There has been a lot of talk lately in the Mac Power Users Facebook group about favorite utilities so Katie and I decided to do a show on it. We ended up with with over 30 of our favorite Mac utilities. There’s some great stuff in there.
The Disneyland Star Wars Experience
I spent part of today at the Disney D23 convention where they’ve got an entire section devoted to the Star Wars Experience at Disneyland. I spoke with lots of Imagineers and learned a lot of information. The Saturday sessions will disclose a lot more about this expansion and I’ll write up what I learned more afterward but I thought you may want to start out by looking at pictures of this remarkable model. These images are lightboxed so clicking on them will blow them up. Enjoy.
The Next iPhone Hardware
I don’t write much about Apple rumors because generally, I don’t see the point. We’re going to get to see the new iPhone in September, and there is no reason to get all bent out of shape about rumors about the new phone when we’ll get to see the actual phone in just a few months. Also, I don’t necessarily want all the spoilers. Apple products (at least the good Apple products) tell a story and need a proper introduction, not some shady back-alley blurry photos.
This year’s crop of “Apple/iPhone is doomed” rumors seem to have a lot of oxygen. While I don’t have any idea whether or not there will be a fingerprint sensor or some new-fangled authentication technology, I do know – for certain – that all the hardware decisions that the Internet thinks Apple is struggling to solve right now were locked down at Apple months ago. They ship millions of those phones on Day 1. There’s no way they’d still trying to figure out what to put in the phone at this point. I was all set to post on this issue at length, and then John Gruber went and did it for us.
Free Agents #25: Breadcrumbs of My Life, with Stephen Hackett
This week we posted a great episode of Free Agents where we interviewed Stephen Hackett about his origin story and his winding path to independence.
Dr. Drang’s Toothbrush
Occasionally, Apple geek and scientist Dr. Drang has some bit of household paraphernalia fail on him. While most folks might just throw the broken pieces in the trash, Dr. Drang photographs, documents, and explains the finer points of what exactly went wrong.
Most recently, his toothbrush broke and we get a lesson in tensile stresses and fatigue. Some days, I love the Internet.
Nilay Patel on Net Neutrality
Nilay Patel at the Verge brings us up to date on the Net Neutrality issue. I’ve tried to understand how removing Net Neutrality helps consumers and I honestly just can’t see it. Net Neutrality has served us well and allowed many great ideas grow into great companies.
Fantastical 2.4 for Mac Gets Travel Time and More
Today Fantastical for Mac released a significant update with several new features:
- You can now view, create, and edit attachments on iCloud and Exchange
- Travel Time! Receive notifications when you need to leave to reach an event on time
- Fantastical will now combine identical events that are on multiple calendars
- Undo and redo got a lot more powerful
There are quite a few more new features. Indeed so many updates that I made a few videos for the Flexibits team showing off the new features. Below is the “What’s New” video. I’ve been running this update since its early betas, and it’s solid. Head over to Flexibits to learn more.
Get Your Thoughts Organized with OmniOutliner (Sponsor)
This week MacSparky is sponsored by OmniOutliner. OmniOutliner is the best outlining application for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone and it just keeps getting better. One of the things I love about purchasing software from the Omni Group is that they continue to make their various productivity applications work better together. Most recently we saw this in the additional features allowing you to import OmniOutliner outlines into OmniGraffle. You already look pretty great, but when you import them to OmniGraffle, they can look amazing. Once your outline is in OmniGraffle, you can even add to or reorganize your outline using OmniGraffle’s outline editor. You can learn more about combining your OmniOutliner outline with OmniGraffle at the excellent Omni Group Blog.
The ability to move your outline to a different app is just one of the many features you’ll find in OmniOutliner. OmniOutliner makes it easy to create complex and beautiful outlines on your Mac, iPad, and iPhone. They’ve got new business model for OmniOutliner that lets you get in with OmniOutliner essentials for the basics or the Pro version if you’re looking for the real power tools. Head over to the Omni Group today and check it out.
Mac Power Users 385 – Kelly Guimont
The latest episode of Mac Power Users is live. Our guest, Kelly Guimont is a writer, social media consultant, and all-around geek. She’s got some great tips on apps, workflows, and home automation.
Game Recommendation: Monument Valley 2
I had a little down time this week and wanted to play a game on my iPad. I settled on the recently released Monument Valley 2 from ustwo Games. I enjoyed this sequal even more than the orginal. Monument Valley 2 puts you in charge of guiding a mother and her daughter through a variety of optical illusion style puzzles. They get difficult towards later levels but are absolutely solvable on your own. There are no zombies or killers with machine guns. Just a mother and her daughter and some satisfying puzzles. I found the game a perfect way to relax and recommend it to you for this weekend.