Tag: apple

  • Apple Vision Pro is exactly what I hoped for

    I am very happy. For many years I’ve wanted a computing experience that resembles precisely what Apple announced at WWDC just a few short weeks ago. In 2019 I wrote “I want any size screen, any time, any where.” As poorly written as that sentence may be, I think Apple is attempting to deliver just…

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  • Will Apple’s headset enhance productivity?

    I’ve written several times about mixed reality experiences over the last 6 or 7 years here on my blog. I recently went back and looked at some of those posts and so I thought I’d sum up my thinking as it stands today, as well as detail what I hope to see from Apple’s headset.…

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  • Using Wavelength to chat with darkroom printers

    For the past few days I’ve been testing out Wavelength – a group messaging app that is currently only available on Apple’s platforms. It reminds me a lot of Quill, the former messaging app that was swallowed whole by Twitter just prior to … you know. Why use Wavelength? It is tailor made for group…

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  • Will my next Mac be my last Mac?

    Perhaps you’ve had this experience… you walk into a place of business and see the computer and software they use to do their scheduling, billing, and ordering and you notice they are decades old. But, have you seen how productive they are? More often than not they are so fast that the computer has a…

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  • The bricking of an iPhone in three waves

    The above series of images were made on a recent trip to Ocean City Maryland and are very likely the reason why my iPhone became what is known as a brick. Let me back up. I’ve used my iPhones underwater ever since Apple said they were IP-rated for a reasonable amount of water resistance. I’ve…

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  • safari.requestMIDIAccess()

    Jeremy Keith recently wrote about Bugblogging: Bugblogging doesn’t need to involve a solution. Just documenting a bug is a good thing to do. I wonder what Germanic compound word Jeremy would come up with to describe blogging about a web API that your favorite browser doesn’t support? Safari does not support navigator.requestMIDIAccess. I dug around…

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  • DuckDuckGo for Mac in private beta

    DuckDuckGo: So today we’re excited to announce the beta launch of DuckDuckGo for Mac, with DuckDuckGo for Windows coming soon. Like our mobile app, DuckDuckGo for Mac is an all-in-one privacy solution for everyday browsing with no complicated settings, just a seamless private experience. Plus, we’re excited to share some new features we think you’ll…

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  • Reminder, try Apple’s Hide My Email

    Mike Lapidakis: Last summer, Apple announced that as part of their iCloud+ service expansion, a new feature named Hide My Email was launching. The feature received little fanfare and was mainly swept up in the plethora of other news from WWDC. After using it for nearly a year, I think we’ve done it a bit of a disservice. Even…

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  • What I saw somewhat recently #88: November 24, 2021

    Rainbow Trout fry The above photo is a small Rainbow Trout fry that I pulled from the creek in my yard. It looks like it may have had a run-in with a Heron, Mink, Raccoon or some other predator. Let’s get to some random links that I managed to set aside for y’all. OK, that…

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  • AirPods Pro observations

    My wife recently gifted me a pair of AirPods Pro for our 22nd Anniversary which is coming up in a few days. She loves her AirPods. She has repeatedly said “these are my favorite Apple product ever” and she’s owned many products made by Apple including iPhones, Apple Watches, laptops, and iPads — all great…

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  • Duck.com is exploding

    You should switch to Duck.com. I’ve recommended this to you before. Why are you still using Google? Just last September I mentioned they were at 67M requests per day. They are about to tip over 100M per day. And, they just got a nice shot in the arm to continue this growth. I still think…

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  • Thoughts on WWDC 2021

    A few thoughts on WWDC 2021. Overall, I believe this was a solid WWDC. So much so, that I think I’ll hop on the beta train when we get to the second or third public beta release.

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  • Understanding ProRAW

    With iOS 14.3 and the new iPhone, Apple has introduced an updated RAW image file format spec that extends on the already robust editing capabilities of RAW. They call it ProRAW. Ben Sandofsky, of Halide, goes long on explaining how digital image sensors work, what RAW is, and how Apple has extended that spec and…

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  • Should I update to Big Sur 11.1?

