The world lost a lot more than a princess today.
posts
Trajectory⇢
Riccardo Mori, writing about iOS’ future if macOS were to go away:
When I walk down this hypothetical path, what I see in iOS’s trajectory, more than sheer innovation, is a reinvention of the wheel. iOS was born as a simpler, streamlined version of Mac OS X; its multi-touch interface was ingenious and groundbreaking when applied to a smartphone and (similarly, but less strikingly) to a tablet; to then evolve — through a series of iterations and feature creep — into… Mac OS X?
My Entire Wish List for Apple for 2017 That I Hope Will Come True but Ehhhhh
- Updated desktop Macs.
Bringup History of Mac OS X⇢
Well, this is a fun chart:
Currently, Apple only ships Intel-based machines. Mac OS X for Intel was released in 2006. The Intel version had been “leading a secret double life” since 2000, i.e. Mac OS X existed for Intel all the time, but was not released. In that time, Mac OS X was never self-hosting; instead, it was cross-compiled on PowerPC Macs. The first released version of Intel Mac OS X was a version of 10.4 for the Pentium 4 based “Developer Transition Kit” in 2005.
Securing the Mac
macOS offers numerous ways to secure your data. Used together, these features mean that even if your Mac is stolen, the data on it is safe from prying eyes.
Account Password
The most basic step of protecting your Mac is having a password set up for your user. If you don’t have one, it can be set up in System Preferences > Users and Groups.
While there, make sure the computer isn’t automatically logging in:
Spot the Station⇢
Want to know when the International Space Station will be overhead where you live? There’s a service for that.
To Mars or To The Moon⇢
The space agency’s next major exploration program could last the better part of half a century, too. So we ought to choose wisely. The Moon is closer and offers potential utility as a refueling station in space. Mars harbors more intrigue in the search for life and represents the Solar System’s best bet for a second home. But we’re going nowhere without a final choice—followed by investment and commitment. Absent this from the Trump administration and Congress, NASA will continue to find itself adrift.
The End of the Year
Like a lot of people, I typically find the holidays hard to deal with. There are a lot of reasons for that — past and present — so most years, I come into the new year feeling down.
I know this about myself, as it’s been this way for a long time. This year around Thanksgiving, I had a moment, sitting in traffic and I realized what was on the horizon. While I am not fully in charge of my long-term, here-and-back-again depressive tendencies, I decided then to be more open and honest with a handful of people about how I was feeling through the holidays. I tried to make a solid attempt at being more engaged and in-the-moment as the holidays progressed.
Ungeniused #15: Festivus⇢
On today’s episode of Ungeniused, Myke and I celebrate Festivus with the help of several friends.
The Slow Mo Guys Kill an iMac⇢
On ‘Defying Gravity: The Making of Newton’
Defying Gravity: The Making of Newton is a book on Apple about the company’s ill-fated PDA from the 1990s. It was published by Beyond Words Publishing in 1993. Infortunately, they spelled the title of the book Defying Graviity on the spine.
My particular copy was a gift from a friend, but at some point was part of a library system.
Instead of page numbers, the book counts down to zero, which marks the product’s introduction. It follows several members of the Newton team, including Michael Tchao, who is a VP of Product Marketing at Apple today after a 15-year hiatus away from the company.
The Mac as an SUV⇢
Jason Snell has published a video that hits the nail right on the head as far as the Mac’s place in tomorrow’s world. In it, he also breaks down the problems in Steve Jobs’ analogy about the Mac being a truck.