If you own one of these 4K or 5K displays, this seems like a nice update to the software that makes it integrate with the Mac so well.
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Frederic Filloux: ‘Apple Should Buy Sony’⇢
In the excellent Monday Note:
Acquiring Sony would give Apple a huge competitive advantage: access to the most advanced [camera] chips of the industry, ahead of its smartphone competitors. Given the camera’s importance to the iPhone, this is a strong competitive argument against Samsung’s Galaxy or Google’s Pixel.
And:
A brand new Apple Pictures Entertainment built on SPE would make Apple one of the Big Six Hollywood studios, with a market share nearly at par with 20th Century Fox (both stood in the 10 percent range over the recent years). No doubt that, with the iTunes store, Apple TV, iPad and iPhone, an Apple-Sony Studios would thrive.
RSS Sponsor: Balance for Mac⇢
Balance is a powerful menubar app for your money built by a team from Apple, Stripe and Ethereum. It was featured in the U.S. Mac App Store when it launched in February.
Securely connect to your accounts
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With one click or keyboard shortcut you can pop open Balance and check all of your accounts. Lock the app with a password or TouchID.
The Touch Bar’s Future
I was exchanging emails with a reader about the lack of meaningful Touch Bar improvements in High Sierra over the weekend, and this morning, saw this on Twitter from Michael Lopp:
High Sierra fixes for MacBook Pro Touch Bar appear to be zero. Please tell me I am mistaken.
— rands (@rands) October 2, 2017
I don’t have any major problems with the Touch Bar on my MacBook Pro; I just don’t find it all that useful. I type too quickly for the Quick Type to keep up in a helpful manner, and many apps I use don’t offer much in custom shortcuts. In apps that do, I am so hardwired into keyboard shortcuts, I can’t be bothered to move my hands from the keyboard to tap a glowing button.
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To mark Childhood Cancer Awareness Month each year, I raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. I do so via the hospital’s annual marathon.
This year, my oldest two kids — including our St. Jude patient — are running the kids marathon. They’ve been running around the neighborhood with my wife, and will run the last mile in downtown Memphis this December.
We set up a fundraising page with a $9,000 goal; one grand to mark each year of our son’s life. Each one is a miracle.
SpaceX Looks to Lunar Missions with Mars Still on Musk’s Mind⇢
Today, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said he hopes to finance his plans to colonize Mars by making SpaceX’s entire fleet of vehicles — the Falcon 9, the Falcon Heavy, and the Dragon spacecraft — obsolete.
Speaking at the International Astronautical Congress, Musk said that SpaceX will eventually start stockpiling these vehicles and then focus all of its resources into developing the company’s next monster vehicle: the Interplanetary Transport System, codenamed the BFR (for Big Fucking Rocket).
Pencil Test
In 1988 Apple’s Advanced Technology Graphics Group created a short filmed named Pencil Test to show off the capabilities of the Macintosh II:
The company published two support documents about the film.
Reading this documents is a little wild. The Macintosh II was a modular system, unlike Steve Jobs’ original all-in-one. Apple speaks to both sides of the closed/open coin, claiming they have the best of both worlds: integrated system software and factory hardware with the ability to accommodate modularity at the same time:
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai Requests Apple Unlock FM Chip in iPhone⇢
Small problem: it doesn’t exist.
Query #12: Math is Weird⇢
This week on Query: HEVC, iOS 11 feature fragmentation, iOS 11’s Do Not Disturb While Driving feature and much more!
Amazon Unveils new Echo Products⇢
The new, second-generation Echo is smaller, with better speakers and a design I find far nicer than the first-generation model that currently sits in my kitchen. At $99, it’s cheaper, too. Seems like a win.
The $35 Echo Connect is far stranger. Pitched as a phone replacement, it plugs in to your old analog phone line and lets you make phone calls, including to 911.
Both devices go on sale later this year. I’m excited about the former, but as we stopped paying AT&T for a landline years ago, I’ll pass on the latter.
macOS Sierra Removed From Mac App Store
In years past, when a new version of macOS has come out, the previous one would still be available for download in the Mac App Store’s Purchased tab:
This year, Apple has changed its policy, according to this kbase article:
macOS Sierra or later doesn’t appear in the Purchased tab. Instead, use the Search field in the upper-right corner to find and open the App Store page for that macOS.
Ungeniused #33: The Yellow Fleet⇢
This week on Ungeniused, Myke and I talk about the Yellow Fleet:
From 1967 to 1975, over a dozen cargo ships were stranded in the Suez Canal after the Six-Day War. Crews on these ships created a small civilization that lasted until the Canal was cleared and they could be towed home.