Maccast 2016.02.13- Show #560

Links

Opening

Opening Music

Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles

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News

New stuff in Apple's recent Betas

OS X 10.11.4

Notes

Looks like in the OS X 10.11.4 update Apple has added support to import the Evernote .enex file format

There were first hints of import functionality coming when menu options for the feature showed up in earlier beta builds.

Also Apple VP of marketing, Brian Croll, made comments to PC User saying Evernote "capture" support would arrive in OS X Notes soon.

The feature seems to be fairly good at converting Evernote's advanced formatting, but it's not perfect.

Comparisons are being made to Microsoft Word document support in Pages.

tvOS 9.2

The third beta adds dictation and support for Siri search of the App Store

You can now dictate usernames and passwords and other keyboard input

You're prompted to install dictation support after upgrading

When performing text input there's an option to use the Siri button on the remote to dictate

While dictating you also see live level meters on screen

These features are added to the earlier support for Bluetooth keyboards, iCloud Photo Library, Live Photos, folders for Apps, new App Switcher interface, and developer support for MapKit.

watchOS

Apple looking to hire a software engineer for their "Clock Face Team"

Apple has been rumored to be working on new clock faces and complications for an upcoming update

Not clear if that would be part of the watch updates at the March event

iOS 10

Apple seems to be stepping up their mapping efforts for iOS 10

There are more spotting a of their street sensor vans which now have Apple Maps window decals.

You can even [get listings]( http://maps.apple.com/vehicles/) on when and where the vehicles will be.

They have on board cameras, LiDAR, and high-sensitivity GPS.

It's also expected that Apple is backing up the data with ground truth operations which verifies the locations of roads

They also doing environmental capture which gathers scans and data on the surrounding areas. Things like depth maps and photographs.

Apple's investment in AR/VR space

In a research note acquired by AppleInsider Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has some interesting thoughts on Apple's move into augmented reality and virtual reality.

He believes Apple is looking to have iOS ecosystem support for AR and VR in place as soon as 2018

Looking on Linked in he says Apple has at least 141 people with backgrounds in AR

He thinks for the next generation there will be a natural progression from personal technology, like smartphones, to AR/VR wearable devices.

In the short term he thinks Apple views VR/AR devices as accessories for the iPhone, like they do with the Apple Watch

By 2018 the belief is Apple will have frameworks and programs in place to certify 3rd party AR/VR devices and tech that work with iPhone. Like the MFi program.

Apple has made several acquisitions lately in the AR/VR space.

Apple could eventually develop their own hardware devices in the space, but that's not something Munster sees happening for at least 15 years.

Recent OS X Security scares

Intego is warning Mac users of a "fake" Flash update that is installing "scareware".

The installer is popping up on various sites and even scarier was the fact that it was signed with a valid Apple Developer certificate.

That would have meant that it could bypass Apple Gatekeeper security, but Apple reacted quickly and revoked the developers certificate.

Basically the system worked.

some variants of this fake Flash updater download a real Flash installer, too.

The easiest way to avoid this or similar malicious Flash update alerts is to not accept the download from a pop-up dialogue and visit the Adobe site directly in your browser.

You could also not install Flash at all and use a browser like Google's Crome which has an embedded sandboxed version of Flash.

Business Insider reports on hackers trying to social engineer their way into Apple in Ireland

Employees are getting offers of up to €20,000 ($23,000) for their AppleID

They claim they mostly target junior managers who have not been at the company long

It's not clear what they want or what kind of access to information the credentials would provide. I would assume their looking for access to iCloud and iTunes credentials for customers, though it could also be corporate espionage type data.

Sparkle update vulnerability

ArsTechnica reported on the discoverability of vulnerabilities in the Sparkle updater code that's used by many Mac Apps.

The vulnerabilities could leave the apps open to "man-in-the-middle" style attacks during updates

The vulnerability is due to a flawed WebKit rendering engine implementation found in certain Sparkle builds.

