A quick programming note about sponsorships here on 512 Pixels. I’ve got just three spots open left this year, and am starting to book weeks for 2021. If you have an app, product or service you’d like to share with some of the coolest people on the Internet, get in touch!
posts
Connected #320: Actually Quite Precedented⇢
Apple has announced the first batch of Macs running on its own silicon, so the boys are judging yet another set of Rickies. Will Federico’s dual-title fall? Will Myke get his Ricky? Did Stephen make a mistake having six Flexies?
On the membership version, we discuss Myke’s curse, Federico’s Twitter findings and my getting stranded in my kitchen.
My thanks to our sponsors:
- Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code CONNECTED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
- PDFpen, from Smile: Powerful PDF Editing On Your Mac.
- Pingdom: Start monitoring your website performance and availability today, and get instant alerts when an outage occurs or a site transaction fails. Use offer code CONNECTED to get 30% off. Offer expires on January 31, 2021, and can be used only once.
AirBuddy 2⇢
AirBuddy is one of those apps that makes the Mac so much better that I can’t imagine using AirPods with my computers without it. The all-new version brings with it an updated UI, powerful listening modes and a lot more. It is well worth the $10.
Alfred Ready for first Apple Silicon Macs⇢
Good news about my app launcher of choice:
Alfred has an exceedingly clean code base, so we were hoping for it to be reasonably easy to create our first Universal build. To our pleasant surprise, it was as straightforward as loading up Alfred’s code into Xcode 12 Beta, selecting the Universal architecture, and compiling. That was it, no other changes were needed, and we were immediately able to take full advantage of the new architecture.
Three More Things
At its event today, Apple unveiled three new Macs, all powered by the new M1 chip. The MacBook Air and Mac mini are now powered by Apple’s own silicon, as are two of three default configurations of the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Apple isn’t saying anything about the clock speed of the M1, just like they’ve remained silent about these figures when announcing new iPhones and iPads. One can assume that future M-class chips will be faster than these, but it’s all Bezos Charts from here:
Re-watching the Intel Announcement⇢
Yesterday I re-watched the Intel announcement from WWDC 2005 over on my Twitch channel. On Friday at 11 AM Eastern, I’ll be doing another stream, this time of Macworld 2006, where the first two Intel Macs were unveiled.
Matthew Panzarino, on Apple’s MagSafe Duo Charger⇢
The MagSafe Duo does work, and there are a couple of engineering bright spots. But you will not feel that it’s worth the money by the time you purchase the $129 charger and the $19 20W power brick to go with it, and there are many third party accessories on the market that do this job just fine.
This accessories feels like a one-and-done for sure.
The 12 Mini and 12 Pro Max Get Sized Up⇢
Seeing the 12 Mini next to the iPhone 5S is rather surprising. This phone is going to be small.
The Computer Chronicles: Ergonomics⇢
I’ve been stuck in bed for the last several days recovering from surgery on my foot, and instead of reading or meditating or something else good and useful, I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of watching old episodes of The Computer Chronicles on YouTube.
This episode really jumped out at me, as half-way through, the Macintosh and its designer Susan Kare make an appearance.
Connected #319: The Rickies (November 2020)⇢
Another episode, another Apple event, another round of The Rickies:
Stephen returns to his co-hosts to hold the third Apple Event Rickies in as many months.
(If there’s not Mac news next week, everyone is in trouble.)
In the Pro segments, I tried to explain APFS and Federico questioned everything. Myke had a simple request.
My thanks to our sponsors:
- Hover: Make a name for yourself. Get 10% off any domain name.
- ExpressVPN: High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service. Get an extra three months free.
- Hullo: A simple, natural pillow designed for comfort. Try it for 60 days.
Ungeniused #116: Government Cheese⇢
Sometimes, Uncle Sam has to step in and rescue the dairy industry.
Kbase Article of the Week: Legislative-Information Databases: A List⇢
A shockingly specific article this week:
So many services provide electronic access to legislative-information databases that we cannot describe them all. Here is a brief list of those that seem most appropriate with contacts for each.