The support document states that if an Apple Watch running watchOS 8.5 or later displays an animation showing an Apple Watch and iPhone being brought close together, customers can follow the steps below to initiate the restore process[.]
This will be a boon for my friends at the Apple Store. Technicians had very little they could do to resolve Apple Watch software problems before sending it off to a specialized facility for repair. Not only will the new ability to restore them with an iPhone cut down on the number of users seeking professional help, but those who do will spend less time and frustration getting their device back up and running. Nobody likes to be without their watch for a few days.
A weekly list of things I found interesting, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.
1️⃣ I’ve never been down on hole-punch displays, and I don’t dislike the notch. But this new purported design for the iPhone 14 Pro camera and TrueDepth cutout looks pretty sweet to me. Less obtrusive than the notch for sure. [Link - Chance Miller // 9to5mac.com]
2️⃣ Okay, I’ve got to find a Michelin star restaurant after reading this account from a non-foodie like me. If the point of going out for food is to enjoy something you couldn’t make at home, this sounds like the epitome. [Link - Kirsty Bosley // birminghammail.co.uk]
3️⃣ Some solid advice from TidBITS on password management, which also debunks the myth that you should regularly change your password for a given website. [Link - Glenn Fleishman // tidbits.com]
5️⃣ Tyler Stalman’s video explaining exposure, aperture, and shutter speed was a huge help to me in understanding how cameras work and what all those weird numbers mean. [Link - Tyler Stalman // youtube.com]
Apple’s trouble with AirTags reached a new level a few weeks ago, culminating in two investigative pieces by The New York Times and The Verge, plus a statement by Apple itself. The journalistic pieces compared AirTags to competitive item tracking products for their usefulness and safety features. Apple’s announcement promised improved safety features and assurance that they are working with law enforcement, as they are able, to identify people who misuse AirTags to stalk people.
All of these are well worth reading if you haven’t considered the secondary effects of a popular technology company releasing small, cheap, and extraordinarily precise trackers into the world.
I use and enjoy my AirTags for their intended purpose: finding lost and misplaced personal items. But it’s not lost on me that people will use them for nefarious purposes. I don’t think it was lost on Apple during the development period either, and I’m glad they’re continuing to make improvements. They should not stop.
And I have one suggestion regarding AirTag’s unwanted tracking notifications — arguably the most important part of their safety feature set — that should be fixed right away. It jumped out at me when I came across this screenshot in The Verge’s piece:
An AirTag was found moving with me?! Should I leave it on or turn it off? (Image: The Verge) ⌘
What would an everyday person, someone not plugged into the tech news scene, think the ‘Leave On’ and ‘Turn Off’ buttons do at first glance?
I wager that most people would assume that this notification is alerting them to the presence of an unwanted tracker. It’s the kind of notification that gets your heart rate up in a hurry. I know that I’d want to turn that tracker off as fast as possible. So, I imagine many people would quickly tap ‘Turn Off’ without giving it a second glance.
But what does that second glance reveal? That the user didn’t turn off the AirTag at all. Indeed, they turned off the notification that immediately alerts them to the presence of unknown AirTags. Without those Time Sensitive notifications left on, someone could be tracked for much longer before seeing any alert.
This screenshot highlights a problem with Apple’s overall notification system. Notifications have meta settings regarding the manner and frequency that they are received. That’s in addition to the in-app settings for what kind of notifications can interrupt your day. And in-line actions — like replying to a message or marking a task as complete — that can be taken by swiping or long-pressing on a notification. The layers added on top of the Notification system were well-intentioned and, indeed, have provided the kind of granular control that power users begged for. Still, this implementation is unclear and can lead to disaster when tied to something like AirTags.
We all know that first impressions are the lasting ones. And the first impression left by this crucial notification can lead to the exact opposite effect that it is there to provide. For a company that prides itself on getting the details right, I’m astounded that Apple let this one slip by.