Could allow a hacker to insert and execute JavaScript code when an app checks for a software update.

But the risks are somewhat minimal

First you'd need to be on a network that was open to others, say like at a coffee shop

The developer would have to have failed to be using HTTPS to get the updates, something that is NOT recommended in the developer instructions from Sparkle

And the app would need to be using an older version of the Sparkle updater.

Mac App Store apps remain unaffected since they use the App Stores own update functionality.

Many developers are now updating their apps, so run your App updates, just do so on a private (home) network.

TSMC to be sole provider for iPhone 7 processors

The Electronic Times is reporting that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has reached a deal with Apple to be the sole supplier of A-series processors for the iPhone 7

They say the key was TSMCs 10-nanometer manufacturing technology and advanced InFO (integrated fan out) architecture.

InFO tech stacks embedded chips on top of each for direct mounting on a circuit board, reducing thickness and weight.

For the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus both Samsung and TSMC made processors though a small controversy broke out when benchmark tests showed the TSMC made A9s having better performance

They ran cooler and offered better battery life.

The variance was only 2-3 percent

Apple and Samsung have always had tenuous relationship.

Still it's not like Apple to rely solely on a single supplier for major components on the iPhone.

Strange report of Apple Car 'motor noises'

AppleInsider had a report on strange motor noises coming from a Sunnyvale, Calif., automotive testing facility they believe Apple is using for their rumored car project

Supposedly a resident who lives near the facility has complained to the city of of "motor noises" late at night."

Apple occupies seven buildings, comprising nearly 300,000 square feet, of a large office complex in the city.

One of the buildings is supposedly owned by a mysterious company named SixtyEight Research. They have just a shell website.

AppleInsider believes the car project is codenamed "Project Titan" and that it operates out of a facility Apple internally calls "SG5"

Apple puts pause on TV streaming service

Sounds like Apple might have got fed up with the TV providers in it's efforts to bring a "light" TV subscription service to market.

In the lead up to the 4th gen Apple TV release their were rumors Apple want to do a small 25 channel streaming TV deal for about $30-40/mo.

The main obstacle was allegedly Apple's insistence on a "skinny" channel bundle costing less than $30 per month, and the unwillingness of content providers to leave some channels out.

One source of leaks for Apple's desired TV effort was CBS CEO Les Moonves. Les now says Apple has seeming stopped talk on the effort, at least for now.

I think Apple went with the all "app" based solution as plan "B"

EddyCue recently made comments in an interview saying that networks are free to release their own apps with subscription services at their own prices.

Apple has been in the bid for Thursday night NFL too.

They also now appear to be looking at providing their own original programming, like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.

Apple's first original series might be one called Vital Signs starring Dr. Dre

Though this might be delivered over Apple Music rather than directly over Apple TV

The series is supposedly six 30 minute episodes

It's described as a “semi-autobiographical” drama and sound like it could resemble the film "Compton"

It's also said to be very dark with a lot of violent and sexual content including at least one episode rumored to contain an "orgy" scene.

Apple has also produced recent music video content for Apple Music.

At this point it appears to be the only show Apple has in development, thought other rumors have indicated original shows and programming is an area Apple is exploring.

Maybe Apple plans to cut it's teeth in Apple Music before moving on to original content for Apple TV.

Apple expanding global operation in India

According to a ZDNet report Apple plans to build a facility on 250,000 sq. ft. Of land in India

The building will be in the Hyderabad IT corridor sand reportedly cost around $25 million dollars

The project is also said to involve 4,500 jobs.

The report seems to indicate the center would be set up to aid in the development of Apple's mapping technologies.

Apple has also been looking to expand sales efforts in India. Last March they reached over $1 billion in sales in India

They also been working with the Indian government to help get faster rollouts of Apple Retail stores in the region.

Apple Insider notes many of the places Apple has international operations and the list is pretty extensive.

