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Jacob Kastrenakes, with some upsetting news:

The US Senate has voted to overturn consumer-friendly internet privacy rules that would have prevented internet providers from sharing your web browsing history without permission.

The privacy rules, passed last year by the FCC, required internet providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T to get each customer’s permission before sharing personal information like which websites they visit. But internet providers want to be able to sell that data and use it to target ads, so they’ve been vocal about opposing the rules since around the time President Trump took office.

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Like me, Casey Newton still relies on syncing to iTunes to put music on his iPhone. And like me, he’s finding that more and more complicated:

For my system to work, iTunes has to sync. But with each passing year, the act of syncing seems to take longer than the year before. Hours pass by as my phone is “backing up,” even if I fully backed up the phone minutes before. And increasingly, sync doesn’t work at all. Sometimes I plug in my phone and iTunes doesn’t recognize it as a device. Sometimes the dreaded “unknown error” occurs. Most frequently, I get this: “iTunes cannot sync photos to the iPhone … because your Photos Library is not yet available. Please try again later.” (I am just learning that there is apparently a fix for this one.)

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Peter Hartlaub at the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Apple II Forever” was an event staged by a company still working out the bugs.

The April 24, 1984, press and exhibitor gathering was late to start and later to finish. Apple executives sat on the kind of metal folding chairs that one would find at a recreation center singles dance. Steve Jobs — hair feathered gloriously — hadn’t quite settled into his permanent turtleneck-and-jeans uniform yet, choosing a bow tie, suspenders and Velcro-strapped Nike high-tops.

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Matthew Panzarino, writing at TechCrunch:

Apple has finalized a deal to acquire Workflow today — a tool that lets you hook together apps and functions within apps in strings of commands to automate tasks. We’ve been tracking this one for a while but were able to confirm just now that the ink on the deal is drying as we speak.

Workflow itself has been acquired, and is now free on the iOS App Store. The team behind it, led by Ari Weinstein, will be working for Apple.

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I often create records in Contacts.app on my Mac from those blocks of text every adult has at the bottom of their emails. It involves a lot of copying and pasting back and forth, as I’ve found Data Detectors in Mail don’t often get things the way I want them.

Now there’s a Mac app that makes this common task a lot faster: Interact Scratchpad. Made by developer and part-time wizardry camp Agile Tortoise, its a menubar app that includes a text field. Copy that block of contact info into it, and it sorts out what’s what then allows you to add a new contact to your database quickly. Greg’s video shows it off nicely.

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Sigh.

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Apple Support:

This article lists firmware updates available as standalone installers for Intel-based Mac computers.

Most firmware updates are automatically installed when you update or upgrade OS X. Some firmware updates are also available as downloads you can install manually. If your Mac needs a firmware update and it isn’t installed automatically, check to see if a manual updater is listed below.

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This week on Connected, Federico is wandering the wilderness in search of new iPad Pro hardware, so Myke and I break down today’s news before apologizing to everyone.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• TextExpander, from Smile: Multiply your team’s productivity.
• Eero: Blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi.
• Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code WORLD at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

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I spent less than $200 on a Late 2009 MacBook, the oldest laptop that is supported by macOS Sierra. In this video, I show how to install an SSD and additional RAM for the best possible performance out of the notebook:

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The biggest news out of today’s press releases from Apple is probably the new 9.7-inch iPad.

Tech wise, it’s more or less an upgraded iPad Air 2. It comes with a A9 processor, 8 MP cameras and 10-hour battery life. None of Apple’s Pro features are here. It doesn’t support the Smart Keyboard, Apple Pencil or include that fancy four-speaker sound system.

The price is decidedly un-Pro, as well. At $329, the 32 GB model a full $270 cheaper than the 9.7" iPad Pro with the same storage space, and that’s before the extra $248 the Smart Keyboard and Pencil will set you back.

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I really like my iMac, but every once in a while I do wish Apple was shipping a cheese-grater Mac Pro with modern internals. I’d love to shove some of my external drives into a tower that could keep my desk nice and tidy, not to mention having more horsepower for audio and video editing.

In the current vacuum of updated Pro hardware from Apple, some are turning to Hackintoshes. These custom-built PCs are designed to run macOS, giving users great flexibility to build their own setups for running Mac software.

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Ten years ago today, I sent my first tweet.

laying out the paper.

— Stephen Hackett (@ismh) March 20, 2007

I was in college, working as the News Editor at my college newspaper, The Daily Helmsman.

Figuring out how to use Twitter was a slow process. For those first couple of years, my tweets were sporadic and basically glorified AIM away messages. I shared my status in short bursts, but only really interacted with local friends as I would on Facebook.

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