Apple offers a 10% discount to current and Veteran members of the US Military, National Guard and Reserve. This includes members of the Air Force, Space Force, Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, U.S. Public Health Service, and NOAA Corps. Immediate family members who reside in the same household are also eligible.
Eagar goes on to explain how to set up and use the ID.me account necessary to verify your service status:
Apple uses a third-party military verification service used by many other major retailers (Lowe’s, etc.). To access the Apple military discounts, you will need to have a verified account with ID.me.
It’s also worth noting that the online store is the way to use this discount from Apple since they can’t usually honor it for regular purchases at their retail stores due to the verification process. If you want to use the military discount there, a Specialist will walk you through making the purchase on their website using this same ID.me verification process. You can complete the order and choose to pick it up in-store the same day, if available, but it’s better to make the order at home since you’ll have to wait for it to go through their system and be packaged for pickup.
Eagar explains a couple of ways to find the Veteran and Military Purchase Program, but I’ll also point out that you can also scroll to the bottom of any page on apple.com and click the ‘Shop for Veterans and Military’ link in the ‘For Government’ section. Down in that footer, you’ll also find the link for students and educators to access their special education pricing (not currently behind any verification process).
Apple makes it easy to find their various store portals in the footer of their website. ⌘
This time, this title said it all: Peek = Studio Display, Performance = M1 Ultra.
We got more surprises in this Apple event than any in recent memory, both in terms of what we got and didn’t get. Tim started out fast with two things that weren’t on our prediction lists: live baseball coming to Apple TV+ and the two new color options for iPhone. There was no sign of a spec-bumped 13-inch MacBook Pro, no Mac mini update, and no introduction of M2. I don’t think any of us thought we’d see a new addition at the high-end of the M1-chip family (though, in reality, the M1 Ultra is the dual M1 Max package that we thought wouldn’t debut until the Apple silicon Mac Pro or at least in a new iMac Pro). And I felt that Apple Classical and another demo of Universal Control were locked for the keynote.
The iPhone SE and iPad Air upgrades are more about keeping pace with the onward march of technology. They’re good updates for people in the market for those products, but they don’t get me excited.
I did think it was interesting that they put an M1 chip into the iPad Air instead of the A15. Now it sits weirdly between the iPad mini and the iPad Pro in terms of design and features (on par with the mini) and performance (on par with the iPad Pro). That’ll make it more challenging to guide customers toward the right product. It would have been so much simpler to have the iPad Air and mini as equals in all but screen size. I struggle to see how they’ll differentiate the Air from the Pro line now, except for Touch vs. Face ID.
Storyboarding was added to iMovie, but still no Final Cut or other Pro app by Apple on iPad.
The Mac Studio with M1 Ultra is a powerhouse. Apple says it’s up to 80% faster than the top-of-the-line Mac Pro. If true, the cost savings with Mac Studio is staggering. I configured a Mac Studio with the specs that I believe Apple would have used for its testing (M1 Ultra with 64-core GPU, 64 GB of memory and 1 TBSSD) as well as a Mac Pro (28-core Xeon, similar RAM and SSD, a single Radeon Pro W6900X graphics card, and an Afterburner card). Mac Studio: $4999. Mac Pro: $20,899. The Studio is 80% faster but 4x cheaper. (If Apple tested using dual Radeon Pro W6900X chips or more RAM, the difference is even more dramatic.)
A sizzle reel of all-female developers talking about the M1 Ultra’s performance was nice to see on International Women’s Day. In fact, I think Tim Cook, John Ternus, and Johny Srouji were the only male speakers.
The Mac Studio fits in the same footprint as the Mac mini at 7.7-inches — it’s just taller.
John Ternus specifically mentioned a “modular system and display” as a need met by the Mac Studio. But I didn’t see anything that the user could swap in or out. I guess he just meant the display and other accessories, but being ‘modular’ is a term Apple typically reserves for swappable components, a la the Mac Pro.
I thought for sure while the Studio Display was being introduced that it would cost upwards of $2500. I was thrilled to be wrong when they said it starts at $1599!