Manufacturing, customer care, finance, and global supply chain management in Cork, Ireland

Plans to open an iOS App Development Center in Naples, Italy

They have R&D offices in Cambridge in the UK

Three development sites in Israel

An R&D facility under construction in Yokohama, Japan

And they are rumored to be moving into office space in Ottawa, Canada to work on automotive software solutions. Near Blackberry's QNX offices

Apple is also significantly expanding it's offices in the US

You have the Campus 2 "spaceship" project

New facilities operating or planned in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and San Jose

A graphics chip development site near Orlando, Florida

And they've invested $300M to expand their Americas Operations Center in Austin, Texas.

Apple USB-C Charge Cable Replacement Program

Apple launched a worldwide replacement program for USB-C charge cables that were shipped with the 12-inch Retina MacBook through June of 2015

Apple notes that in some cases these cables have been known to fail due to a design issue

Affected cables might fail to charge the MacBook or only charge intermittently when connected to a power adapter

You can tell if you have an impacted cable by it's labeling which will read, "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." Without a serial number.

The redesigned cables will feature a serial number after the label.

Apple will replace faulty cables that shipped with the MacBook or ones that were purchased separately at no cost

If you provided a valid mailing address when you registered your MacBook then a new cable will be shipped to you automatically.

Otherwise contact Apple Support or an Apple Authorized Service Provider, or visit an Apple Retail store to get a replacement cable.

You can replace affected cables using this program through June 8, 2018.

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Feedback, commentary, opinions

iTunes Match refunds for iTunes Radio

A couple shows back we discussed Apple's removing the iTunes Radio features from Apple Music free and iTunes Match

Many were upset that iTunes Radio was sold as a feature of iTunes Match and was now removed lessening the value of the service.

It also feels like a way to force iTunes Match subscribers to iTunes Music if they want a "radio" feature other than Beats 1

I suggested that those who were upset contact Apple and see what they would do.

I've heard from those of you who did and it appears that Apple will give you some iTunes Store credit if you subscribe to iTunes Match.

I don't know if the value is the same for everyone, but if you want a refund I encourage you to contact Apple.

It won't you iTunes Radio back, but it might take some of the sting out of losing the service.

Avoid putting you iPhone in the past

The 70s may or may not be a decade you'd like to go back to, but for sure it's one you don't want to let your iPhone visit

iMore had a piece this week about an odd iPhone date bug that has apparently been with us since Apple released iOS 8.

If you manual set the date to January 1, 1970 it can brick your phone.

If you set that date and reboot the phone will not boot up and you cannot even boot it into recovery mode.

You'll be stuck with a trip to the Genius Bar.

Obviously this issue is easy to avoid. Just keep the setting to let the iPhone set it's own date and time.

Or, if you must manually set the date and time, don't set it to January, 1 1970.

Troubleshooting shutdown stalls

We talk a lot about boot up hangs, spinning beach balls, app crashes, lock ups, and kernel panics and how to troubleshoot them.

But there is another kind of issue that can crop up that's more rare, but can be just as frustrating. Hangs at shutdown.

The screen goes black or grey and you see the spinning gear and then stalls.

That's what happened to Jason Snell recently and he had a good way to troubleshoot it.

By the way, if you're not reading his [Six Colors]( http://sixcolors.com) blog you should be

The trick was to boot into Verbose mode

Explain single user vs. verbose

For verbose mode, startup the Mac while holding down Command+V

When you do this you'll see Matrix like screens of data while your Mac boots up but also, more importantly for this troubleshooting, while the Mac shuts down.

Hidden in this cryptic text may be the key to your issue, that's what Jason was looking for.

When it stalled out in verbose mode he saw this:

Failed to send exception EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY. error code: 5 for pid 57024
Wed Jan 13 21:11:05 2016 iMonkey.local com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]

The key item was the PID number, or process ID number. This is a clue as to which application might be misbehaving

The problem is that the typical way to see the processed and their IDs is via the Terminal or Activity Monitor, but at this point the Mac is locked up.

