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Rumor has it that the next Apple Watch will include a GPS chipset. Assumedly, this would allow apps like Map My Run, Strava and others to track walks, runs and bike rides without relying on the iPhone for location data. With Apple Watch 2, people could just go for a run and have complete stats about it afterwards, all with their iPhone safe and sound back home on the kitchen table.

I do a fair amount of bike riding, on and off of paved streets. I use my Apple Watch to keep tabs on things like speed or distance mid-ride without needing to dig my iPhone out of the back pocket of my jersey.

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With a week to go before Apple’s fall event, the Connected Trio gather from their respective lands to discuss the possibilities of new Apple Watch models, new Macs and Apple’s situation in Ireland.

My thanks to our three sponsors this week:

• Freshbooks: Online invoicing made easy.
• Pingdom: Start monitoring your websites and servers today. Use offer CONNECTED for 20% off.
• Eero: Blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi.

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Rhapsody was Apple’s initial attempt to combine Mac OS and NeXTSTEP to form the company’s next-gen operating system:

The Rhapsody Developer Release (RDR) has a fundamental incompatability with OPENSTEP/Mach (and NeXTStep) that you should be aware of when planning how to install and evaluate this software. Specifically, RDR/Intel uses a different file system format than either RDR/PPC or OPENSTEP/NeXTStep. You will not be able to set up systems to dual-boot RDR/Intel and previous Mach/Intel operating systems. You will also not be able to exchange external hard disks and/or removable media between RDR/Intel and other versions of Mach. Rhapsody/PPC will be able to read (mount read-only) media created on previous versions of Mach. Read/write access to older media is not supported.

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Chris Welch at The Verge:

Several months ago, Sonos revealed plans to bring voice control to its popular home audio speakers. Today at an event in New York City, the company shared more on its approach to letting users play music by speaking commands aloud instead of controlling everything by thumbing through the Sonos app. In short, it’s all about Alexa and Echo. Beginning in 2017, anyone with an Alexa-enabled device — right now that’s he Echo, Tap, or Dot — will be able to control Sonos speakers with voice commands.

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Mark Gurman, writing about how the buttons on the next-generation MacBook Pro’s OLED keyboard display may vary based on usage:

For example, if a user is on their desktop, the screen will show a virtual representation of the standard function row, which includes brightness and media controls. When in an application, the virtual row will show options specific to the task at hand, but volume controls and a switch to show the default functions will always be present. The Safari web browser would enable controls for finding and defining terms, while the iMovie video editor would offer controls for cutting clips and a more-precise volume slider, the people said.

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Tony Greicius at JPL:

While results from the spacecraft’s suite of instruments will be released down the road, a handful of images from Juno’s visible light imager — JunoCam — are expected to be released the next couple of weeks. Those images will include the highest-resolution views of the Jovian atmosphere and the first glimpse of Jupiter’s north and south poles.

It’s an exciting time to be a space enthusiast.

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We moved at the beginning of the month, and I’ve taken over a spare bedroom in our new house as an office, so it was time to share some new photos of my workspace.

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Qbserve helps improve your productivity by giving you a picture of your time spending patterns. It provides instant feedback on your performance by watching the sites and apps you use.

Qbserve stores all the tracked data privately on your machine and doesn’t require subscription. It is currently focused on self-management but business features like project tracking and billing are also coming soon.

Try it for free and see where your time goes. Use coupon 512PIXELS on checkout for 25% off in September.

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This month in my column on iMore, I revisited MECC, the company behind some great software titles like Oregon Trail and Number Munchers:

My earliest memories of technology came from my first year of grade school: It was 1992, and our teacher had installed some variant of an Apple II in the classroom. The students were only able to use it a few times, but each time I got to put a disk in the machine, I was able to escape to another world.

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This week on Connected:

Federico’s back, so the power of The Prompt Curse has been restored. Picturelife is dead, Ping is in headlines and iOS 10 is closer than ever.

My thanks to our sponsors this week:

• PDFpen, from Smile: The ultimate PDF editing tool.
• Freshbooks: Online invoicing made easy.
• Mack Weldon: Smart underwear for smart guys. Get 20% off with the code CONNECTED.

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Nicole Perlroth:

One of the world’s most evasive digital arms dealers is believed to have been taking advantage of three security vulnerabilities in popular Apple products in its efforts to spy on dissidents and journalists.

Investigators discovered that a company called the NSO Group, an Israeli outfit that sells software that invisibly tracks a target’s mobile phone, was responsible for the intrusions. The NSO Group’s software can read text messages and emails and track calls and contacts. It can even record sounds, collect passwords and trace the whereabouts of the phone user.

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Darren Orf at Gizmodo has posted a video that all Apple nerds should watch.

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