I’m not sure where that puts the future for a larger iMac. The 27-inch Intel iMac is gone from Apple’s website. Maybe they’re going to introduce a larger size with the M2 iMac. Or perhaps they’ve decided that at 24-inches and 4.5K resolution, it handily splits the difference between the old 21-inch (4K) and 27-inch (5K) iMacs.
It’s curious that while the 27-inch Intel iMac was discontinued following the Mac Studio and Studio Display introductions, the Intel Mac mini remains available. Maybe it’s a bone thrown to users who still have Intel-specific workflows and will be discontinued when they complete the transition with the Mac Pro. But I would have expected it to go away since the Mac Studio handily fills the role of the higher-performance Mac mini. I suppose since the Mac Studio only supports M1 Max and M1 Ultra, we could still see an M1 Pro option get added to the Mac mini (perhaps with an Apple silicon-specific redesign) — but that further confuses the product line.
Only one week left to wait for Universal Control in iPadOS 15.4 and macOS 12.3 and masked Face ID unlock in iOS 15.4!!
Overall, I thought it was a great event. It was fun to be surprised. Even though I probably won’t be buying anything introduced today (as much as I drool over the Studio Display 🤤), I’m still impressed by what Apple has produced.
With Apple’s ‘Peek Performance’ event happening tomorrow and rumors swirling regarding which new Mac if any, they’ll introduce, I thought it was high time to get my ideas out on where I think Apple should go with their Mac lineup. Granted, I’m not in the market for a new Mac, but I do have #opinions about what would make sense for a typical customer walking into an Apple Store these days.
I’m not the first, but I am the latest to say that Apple would benefit by returning to Steve Jobs’s famed product grid. David Sparks recently explained a similar decision tree that I agree would work well:
I also just like the symmetry of it all. You go into an Apple store and answer two questions:
Consumer or Pro?
Small or large?
Let’s compare that ideal flow to where we are today.
Confusion Remains a Product in Our Lineup
Take the current 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro, for example. Who is it for? Well, I suppose it’s for someone who wants a ‘Pro’ laptop with more power than a MacBook Air, except not really because they both run on the M1, so the performance difference is negligible. So maybe it’s for someone who wants a small(er) laptop and doesn’t need all the performance or cost of the “real” 14 or 16-inch MacBooks Pro. But, again, why not go for a MacBook Air, which has the same size screen and processor, but in a smaller form factor? Okay, got it. It’s for the customer who wants the Touch Bar. Nailed it. But…I wouldn’t get too attached, seeing as the Touch Bar has never received an improvement, and it’s missing from all of Apple’s other laptops.
Apple gets a little leeway, for now, being that they’re in the middle of a major processor transition and all, but I’ve long felt that the Mac’s variety has needed paring down. You could say I cherry-picked the 13-inch MacBook Pro for my example since it’s widely thought that it doesn’t have a secure spot in the Mac family anymore.
So allow me to spell out the Mac lineup that I want to see Apple make.
An All-Stars Lineup
Laptops:
12-inch MacBook (with M1)
14-inch MacBook (with M1)
14-inch MacBook Pro (with M1 Pro or M1 Max)
16-inch MacBook Pro (with M1 Pro or M1 Max)
Desktops:
24-inch iMac (with M1)
30-inch iMac Pro (with M1 Pro/Duo, or M1 Max/Duo)
Mac mini (with M1, M1 Pro, or M1 Max)
Mac Pro (with M1 Pro Duo/Quad, or M1 Max Duo/Quad)
The cohesion would be refreshing. Every product would have its place.
This kind of lineup makes Apple’s laptops easier to sell, too. Back to Sparky’s questions: Do you prefer a smaller and more portable screen or a larger but heavier one? And do you need a consumer model or a pro one? If they go for a pro model, the follow-up question is simply, “Do you need more power (M1 Pro) or all of the power (M1 Max)?”