Jason had a friend give some good advice, capture the the list of currently running processes before shutting down.

Use the Terminal command:

ps -x > dump.txt

This will "dump" the full list of running processes and their PIDs to a text file.

Then shutdown ion verbose mode and note the stalled process ID.

Reboot the Mac and you can now cross reference against the exported TXT file.

In Jason's case the culprit turned out to be the Adobe Creative Cloud Crash Reporter, ironic I know.

He simply removed the 'AdobeCRDaemon' which starts that process and all was well

He'll have to wait for Adobe to patch it.

I thought this was a brilliant bit of troubleshooting and wanted to share the technique in case you someday find it useful.

Deleting Music on iOS

Brandon emailed me to ask about removing songs from his iPod, to free up storage, but wanting to make sure that the music stayed in his iCloud Music Library, so he could access it later when he wanted.

Basically how to get rid of any locally stored tracks, but not delete the data from iCloud.

Brandon noticed that when you would select a song or album in the Music app on iOS and the tap the '…' to bring up the menu there is a 'Delete from My Music…' option.

Tapping that give you a second confirm button and then tapping that would 'Delete from My Music'

So how do you know if you're deleting Music from the local device only or when you're actually deleting it from the iCloud Music Library

The "My Music" part is key

The button shows 'Delete…' when the track is stored locally and being deletes.

If you see "Delete from My Music' it would remove it from the cloud.

You can see this when you tap 'Delete…' (local) as the confirm dialog then gives you two options "Delete from My Music' and 'Remove Downloads'

It also explains, "This album has been downloaded to this iPhone. Do you want to delete it from My Music, or remove the downloads from this iPhone?"

Another way to tell before you delete it is is if you see a little "phone/iPod" icon next to the track. Then you know it's a locally downloaded file.

You can also just change the view options to only show downloaded tracks

At the top of the track list tap the dropdown for 'Artists/Albums/Songs'

At the bottom of the menu you'll see a toggle for 'Only Downloaded Music'

Another thing to be aware of if you're trying to reclaim space is the streaming cache.

One way to do this is to turn iCloud Music Library off and on again

Go to Settings > Music, and turn off iCloud Music Library. (You don’t need to turn off Apple Music.)

Thing of the Moment: Firewatch

I've been waiting for this game to come out since I saw the trailers for it over a year ago

http://www.firewatchgame.com

A collaboration between a small indie studio in San Francisco called Campo Santo and Panic, makers of great Mac apps like Coda and Transmit

"Firewatch is a mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness, where your only emotional lifeline is the person on the other end of a handheld radio."

It's a story driven first person exploration style game

You're a guy named Henry who, through a series of emotional personal events, finds himself employed as a park service ranger in a firewatch tower.

The only other main character in the game is your supervisor, a woman named Delilah, and you communicate with her over the radio

You guide the game play by your conversations, choose your own adventure style, and your actions.

The gameplay really lets you explore and find your way picking up clues along the way and learning more about the characters and your situation.

The visual style is stunning and really unique and the story really draws you into the game.

Because I don't have a ton of time i'm only about "3 days" (levels) into the game, but each time I come back I'm drawn in and don't want to stop.

It's available for Mac on Steam for USD $19.99

System Requirements

OS: Mac OS X 10.8+

Processor: 2011 or newer Intel Core i5

Memory: 6 GB RAM

Graphics: Nvidia or ATi GPU with 1GB Memory

Storage: 4 GB available space

Additional Notes: Dedicated graphics card required. No Mac Mini model is officially supported at this time.

My 2011 Core i7 2.0 GHz Macbook Pro with 8GB RAM and an AMD Radeon HD 6490M 256 MB runs the game, but I had to crank things down to get a playable frame rate.

Still with everything turned down I think it looks great and I'm enjoying it.

Closing

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