Jun
12
Download today’s show here! 
MC20170612.mp3 [56.1 01:32:05 64kbps]
A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Episode 616. Early HomePod impressions. More iCloud for your buck. What wasn’t revealed at WWDC. More on Apple’s new hardware. Common listener questions since WWDC. Keychain Access lock screen trick. Why do iPhones still get stolen?
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Great episode! It’s been fun to dive deeper into all of the WWDC announcements.
I was just listening to the section where you talk about the trick to lock your mac with the menu bar. I was wondering if there might be a Siri command you can use to do this as well? If so, it might be even more convenient.
One day when I was heading to work I spontaneously tried using Siri to put my iMac to sleep. Low and behold, it worked! Since then I always put it to sleep by invoking Siri with a key command and literally telling it: “Go to sleep.” It gives me a great deal of satisfaction. :)
I’m glad that you brought up the TouchBar with TouchID. On One hand I think that it is a little bit of a gimmick. It not anything that strikes me a revolutionary, but I can see were 3 years down the road as more third party software implements it (that includes Apples apps) it could become a very compelling feature. I think the $300 premium for this is part of the problem (on top of taking a row of function keys away). If this was $150 extra people wouldn’t bat an eye.
For that reason it seems like Apple has gotten cold feet since they did not release a keyboard for the iMac with TouchBar and TouchID. Seems like Apple does things 85% now (lets have force touch on the iPad and Pencil support on the phone). Apple introduced the Retina screen on the iPhone and then it came to the iPad. Same with the TouchID. It’s very disappointing that they aren’t making TouchID universal on all their Macs MacBooks and MacBook Airs. I’m still hoping that they release a Wired USC-C TouchBar keyboard for the iMac, MacMini’s and MacPro’s. Put a Pair of USB-A ports on it and people will love it with MacBookPro also. Can’t stand the Butterfly Keyboard. I’d easily pay $199 for this. It would also get a lot of users with older computers to try out the TouchBar.
It was indeed a great WWDC from a Product standPoint which I attribute to Tim cutting back on the resources being drained by the Apple Car. Glad Mansfield is controlling it now.
The HomePod looks like it will be very good from the audio standpoint, just hope that they truly indeed improve SIRI by then. (Note to Phil: I may be a minority but I have plenty of my own Classical Music and don’t need a Musicologist.) If Apple is getting into this I truly home that they are planning to introduce a full scale Speaker Product line (bye bye SONOS but its time to move on). Need an HomePodPro and HomePodBar with both Speakers and Apple TV together. Great products for January 2019 and January 2020 three weeks before the SuperBowl.
Adam,
Great show. I also spend a ton of time in coffee shops and traveling and I have been using “Hot Corners” to quickly put my Mac to sleep for years. Preferences/Desktop and Screen Saver. Hot corners is in the lower right corner. I just choose “Put Display to Sleep” from the list and then have the security settings set to require password immediately upon sleep.
Once enables all you have to do is swipe your finger along your trackpad to the lower left corner and your asleep and password protected in one gesture.
Thanks for all the great info each week.