    In early November I wrote that I’d be delaying my update to Big Sur. Specifically, I wrote: I’ll be waiting for at least two releases before I update. Well, 11.1 came out today. Depending on how you count, it is sort of the third release of Big Sur. There was 11.0, 11.0.1, and now 11.1.…

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  • My answer to my own askATP question (again)

    A little over a year ago I sent in a question to the crew at ATP and subsequently I blogged my own answer to that question. This past week I sent in another question and they’ve kindly answered it (time stamp: 1:57:16) so I thought I would answer my own question again. My question was…

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  • Delay updating to Big Sur

    macOS Big Sur will be released to the public tomorrow. As I did with iOS 14 this year, I’ll be waiting for at least two releases before I update. Josh Centers for TidBITS: We recommend delaying upgrades for your production Macs. We’ve heard similar stories from many beta testers and TidBITS readers: Big Sur is…

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  • Learning SwiftUI is tough because it is still early days

    Back in early October I quipped that I was opening Xcode to start a new project. I have no qualms in telling you that the project was going to be a Mac app for Unmark. I was going to build the app for a variety of reasons but the main one was to learn SwiftUI.…

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  • Stephen Hackett on #iOS14Homescreen

    Stephen Hackett: Customization and expression has always been part of personal technology, from this, to MySpace, to putting an Apple sticker on your car, to even picking what brand of home computer you bought in the 1980s. People have always used technology to project something about themselves into the world — just like people do…

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  • Jack Baty gives up on Lightroom

    Jack Baty: I’m here to tell you that I can not make it work for me. There’s too much overhead in having to decide what to add to a synced collection and when. And where to keep any synced originals? Do I do that in both apps? And so on. I seem to end up…

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  • 16\” MacBook Pro runs faster when closed?

    Peter Steinberger: I found out that my MacBook Pro 2019 runs way faster if I close the lid when using an external screen – 2.7GHz (base 2.4+turbo) vs ~1.5 GHz due to thermal throttling. I would have never even thought to try this. I keep my lid open, not to use the second screen, but…

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  • 16\” MacBook Pro runs faster when closed?

    Peter Steinberger: I found out that my MacBook Pro 2019 runs way faster if I close the lid when using an external screen – 2.7GHz (base 2.4+turbo) vs ~1.5 GHz due to thermal throttling. I would have never even thought to try this. I keep my lid open, not to use the second screen, but…

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  • 16\” MacBook Pro runs faster when closed?

    Peter Steinberger: I found out that my MacBook Pro 2019 runs way faster if I close the lid when using an external screen – 2.7GHz (base 2.4+turbo) vs ~1.5 GHz due to thermal throttling. I would have never even thought to try this. I keep my lid open, not to use the second screen, but…

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  • 16\” MacBook Pro runs faster when closed?

    Peter Steinberger: I found out that my MacBook Pro 2019 runs way faster if I close the lid when using an external screen – 2.7GHz (base 2.4+turbo) vs ~1.5 GHz due to thermal throttling. I would have never even thought to try this. I keep my lid open, not to use the second screen, but…

    Continue >

  • 16\” MacBook Pro runs faster when closed?

    Peter Steinberger: I found out that my MacBook Pro 2019 runs way faster if I close the lid when using an external screen – 2.7GHz (base 2.4+turbo) vs ~1.5 GHz due to thermal throttling. I would have never even thought to try this. I keep my lid open, not to use the second screen, but…

    Continue >

  • 16\” MacBook Pro runs faster when closed?

    Peter Steinberger: I found out that my MacBook Pro 2019 runs way faster if I close the lid when using an external screen – 2.7GHz (base 2.4+turbo) vs ~1.5 GHz due to thermal throttling. I would have never even thought to try this. I keep my lid open, not to use the second screen, but…

    Continue >

  • 16\” MacBook Pro runs faster when closed?

