This week on Connected, Federico and I talk about the Mac App Store, iCloud Photo Library and (sigh) iPhone 7 rumo(u)rs.
My thanks to these three sponsors:
Earlier this month, I spoke at Ignite Memphis about podcasting: what it is, why it’s growing and what makes it special. It was a ton of fun, and the video is online now.
We’ve been considering our options for some time. Over the last year, as we’ve made great progress with Sketch, the customer experience on the Mac App Store hasn’t evolved like its iOS counterpart. We want to continue to be a responsive, approachable, and easily-reached company, and selling Sketch directly allows us to give you a better experience.
We don’t expect this decision to be unanimously popular, but we want to share how we arrived at it. We take your satisfaction and support seriously, and hope you can understand the choice we have made.
Well, Fraser Speirs wins our corner of the Internet today.
Are you a full-time freelancer or independent worker? Do you make a pretty good living and like the work you do? Every year, do you think “man, why is my tax bill so high?" then think, “well, I guess this is just how it is for folks like me."
Then, you write that big check to Uncle Sam. You may find yourself wondering if you could have done something different. Or, if the check is really huge, you might even wonder if it wouldn’t be cheaper to just get a regular job again…
Hosted by Aleen Simms, Less Than or Equal is built on the belief that high-quality conversations about equality, awareness and understanding help drive us to a place where everyone of every gender, sexual orientation, race, color, physical ability, and physical appearance deserves to be treated equally by the tech industry and other geeky communities.
We’re excited for Aleen to be working on this project as part of Relay now. Go subscribe for some of the best interviews out there.
During the Photos beta, I gave both Photos.app and iCloud Photo Library a run for their money. I imported my photos — which had been living in Dropbox — and uploaded them.
It was a mess, so I decided that Dropbox + Finder was the way forward for me. I removed my files from iCloud after reading this support document.
After 30 days, I checked, and iCloud seemed to have removed my photos. I went back to Dropbox a little annoyed, but happy that I had given Apple’s solution a shot.
There’s a fun rumor making the rounds this weekend, as Jeremy Horwitz reports at 9to5Mac:
Citing a reliable source, a report from Japanese blog Macotakara claims that Apple plans to remove the 3.5mm headphone port from the upcoming iPhone 7, helping to achieve a “more than 1mm” reduction in thickness compared to the iPhone 6s. While the screen shape and radius will remain similar, the device will once again become Apple’s thinnest iPhone ever, albeit with a new restriction: headphones will only be able to connect over Lightning or Bluetooth.
It’s that time of year, so I’m happy to present the 512 Pixels Holiday Gift Guide for People Like Me:
Backups always come up this time of year. If you’re at home visiting family, it’s your Nerd Duty to make sure your family members have something in place to keep their data safe.
There are lots of good options out there today, but back in the early 2000s, that wasn’t true. If you were a .Mac subscriber, though, Apple’s Backup.app made data duplication easier than it had been previously. You didn’t even have to download the app; you could install it right from your iDisk folder.
This month in my iMore column:
Turns out smashing a TV into a Mac running System 7 was … less than ideal.
This is a classic tip for those who ran Mac OS 9 and earlier:
The Desktop file is an invisible file found in the main level of your hard disk in Mac OS 9 or earlier. It is the file that keeps track of all the documents and applications that are on your disk. System 7.0 and later versions use the invisible files named Desktop DB and Desktop DF.
Occasionally, your Desktop file may become too large or may become unusable. It is generally a good idea to rebuild your Desktop file once a month or so in Mac OS 9 or earlier.