With some bezel-shrinking magic, the 13-inch MacBook Air transforms into a 14-inch MacBook. Folks have wanted a bigger entry laptop for ages, and it’s time they got it. The discontinued-but-not-that-old 12-inch MacBook was beloved despite being underpowered, but Apple silicon would unleash it to be the ultimate thin-and-light-yet-still-capable machine it was meant to be. I see it featuring the same entry-level chip as the 14-inch model.
I think that ‘Pro’ products deserve to have their features and enclosures designed around the capability of their chipset. We should no longer see the days of computers being “designed into a thermal corner” or throttled because Apple tried to pack a screamer chipset into a case that was made for something more pedestrian. That’s why I think it’s time to bring back the iMac Pro with a design specifically made for the Pro and Max flavors of chips.
And they’ve got to get rid of that 13-inch MacBook Pro. That laptop is overshadowed by both the raw power of its truly ‘Pro’ bigger brothers and its smaller-but-just-as-fast sibling, the MacBook Air. The latest MacBooks Pro are the best Apple’s ever shipped, and I think they’ve hit a sweet spot in regards to power, thinness, battery life, and overall premium features.
The M1 iMac found a good screen size at 24-inches. It seems to be plenty large for most users but in a shockingly small footprint. The iMac Pro’s screen could stretch out with a similar 3-inch expansion to 30-inches without dramatically increasing the overall display size. If M1 Pro and Max can fit in a laptop, all that extra room in a desktop should be plenty for dual Pro or Max chipset.
The Mac Pro would live on for the extreme end of computing needs. We’ve heard whispers that it would get a dual or quad Apple silicon setup for ages. However, with all the extra thermal headroom in the current badass Mac Pro case, I don’t think it’s even in need of a significant redesign. Hopefully, the switch to Apple’s in-house processor would not significantly restrict the other user expansion possible with the Mac Pro.
The Mac mini is the only odd one out, offering pro-level chips without being a ‘Pro’ device. But the Mac mini has always been that “release valve” product by filling lots of kinds of needs where the other Macs could not, therefore earning its expanded role.
A Few Other Thoughts
The age of the odd-inched Mac displays is over. It’s time to usher in only even-inched screens!
I’ve specified the M1 series of chips in this post, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the M2 series debut as soon as tomorrow. To me, this lineup would work for years to come as Apple swaps in ever more advanced silicon.
As far as price points go, hitting $999 for the entry laptop seems to be crucial. Could a 12-inch MacBook do it? I think so, but I also wouldn’t be surprised to see the current M1 MacBook Air stick around for a little while until the M2 12-inch MacBook could take its place.
Related: The ‘Air’ brand has started feeling tired to me. Regular plus Pro makes everything easier, just like with the iPhone.
Relatedly related: The guys on the Connected podcast had a good discussion regarding the merits of a larger MacBook Air and how Apple has struggled to hit the price points they want.
I really want to see the 24-inch iMac’s gorgeous colors come to the MacBook lineup. Of course, I’d love to see more colors for ‘Pro’ products too, but I’m not as dead-set on it.
Also color-related: It’s time to retire the gold laptops. They look really out of style these days.
I’m not convinced about how the latest rumors of a ‘Mac Studio’ would play in.
If the rumors are to be believed, my ideal lineup doesn’t have a great chance of manifesting at tomorrow’s event. But I’ll be watching with fingers crossed for signs that Apple sees the need for a more cohesive Mac family.
So we could be seeing an ‘Essentially Nothing’ phone soon? They started with a strong, intrigue-building brand; I commend them for that. Based on the positive reception of the Ear 1 and Carl Pei’s track record, I’d say Nothing is one to keep an eye on.
Although ostensibly written for network operators, this post written by Rustam Lalkaka at Cloudflare which explains the underpinnings of iCloud Private Relay is surprisingly readable for a layperson like me. Here’s a bit that I didn’t know before:
Cloudflare relays maintain a pool of IP addresses for exclusive use by Private Relay. These IP addresses have been registered with geolocation database providers to correspond to specific cities around the world. When a Private Relay user connects and presents the previously determined geohash, the closest matching IP address is selected.