    Peter Steinberger: I found out that my MacBook Pro 2019 runs way faster if I close the lid when using an external screen – 2.7GHz (base 2.4+turbo) vs ~1.5 GHz due to thermal throttling. I would have never even thought to try this. I keep my lid open, not to use the second screen, but…

    Continue >

  • A tweetstorm about Photos for Mac

    I’m old, so I can still call them tweetstorms rather than threads. I just posted a tweetstorm regarding Photos for Mac on Catalina. I posted it there because I’m sort of hoping that a few Apple people are still lingering on the WWDC hashtag. Here are my tweets: Figure 1 Figure 2 Who knows. Maybe…

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  • WWDC 2020 wish list

    I see some wish lists for Monday’s WWDC being published so I thought I’d take a moment and jot down just a few from the top of my head. I decided to jut let my mind riff for a while to see what it would come up with. I could likely come up with more…

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  • The 16-inch MacBook Pro

    I was going to wait a little bit longer before writing my review of this new computer, but Michael Tsai recently published some of his thoughts on it and – after writing a post in response to his experiences I realized it was turning into a bit of a review – so now this post…

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  • Why I used Migration Assistant to move to my new Mac

    This isn’t a tutorial. If you’re in need of one and you’ve somehow stumbled onto my blog of jumbled thoughts on a variety of topics, sorry. You’ll need to go back to Google and try again (though, really, you should be using Duck.com). I recently upgraded to a 16-inch MacBook Pro (review forthcoming) and had…

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  • The Best of 2019 as told by me

    At the end of the year I like to sit down and make a rather random list of the “best” things I’ve seen that year. I do this almost entirely from memory but I also peruse my browser history and look through my Unmark archive in order to uncover some of the things I appreciated…

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  • Vincent Laforet reviews the new Mac Pro

    Vincent Laforet: This was the closest I’ve come to feel to seeing my digital work look like Color Slide film – think Fujichrome, Kodachrome and Cibachrome prints. At times, it felt like I was seeing my footage for the first time. It sounds trite I’m sure – but it’s true. This bit was specifically about…

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  • Colin Walker on choosing the best devices

    Colin Walker nails how I’m making decisions on what hardware I’m purchasing: I’m largely platform agnostic and have always been able to achieve what I wanted regardless of what device I was using. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t want to use the best tools for the task at hand. I too am platform…

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  • Wishes for today’s Apple Event

    In my Pixel 4 wish list I may have overstated my current position on my choosing Android or iOS in my next phone. I wrote: As my time to upgrade my phone comes around of course I’m left with a choice to go back to iOS or stick with Android. I’m sticking with Android. I…

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  • Things about the iPhone 11 Pro that weren’t mentioned in the Keynote

    …or, if they were mentioned, they were mentioned only briefly, but I found them to be intriguing. I’ll be pouring over these specs and comparing them to the Google Pixel 4 when it is released before making my final decision. But overall, I’d say this is a very solid update to iPhone.

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  • Google Pixel 4 wishlist

    Yes, I know there have been leaks galore regarding the Google Pixel 4. While I’ve seen the leaks I haven’t paid much attention to them. I’ve tried to ignore them so that I could be at least a little surprised when it is announced. I currently have the Google Pixel 2 XL. I’ve had it…

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  • iOS creates a competition hostile environment

    Below is a screenshot of the sheet you see on YouTube for iOS when tapping on a link in a video’s description. They invoke this custom sheet because, like Google, Apple has created iOS to be competition hostile to other browser vendors like Mozilla, Opera, Microsoft, etc. Tapping on a link should open your default…

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  • The Swift Era begins

    Brent Simmons: Though I don’t discount Catalyst’s usefulness — we will get lots of apps new to the Mac — the real news this week was about SwiftUI and the Combine framework. This, finally, is a new way of writing apps, and it’s based on Swift and not on Objective-C. It’s very much not from NeXT.…

