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News
New Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR
I won’t bury the lead because we’ve been waiting for this FOREVER
New Mac Pro
Looks even MORE like a cheese grater than ever.
Has what Apple calls an stainless steel “Space Frame” with “feet” (or wheels) and an aluminum chassis that completely slides off for 360 degree access to the dual sided logic board
Processor, graphics, and expansion on one side. Storage and memory on the other.
It’s 21 inches tall, 8.5 inches wide and weighs almost 40 lbs.
Massive cooling architecture
A massive heat pipe heat sink for the CPU
Three massive impeller fans to blow air across the CPU and GPUs
A blower to pull the air across the memory, storage and through the power supply.
Lattice pattern in the chassis create holes that are more air than metal but still provide a strong external structure.
Even with all that cooling Apple claims it won’t be any louder than an iMac Pro
Featuring a new Intel Xeon W processors with up to 28 cores and 64 PCI Express lanes
Six memory channels with 2933 MHz EEC RAM, with 12 slots to support to to 1.5 TB of memory
Eight PCI-E slots
Four double wide
Three single-wide
And a half length slot, but that is already filled with the default Apple I/O card
There are two Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB-A ports and two 10GB Ethernet ports on that card then a 3.5mm headphone jack and two more Thunderbolt 3 ports on the top of the machine.
Graphics via the Mac Pro Expansion Module
Has a standard PCI Express connector AND a new PCIe connector to integrate Thunderbolt for increased capability
Options for Radeon Pro 580X, Radeon Pro Vega II, or Radeon Pro Vega II Dup MPX modules. And it can support up to two MPX modules so that’s up to 4 GPUs
Supports up to 4TB of SSD storage and has a T2 Secure Enclave for security
Option to add Apple’s own Afterburner hardware accelerator card for video
Can process up to 6.3 billion pixels per second and is capable of handling up to three streams of 8K ProRes RAW or 12 streams of 4K ProRes RAW
The new Mac Pro will be here sometime this fall and the base configuration with an eight-core processor, 32GB of RAM, a Radeon Pro 580X, and a measly 256GB SSD will start at $5999 USD
There will also be a rack optimized version.
The Verge did some speculation based on current market pricing for the upgrade options like 128GB DDR4 ECC RAM, 2TB SSDs, and 28-core Intel Xeon W processors (~$7,500 USD BTW)
A top end configured Mac Pro will likely go for between $35 or $45K USD and that before you add on a $7,000 Pro Display XDR with stand.
Pro Display XDR
32-inch Retina 6K display with a resolution of 6016 by 3384 pixels (20.4 million pixels) at 218 pixels per inch
A 16:9 aspect ratio
Includes P3 wide color gamut, 10-bit color, which produces over 1 billion colors
It’s super bright. Apple says it will do a sustained 1000 nits with 1600 nits of peak brightness.
Has a 1million to 1 contrast ratio.
One Thunderbolt 3 port and three USB-C ports
Offer a standard anti-reflective coating or, for $1,000 more a “matte” finish that achieved via a nano-etched glass
The design as an aluminum lattice pattern on the back just like the new Mac Pro
Apple also showed off the aluminum stand that offers and unique magnetic mounting bracket.
It support height and tilt adjustment and can also rotate for landscape or portrait use.
The stand will set you back another $999 USD.
There is an optional VESA mounting adapter for $199 USD
Basically the display could cost you more than your Mac Pro, but probably not.
macOS Catalina
The first version of macOS to remove support for 32-bit apps. Yup say goodbye to Office 2011.
Apple Music, Podcasts, and TV will be their own apps.
iOS device syncing will be handled by the Finder
Will run on Macs or MacBook Pros from 2012 or later and MacBooks from 2015 or later
iOS 13
iOS for iPad rebranded as iPadOS
Optimized for the iPad’s larger screen
Has a more dense icon layout, so you can have more app icons per screen
Up to 30 per screen
It gets “dark mode” too.
Ability to slide out and permanently “dock” widgets on the left hand side of the display.
Multiple “split view” windows per application and tapping the app icon in the dock will display all it’s open split view spaces.
Same app open in multiple split view spaces
Support for external drives and local network volumes in the Files App (YES!)
This includes external drives, USB thumb drives and SD Cards
Files also adds a column view, similar to macOS
iCloud Drive now supports folder sharing as well as file sharing
For camera files you can also easily launch into a 3rd party image editor like Photoshop or Lightroom
Documents can be zipped and unzipped inside Files
Document scanner was also added to Files2
Safari is getting new keyboard shortcuts and a download manager
It will also load “desktop” versions of sites by default.
Custom fonts support with fonts libraries you can download from the App Store
New three finger gestures for cut, copy, and paste.
New “compact layout” keyboard that can moved around and supports the new “swipe” gesture typing system designed for one hand use.
Improved cursor selections and movement.
Tap and drag the insertion bar
Tap and drag top select
Triple tap to select a sentence and quad-tap to select a paragraph.
Does get mouse input support as an Accessibility option
Apple Pencil is faster with latency being reduced to 9ms from 20ms.
Markup can be used system-wide with a new tool palette that you can shrink and move anywhere.
And there is a PencilKit API for third party apps.
