Major FaceTime Bugs Uncovered (Updated)

There are a couple of really nasty Group FaceTime bugs that have surfaced online:

  • 9to5Mac is reporting that FaceTime will play audio from a recipient’s phone, before the pick up or decline a call.
  • The Verge has added that if a recipient rejects a FaceTime call by pressing the power or volume button on their phone, FaceTime will erroneously broadcast video as well.

These bugs are serious, and seeing as this version of FaceTime was delayed from iOS 12.0, it makes me wonder what other corners were cut to ship it.

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NYT: 2013 Mac Pro Delayed Due to Screws⇢

This is a wild story:

In 2012, Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, went on prime-time television to announce that Apple would make a Mac computer in the United States. It would be the first Apple product in years to be manufactured by American workers, and the top-of-the-line Mac Pro would come with an unusual inscription: “Assembled in USA.”

But when Apple began making the $3,000 computer in Austin, Tex., it struggled to find enough screws, according to three people who worked on the project and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements.

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The Six Colors Report Card for 2018⇢

Jason Snell is a madman:

This is the fourth year that I’ve presented this survey to a hand-selected group. They were prompted with 11 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5, as well as optionally provide text commentary on their vote. I received 55 replies, with the average results as shown below:

It’s fun to take part in this, but even more fun to read.

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Mac Power Users #467: Fitness Apps & Tech⇢

This week on Mac Power Users, David and I talk through way to use our Apple tech to monitor our health and improve our fitness:

The iPhone and Apple Watch can be helpful in managing health and fitness, and coupled with the breadth of options in the App Store, they can become powerful tools in improving our well-being.

My thanks to our sponsors:

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Advanced Mac Substitute⇢

Advanced Mac Substitute is a project dedicated to reimplement the classic Mac OS in order to emulate 68k Mac software without Apple ROM or software.

Sean Gallagher at Ars wrote about it earlier this week:

Advanced Mac Substitute is an effort by long-time Mac hacker Josh Juran to make it possible to run old Mac OS software (up to Mac OS 6) without a need for an Apple ROM or system software. Other emulators out there for 68000 Mac applications such as Basilisk II require a copy of MacOS installation media—such as install CDs from Mac OS 7.5 or Mac OS 8. But AMS uses a set of software libraries that allow old Mac applications to launch right within the operating environment of the host device, without needing to have a full virtual hardware and operating system instance behind them. And it’s all open source.

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Project Titan Sheds 200 Employees⇢

CNBC is reporting that some 200 people working on Apple’s autonomous vehicle program have moved to different parts of the company:

An Apple spokesperson acknowledged the layoffs and said the company still sees opportunity in the space:

“We have an incredibly talented team working on autonomous systems and associated technologies at Apple. As the team focuses their work on several key areas for 2019, some groups are being moved to projects in other parts of the company, where they will support machine learning and other initiatives, across all of Apple,” the spokesperson said.

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Macintosh Turns 35

35 years ago today, Steve jobs took his prized creation out of its bag for the first time:

Joe Rossignol beat me to this, but he summed the original machine up nicely over on MacRumors:

The original Macintosh was priced at $2,495 in the United States, equivalent to just over $6,000 today, and was a big deal because of its graphical user interface rather than command-line interface. Tech specs included an 8 MHz Motorola 68000 processor, 128 KB of RAM, and a 400 KB floppy disk drive.

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Connected #227: Caveats Ruin People⇢

This week’s Connected is up:

After Stephen ruins the intro, Federico finally gets around to talking about his second iPad Pro and Myke shares a secret.

My thanks to our sponsors this week:

  • TextExpander, from Smile: Multiply your team’s productivity.
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  • Luna Display: The only hardware solution that turns your iPad into a wireless display for your Mac. Use promo code CONNECTED at checkout for 10% off.

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