This month in my MacStories column, I wrote about something fun:
Apple’s use of magnets in its products go back further than the most recent iPad Pro, with its keyboard and Apple Pencil. Magnets allow Apple to do things without the need of mechanical components, keeping the design of its products clean and streamlined. Here are a few of my favorites over the years.
Stephen priced out a MacBook Air, Myke almost got a new iPad stand and Federico reviewed Launch Center Pro 3.
This is our last regular episode for the year. On December 26th, we’ll be talking about the biggest (and smallest) stories of 2018.
My thanks to our sponsors this week:
Today marks the fifth anniversary of Apple’s last update to the Mac Pro, as reflected in the MacRumors Buyer’s Guide.
Apple released the second-generation Mac Pro on December 19, 2013, starting at $2,999, and it remains that price today after some reshuffling of configurations despite having over five year old hardware, including up to a 12-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, 64GB of ECC RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs.
This episode marks the end of Query. It’s been a fun podcast do, both with Serenity and Mikah, but it was time for it to end. If you listened to the show, thank you for being part of something weird and kind of different from what I’ve done in the past.
From a Russian art museum to 10 Downing Street, cats are hard at work, keeping mice at bay.
My thanks to our sponsor:
You can use a split keyboard on your iPad and move it up or down your screen to help you type.
Unless you have an 11 or 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which really bugs me. I’d love to have this on my giant iPad.
This time on Liftoff, we mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8:
In December 1968, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders became the first human beings to travel to the moon, circling our nearest neighbor and making history while doing so.
My thanks to eero for sponsoring this episode.
Federico recently wrote about how a nice iPad stand can make the device much more usable in certain situations. That got me thinking about checking some out, and I discovered Amazon has some real weird ones for sale.
John Markoff, writing at The New York Times:
In 1983, Mr. Jobs oversaw the construction of a state-of-the-art plant where the new Macintosh computer would be built. Reporters who toured it early on were told that the plant, located just across San Francisco Bay from Apple’s headquarters, was so advanced that factory labor would account for 2 percent of the cost of making a Macintosh.
“Steve had deep convictions about Japanese manufacturing processes,” recalled Randy Battat, who joined Apple as a young electrical engineer and oversaw the introduction of some of the company’s early portable computers. “The Japanese were heralded as wizards of manufacturing. The idea was to create a factory with just-in-time delivery of zero-defect parts. It wasn’t great for business.”
Hi all, I built a Spotify player for my Macintosh SE/30.
Drop whatever it is you are doing and go check this out.
I got it set up per Joe Rossignol’s screenshots, and once Apple Music is set as the default music source, it works really well. I could play music from my library, but the Echo could not find any of my personal playlists. Likewise, it could not play music that I had uploaded to iTunes Match.
I don’t know if these features will be available after the service’s official launch date, but as of right now, Apple Music on the Echo feels half-baked.