New Mac Pros in 2018

We got some good news out of Apple today. They invited a few reporters to Cupertino where they disclosed that the Mac Pro does, indeed, live. John Gruber’s, who was in attendance, covers it nicely.

Until today, it had been years since they updated the Mac Pro and a lot of folks were speculating that Apple was getting out of the Mac Pro business. I was always in the camp that believed they were going to replace it but something went horribly wrong on Apple’s end to delay that.

It turns out they are replacing it with a more modular design that can satisfy more pro users than the current iteration does. They are also creating an external monitor to go along with it. In hindsight, I think they realize the trash can design, built as a graphics workstation more than anything else, was just a little too preciious.

So we’re getting new Mac Pros but, unfortunately, not until next year. I know announcing upcoming products before they ship is out of character for Apple but in this case, I think it was completely justified. Keeping the new Mac Pro secret another year would only make Mac Pro users more angry. As an aside, they also announced they’ll be releasing more pro-leaning iMacs later this year so if you’re considering a new iMac, hold off a bit.

Grabbing a Safari Link with Keyboard Maestro

Keyboard Maestro is a really powerful tool for automating work on your Mac. Here’s a simple Keyboard Maestro script I use every day. When you write for the Internet, you often include links. This little script, upon me activating the magic keyboard combination, jumps to Safari, selects the URL (⌘L) then copies the link (⌘C), then jumps back the app from which I triggered the script and pastes the link at the current cursor location (⌘V). I’ve been doing this so long that it feels second nature. Below is a screenshot of the script along with a short video of the script in action. Enjoy.



More IFTTT iOS Applets

Cloud-based automation tool, IFTTT has been taking the approach on iPhone and iPad of adding “applets”, small apps that plug into pieces of their service. Today IFTTT announced a few more of these. 

The new Calendar Applet lets you plug into your calendar to both grab and add events though IFTTT’s pipes. One thing I like about this is that it lets me get events into IFTTT even though I don’t use Google Calendar. There’s also a new applet for the App Store that I don’t see as much use for but it does give you an idea how deep IFTTT is going on iPhone and iPad.

We’re planning a future MPU episode around cloud-based automation tools and I’ve been doing a lot of testing. I’m increasingly a fan of IFTTT and Zapier for getting more work out of iOS.

The Slippery Slope of Internet Privacy

The U.S. Senate has now voted to remove prior regulations prohibiting Internet Service Providers (ISPs)–the folks you pay for your home Internet pipe–from selling your browsing and Internet data to others for fun and profit. This is pretty terrible news if you care at all about your Internet privacy. For a long time now ISP’s have been storing and saving your Internet history data. They know where you go and how long you spend there. This new regulation, assuming it also passes the house and gets signed into law (it will) lets them sell your data.

I hate this.

One of the big arguments in favor of this change by ISPs is that because Google and Facebook are making money from our data, they should get in on the action too. That argument, however, fails. Google and Facebook are services that consumers can use or avoid. Consumers can, in effect, opt out of the madness. That isn’t true with your home Internet connection. Every website you visit and every web service you use are now information available on the open market.

You may be thinking how you don’t do anything particularly nefarious so it doesn’t matter. I think that is short-sighted. Somebody with a few bucks should not be able to find that I spend time at certain banking websites or researching certain medical issues or even websites about one political belief over another. Future employers, or insurers, or anybody else with a check book should not be able to snoop through my browsing records.

This seems to me the kind of thing that you’d want to protect no matter where you stand on the political spectrum. Even though the vote on this is down party lines, I have multiple conservative friends that are up in arms over it.

So what can you do?

1. Complain

I’d encourage you to complain to your congressperson. The House of Representatives hasn’t voted yet and 5calls.org is a great place to start.

2. Get a VPN

Virtual Private Network services allow you to get on the Internet without the ISP seeing where you are actually going. The VPN company will know but, assuming you use a reputable one, they won’t sell your data. I’ve been using VPNs for years. They’re particularly helpful if you spend a lot of time on the road using WiFi that you don’t control. Recently I purchased a one-year subscription from Cloak and right now I’m feeling pretty good about that. I could turn that on at home any time (or selectively) to hold on to my privacy.

