Mac Power Users 558: Apple Hardware Season, with Zac Hall

Zac Hall from 9to5Mac and Space Explored joins Stephen and me on this episode of Mac Power Users to talk about the state of the Apple Watch’s software and hardware, as well as Apple’s new iPhones.

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Federico’s Opus

Today MacStories released Federico Viticci’s annual iOS/iPad OS review. I’ve not read it yet but looking forward to doing that later this week. Federico spends a lot of time on these reviews and I always get some bit of new insight from them.

Focused 110: Focus with Michael Hyatt

Michael Hyatt joins Mike and me on this episode of Focused to talk about staying focused, drift, and scaling back on social media.

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A Few Thoughts Following Today’s Apple Event

Every year Apple shows off its latest processor on a chip, and every year I’m impressed. What will it take for the competition to get closer to Apple? It seems like they have this massive lead, and they just keep running at full tilt. Moreover, it is that chip speed that drives so much of the innovation and features. Most of the new features announced today are possible because of processing power.
That was the first time that any carrier partner got any time at an Apple event in a long time. I’m curious to see how the real world numbers compare to the promises for 5G. Also, did you catch how many times they said or wrote “under ideal conditions”? It was a lot.
The new ceramic shield for iPhone glass sounds very interesting. I have a few predictions on this: a) your iPhone glass will break less often; b) your iPhone glass will scratch easier; c) there are going to be some crazy YouTube iPhone drop tests in the next few weeks.
One thing that stands out is how many new announcements (A14, XDR Display, Ceramic Shield, 5G) are all across the line on the iPhone 12. Apple is no longer holding the best stuff for only the Pro phones.
I’ve thought that this would be the year that I don’t get a Max sized iPhone for several months now. Then Apple announced the additional camera improvements with the 12 Max. When they explained an 87% improvement in low light, my smaller phone willpower evaporated. Instantly.
I think MagSafe might be a bigger deal than expected. We’ve all struggled with chargers and cases in the past. The modular nature of MagSafe will resonate with a lot of people (myself included). However, why’d they have to call it MagSafe? That still stings as I look at my MagSafe-less laptop.
It was no surprise that the iPhone is no longer shipping with a charger or EarPods. I get the reasoning, and lowering emissions is a good idea. I do wish they had an easy way for customers to buy these costly phones to click a box and get those things shipped to them if needed.
Did you catch that they will now ship a USB-C to Lightning cable? Finally.
When they said the iPhone was getting the most popular video game in the world, I thought we’d get Donkey Kong. I’d never heard of League of Legends.
You have to think that when Apple decided to make the HomePod mini, the starting point was someone standing in front of a whiteboard and writing, “$99”. I suspect the mini will be much more popular than its older sibling.
Speaking of HomePod, mine were going off like crazy with all of the “Hey Siri”s in the presentation. Apple needs to work on that. I’d like to see them let you create your own trigger phrase.
In hindsight, using HomePods and Apple devices as an intercom system seems such a no brainer. The question is whether anyone will use it, or it will become the next Walkie-Talkie that still exists on the Apple Watch, but nobody uses.
Finally, am I the only one that wants to move into the Apple Demo house?

BBEdit 13.5

Yesterday Bare Bones released BBEdit, version 13.5. There is plenty to like in this new version:

Ready for Apple Silicon — If you get it from their website, it will be a universal build. If you are getting it from the Mac App Store, it is still Intel-only until Apple allows developers to start distributing Apple silicon builds through the Mac App Store.
Markdown Cheat Sheet — Just as they recently did with regular expressions, BBEdit also now has built-in tools to help you learn and implement Markdown.
Server Document Snapshots — If you are accessing documents on a server, now when you quit BBEdit, it will save a snapshot of server-based documents, so when you re-open it, things will go much faster. I spoke to Rich Siegel about this, and he does a cool trick where it checks the server file date to make sure there are no conflicts.
“Rescued Documents” — Have you ever brain farted and quit a document without saving? BBEdit can now save a list of documents closed without saving.

There are several more new features, but the thing that stands out for me is Apple silicon support. There was some justifiable concern in the community that power-tool apps like BBEdit may have a hard time making the Apple silicon transition as quickly as we’d like. BBEdit, which admittedly has plenty of experience with Apple silicon transitions, seems to have had no problem making the move with a version ready before there is an Apple silicon Mac on the market.

Watching the Apple iPhone 12 Announcement

Apple’s big iPhone announcement is tomorrow at 10 AM Pacific. The event will stream at Apple’s website and YouTube. If you’d rather take it all in while in couch potato mode, it will also stream on the Apple TV app.

Just get your popcorn and buckle in for the new iPhone 12. Only a few more hours until my beautiful iPhone 11 feels like garbage. My kids are already dropping not-so-subtle hints about what I should do with last year’s model.

Ulysses Mobile Grammar Tools

I’m currently working on a future secret Field Guide project that involves a lot of writing. So, before digging in I took another look at all the writing tools, as you do, and settled on Ulysses(https://ulysses.app). That was in January. The Ulysses updates this year have only affirmed that decision.

Most recently, we got version 21 on the iPad and iPhone(https://ulysses.app/releases/). The headline feature is grammar, style check, and text revisions. With revisions mode, you can track your annotations and comments in addition to the app’s grammar and style suggestions. I immediately implemented these features in my secret project, and my words are better for it.

Mac Power Users 557: Grading the Intel Era

Join us for the latest episode of Mac Power Users. With Apple silicon Macs coming soon, Stephen plays a montage for me that recaps the Intel era, featuring its highs and lows.

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iPhone 12 Rumors Abound

It’s just a few days until Apple’s iPhone 12 event. Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like there are a lot of leaks this year about the new hardware. We seem to know the sizes, colors, storage configurations, and even the cellular radios. 9to5 Mac has done a great job of keeping up with them all. The rumors could be wrong, but they sure don’t feel that way.

The saddest bit for me is that there seems to be no oxygen to the idea that the cool little TouchID button going in the new iPad Air is also going on the iPhone with all of these rumors. I get that Apple has to manufacture millions of iPhones, and when the iPhone 12 was being developed, Apple didn’t know that the universe would conspire to require all of us to wear face masks, but I was still hopeful. The lack of the TouchID button.