Servers see an IP address that corresponds to the original user IP address’s location, without obtaining information that may be used to identify the specific user.
I knew iCloud Private Relay offered the ability to obfuscate your location. Still, the way the partner companies such as Cloudflare do it with a pool of IP addresses assigned to general areas is pretty cool.
Interestingly, Cloudflare insists that using iCloud Private Relay should speed up some browsing, which is in direct contrast to what some folks were saying during the beta period and beyond. Here’s John Voorhees in his macOS Monterey review for MacStories:
Private Relay is marked in System Preferences as a beta feature. Early in the beta period, I turned the feature off because I noticed a substantial dip in Internet speed when I used it. Late in the beta period, I gave Private Relay another try, and as before, I saw about a 50% drop in speed while using Safari. I tested Private Relay using Speedtest with a wired Internet connection.
Personally, I’ve had iCloud Private Relay on and haven’t noticed much speed difference one way or the other — especially since the public OS release. I just set it and forget it.
Today, I turned 28 years old. Besides the number, that’s the same sentence I started with when writing on my birthday last year. In rereading that post in preparation for writing today, there was a paragraph that I’m glad that I captured so well because it’s equally valid today. Here’s me, 365 days ago:
I always look forward to my birthday. As I get older, it’s less about the excitement of a celebration, but instead, because it’s as good a day as any to be kind to myself. I sleep late. I eat foods I enjoy. I watch or play what I like. I make myself stop worrying about things, breathe, and relax. At a time in my life when I feel pulled between wanting to make a difference in the world and also just worn down by it all, this is a much-needed day of solace, of smallness, of simplicity.
I’ve had a good day today. After moving so close to them, I finally got out on the ski slopes. I did some writing. I chatted with friends and family. I played outside with my dog. I’ll cook up a favorite meal tonight. And I’m looking forward to celebrating more with my wife in a couple of days, and my parents when they come to visit this weekend.
This past year has included some of the most significant changes in my personal life for a while. First, I left a job in which I was very secure, but it was wearing me down. Then, I took a job that was much lower stakes and that I enjoyed immensely but had to leave when my wife and I moved. And yeah, I moved hundreds of miles further away from family and friends to a new state, chasing the unknown.
And, so, I found myself reflecting lately on how I’d like this year to go. Not so much about what I want to accomplish but more about what I’d like to do. What do I want to do for me? I’m finally surrounded by all the opportunities that I’ve longed for. My little family has a secure income, even now as I search for a new job (an enormous privilege that I’m thankful for every day). How will I take advantage of it this year?
So, in no particular order, here are 28 things I’d like to do on my 28th year on Earth:
Read more books than I did last year.
Spend at least four weekends in a tent.
Design more t-shirts than I did last year.
Summit at least five peaks.
Write more consistently than I did last year.
Spend more time journaling than I did last year.
Get in the habit of reaching for healthy snacks rather than junk food.
Make more regular phone calls to family.
Learn how to fix things in my home.
Own up to mistakes more than I have in the past.
Join a local club.
Lend my talents to a local volunteer organization.
Strike up conversations with strangers.
Get good at cooking something with fresh ingredients.
Finish at least one story-based video game.
Make date night with my wife a priority.
Close all my rings at least 50% of the days this year.
Get out ice climbing.
Climb at least three multi-pitch routes.
Tick off at least 15 crag days.
Find a local climbing partner. (Maybe this should have been #18)
Take a non-local friend out climbing.
Take my wife up a trad route.
Learn a programming language / finish a programming course.
Take a writing course.
Take my wife on a surprise weekend trip.
Play my trumpet. (Hooray for living in a house, not an apartment!)
Work my way up to running a half-marathon.
Wish me luck! I’ll try to keep track as I tick things off in this Twitter thread. And though the number has become all but meaningless, it is, after all, my golden year. It’s going to be a good one. 🥳