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  • The importance of WWDC 2019

    waffle: Whether I’ll like the outcome or not, the cards are stacked for Apple to weigh in heavily on all these things (including possibly by inaction, to focus much more on iOS) come Monday. If optimism left me easily, I would be typing this on a capable PC laptop instead (although possibly swearing equally at…

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  • Repost: Alex Hoffmann on the importance of WWDC 2019 for him

    👉 Alex Hoffmann: This week’s WWDC is going to be a make-or-break situation for me. It’s going to determine whether I will continue to consider Apple’s tablets worthwhile or if I’m going to move to a Microsoft Surface Pro once they release one with USB-C/Thunderbolt 3. I’m telling you. This is an important one on…

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  • Random WWDC 2019 thoughts

    Random WWDC 2019 thoughts: Overall, this seemed like a solid, solid WWDC. I’m sure there will be a lot more news over the coming week. But to me, it addressed the main things I was looking for: a commitment to the Mac, iPad OS updates, and for Marzipan (now Project Catalyst it seems) not to…

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  • My questions for WWDC 2019

    I am looking forward to this year’s WWDC more than I have in the last 4 or 5 years. There is so much riding on this conference for my personal productivity but also for the Mac and iPad platforms as a whole. Here are a few reasons why and I’ll follow with a few questions…

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  • Apple needs to replace the keyboard on all MacBooks this year

    John Gruber: Even if they ship a truly new, reliable keyboard this summer (which I think they will, because if they don’t, it means they’re in deep denial of a huge problem), how long will it take for that new keyboard to roll out across the entire MacBook line? Even if Apple is on the…

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  • My interpretations of announcements by Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter

    Apple pre-announcing something: “We’re excited to get this in customer’s hands late next year”. My interpretation: “We never pre-announce things. Why are we doing this? We’re terrible at it. In fact, we make fun of other companies for doing it! Steve Jobs would never allow this! (mostly) We must be doing this because some group…

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  • Thoughts on Apple’s March 2019 Media Event

    I’m writing this for posterity’s sake. For my own recollection. So please feel free to skip the reading of this post. I can’t imagine the amount of money or resources Apple has invested to get to the point where they were able to announce all of those services in a single day.

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  • Spotify takes Apple to court in the EU

    Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify: It’s why, after careful consideration, Spotify has filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission (EC), the regulatory body responsible for keeping competition fair and nondiscriminatory. Good. After reading through his post and their website – especially if it all is true – they have quite a good case.…

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  • The Sony of the PC industry

    Jessica Williams (presumably no relation to whom this post is about) writing for Times News regarding Jeff Williams, COO of Apple, speaking to students and faculty at Elon University , regarding Steve Jobs’ new plan for Apple in the late-90s: Apple would become “the Sony of the PC industry.” It would make computers fashionable, and…

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  • The Mac is turning less Pro

    skywhopper, on Hacker News, commenting on a thread relating to Mark Gurman’s scoop on Apple’s (supposed) plan to have apps running on iOS and macOS using the same (or, similar) code bases by 2020: And then the Mac is losing what should be its primary audience through unwanted innovations and otherwise stagnant hardware, and a…

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  • Best of 2018

    This year I’m taking a slightly more comprehensive approach to my “best of” list. I’ve taken a look at previous year’s lists: 2008, 2009, 2017 and comprised a slightly more complete set. Again, this is only the things I came across this year and can remember. I don’t keep a list throughout the year but…

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  • Andrew Kim goes to Apple

    Andrew Kim, who I mentioned back when he rebranded Microsoft and eventually was hired by them, has moved again — this time to Apple. Somehow I missed that he was at Tesla. Jon Porter for The Verge: After three and a half years at the company, Kim moved to Tesla, where he contributed to the…

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