3. Go Elsewhere for your Internet Pipe

For a lot of communities, the options are very limited but if you have other options for your Internet service, investigate them. Maybe some of them will make your privacy their selling point.

Before you email me to say I’m being alarmist or to remind me that most of our Internet privacy was already fictional, I understand what you are saying. Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel in the slippery slope of Internet privacy, we’re about to take a pretty long slide.

The New APFS File System

Today’s iOS 10.3 update to the iPhone adds the brand-new Apple File System (APFS) to your iOS devices.

The APFS system was announced last year WWDC. It replaces the now 30-year-old hierarchical filing system (HFS, later updated to HFS+) that, until today, was on your iPhone and iPad, and still remains on your Mac. APFS is a much needed modernization, more secure and designed around SSD storage, which didn’t even exist when HFS first showed up. In addition to being more secure, the new system should be faster and more efficient, allowing you to save some space.

When Apple first announced this new system, I expected it would be years before we saw it on iPhones. The iPhone is the lifeblood of Apple and changing file systems can sometimes cause problems. Now here we are less than 12 months after announcement and Apple’s installing APFS across all iPhones and iPads. I spoke to a few friends that are more knowledgeable about these things than me and they explained that implementing APFS was easier on iOS because of the way the operating systems is already so locked down.

Following my usual “fire, ready, aim” philosophy about these things, I already updated all of my iOS devices and while the update took a while (converting a file system is never a fast process), everything went just fine and devices are all working just like before. Indeed, I’m writing this post on my updated iPad Pro.

Hopefully this success is a sign that we will see the APFS deployed on the Mac in the next year.

MPU 370 – Sal Soghoian Talks Automation



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This week we’re joined by long time Automation evangelist and former Apple Automation head, Sal Soghoian. This is a very special episode of the Mac Power Users where we discuss the current state of automation technologies on the Mac and iOS and where we’d like to see them go in the future.

Sponsors Include:

  • 1Password Have you ever forgotten a password? Now you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Save up to 20% using this link.
  • The Omni Group They’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad. 
  • Fujitsu ScanSnap ScanSnap helps you live a more productive, efficient, paperless life. 
  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

Sponsor: Daylite – Announcing Team View for Mac




This week MacSparky is sponsored by Daylite, the CRM & Project Management app for teams on Mac, iPhone & iPad. New in Daylite is Team View for Mac. 

Team View gives business owners and managers a quick overview of their team’s workload. You can see everyone’s tasks and appointments for today, total duration of appointments, as well as what’s on their Worklist–separated by each team member. This new feature allows you to manage the workload of your team making sure everyone is busy but not too busy.

“This new feature is an easy way to get a big picture view of how my teams are doing. It makes it easy for me to delegate tasks, check on task status, compare work loads for individuals/teams, and creates a continuity for me between individuals and teams.”

– Libby Flores, COO of E.L. Achieve

Libby and her team have been using Daylite for years to manage their projects and clients. Together they manage between 120-160 projects at a time and rely on Daylite to share and keep track of everyone’s tasks and project info. 

If you are managing a small to medium sized business, you can’t go wrong with Daylite. It works on Mac, iPad, and iPhone and gives you and your team one place to manage tasks, contacts, calendars, email, and all those other bits you need to make your business successful. Head over to Daylite today and learn more.

Time for an iCloud Security Tuneup

Depending on who you believe, hackers have either compromised 600 million iCloud accounts or they have just a few and are trying shake Apple down for $150,000. Sometimes, humans are the worst. 

Either way, either today (or this weekend) would be a great time to:

  1. Reset your iCloud password. You can do that at appleid.apple.com.
  2. Turn on Apple’s two-factor authentication. 
  3. Have a cookie. You’ve earned it.

All of this will take you 10 minutes and make you a lot less vulnerable to terrible people.