Copy Cloner and Backblaze handling off-site backups.
However, the Drobo outlined in that 2018 post has been decommissioned, with its files now residing on my Mac Pro.
Thanks to the tower’s expandability, I’ve been able to add an internal clone, which updates nightly via Carbon Copy Cloner as well. That clone, the Time Machine drive and the Archives volume are all internal to the tower:
Kbase Article of the Week: iMovie HD: Unable to Eject Audio CD After Importing a Track in iMovie⇢
If you add a track from an audio CD into your iMovie HD project, you may be unable to eject that CD while iMovie HD is running.
This can happen if you’re using iMovie HD in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.
To eject your CD, save your project and quit iMovie HD. You will then be able to eject your CD normally. After the CD is ejected, open iMovie again and resume work on your project.
Flashback #12: The Amazon Fire Phone⇢
This time on Flashback, Quinn and I look back — in 3D! — at the Amazon Fire Phone. Between its operating system, unusual gesture system and a price that was way too high, it was dead on arrival. After that, we went shopping for each other, picking out some unusual products that bear Amazon’s name today.
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Mac Power Users #571: Catching up with Jeff Richardson⇢
Writer and lawyer Jeff Richardson returns to the show to update Stephen and David on how he’s working at a 12.9-inch iPad Pro most of the time, even when needing to use Windows.
In More Power Users, we spoke about Project Titan, Apple’s heavily-rumored car project.
My thanks to our sponsors:
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Panic Revives Audion⇢
Michael, writing on the Panic blog:
Once upon a time, we made one of the earliest MP3 players for the Mac, Audion. We’ve come to appreciate that Audion captured a special moment in time, and we’ve been trying to preserve its history. Back in March, we revealed that we were working on converting Audion faces to a more modern format so they could be preserved.
Since then, we’ve succeeded in converting 867 faces, and are currently working on a further 15 faces, representing every Audion face we know of.
Backblaze⇢
My thanks to Backblaze for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week. Get peace of mind knowing your files are backed up securely in the cloud. You can a free 15-day trial with Backblaze and get unlimited computer backup for your Mac or PC.
Bloomberg: New iMac Design, External Display and Two Mac Pros Underway⇢
The current iMac design hails from 2012, so it’s no big surprise that Apple is readying a new, modern iMac, but Gurman has two other interesting things in his report:
Apple is also working on a pair of new Mac Pro desktop computers, its priciest Mac machines that don’t come with a screen included, the people said. One version is a direct update to the current Mac Pro and will continue to use the same design as the version launched in 2019. Apple has discussed continuing to use Intel processors for that model rather than moving to its own chips.