It also has a new HUD for the volume indicator. No more blocking the entire display
Pops out near the volume buttons and is large at first but shrinks to just a thin line
Once you activate it with the button you can also drag it with a finger
Apple also announced “Sign in with Apple”
Let’s you use your Apple ID to create accounts and sign into 3rd party apps
Focused on protecting your privacy.
Apps can only ask for your email address and name.
You can also choose to have apple generate a random email address for the account that will forward to your iCloud email address and ask it from the service.
“Sign in with Apple” may be required in ANY app that offers third-party sign-in to users.
Other features of note
Download large apps over cellular
Dolby Atmos audio playback
Science unknown callers (callers not found in Siri Intelligence) will go strait to voicemail
Folder management in Notes
Conversational Siri Shortcuts
Available as a free software update for the iPad Air 2 and later, all iPad Pro devices, the fifth-generation iPad and later, and the iPad mini 4 and later.
watchOS 6
New watch faces including California Dial, Modular Compact, Gradient, and an updated version of the Solar face which has features similar to the Infograph Modular face
There are new complications including Noise and Wind
New apps include an Audiobook App, Calculator and Voice Memos.
New Health features include Trends which allows you to see how your fitness activity compare over time. It can also show you fitness Highlight and Favorites.
There is also now Cycles that allows users to track their menstruated cycles.
And finally, Taptic Chimes will be available as an option for alerts.
Available in the Fall and will run on all Series 1 and newer Apple Watches
tvOS 13
Multi-user support!! Yes, finally and it’s not the only device to get it…
Means different members of a household can now get their own personalized suggestions and up-next lists
Music will also be personalized and you can display lyrics that are in sync with the music.
There is a new Control Center interface that lets you switch from user to user
Apps on the dock can now play full-screen video previews on the Home screen
Really hope that has a use controllable setting
Apple is also adding XBox One and PlayStation 4 Controller support which will be a bing benefit for Apple Arcade games in the Fall.
New underwater HDR Screensavers created in partnership with BBC Natural History.
Apple will also be releasing AppleTV+ this Fall and showed off a preview of it’s space drama “For All Mankind” from Battlestar Galactica creator Ronald D. Moore.
The Series is a look at the 1960s space race from the perspective of the Soviet Union beating the US to the moon landing
HomePod
Yes, this is the “other” device to get multiple user support
HomePod will recognize voices and adapt the requests for music, messages, calendars, and more.
Hop ePod is also getting support for over 100,000 live terrestrial radio stations through support for iHearRadio, TunIn, and Radio.com
HomeKit will add the ability to securely store security cam video in iCloud
It’s encrypted locally before sending to Apple’s servers
You get a 10-day window of recordings and they don’t count against your iCloud storage, but you’ll need at least a 200GB plan or better to use the feature with a single camera and a 2TB plan for support for up to five cameras.
Cameras from Logitech, Eufy, and Netatmo will be supported at launch
New iPod Touch
Apple came out with an updated iPod Touch Last week.
Key new features are an updated A10 Fusion Chip and a 256GB storage option
The 7th gen iPod Touch has the same physical design as the 6th Gen model still rocking a 4-inch Retina Display and a Home Button.
Also the same colors, space gray, silver, gold, blue, pink, and (PRODUCT)RED
Thankfully for some it also keeps it’s 3.5mm headphone jack along with the Lightning connector and a single speaker and mic.
Unfortunately the cameras did NOT get an update so you still have the same 8MP camera on the rear and the 1.2MP front-facing camera.
Battery life also remains the same at 40 hours of music playback and up to 8 hours of video playback.
Unfortunately you cannot use the new iPod Touch with an Apple Watch because there is no Apple Watch app for the iPod Touch.
Pricing is $199, $299, and $399USD for 32GB, 128GB, and 256GB respectively and the new iPod Touch is available now.
Sponsor: Linode
Linode
Linode allows you to instantly deploy and manage an SSD server in the Linode Cloud. Get a server running in seconds with your choice of Linux distro, resources, and choice of 10 node locations.
They are giving all new Maccast customers a $20 credit.
I've been wanting to set up a Minecraft server and Linode offers One-click installs including gaming installs
They have Minecraft, Ark, Terraria, and more.
Also one-click installs for things like Wordpress, Drupal, GitLab, OpenVPN and more.
Plus a whole bunch of distros. If it runs on Linux, it runs on Linode.
Most Linux distributions available out of the box, but you can upload custom images or create your own
Basically you can build whatever server you want.
Featuring native SSD storage, a 40 Gbit network, with industry leading processors
Pick from any of our 10 worldwide data centers
They just opened their newest one in Toronto, Canada
Built using their most up to date hardware and their Next Generation Network backbone
Allows users to comply with in-country data protection requirements while taking advantage of all Linode's technology and tools.
Additional datacenter opening in Mumbai India by end of 2019
Pricing is simple with no surprise fees. Pay for what you use with hourly billing across all plans and add-on services
Can get what you need from a $5/month Nanodes plan to high power Dedicated CPU plans
Their dashboard makes it easy to manage your Linodes and upgrading your plan is easy.
Can add-on backups, large storage volumes, and load balancing
And if you need support they have 24x7 live customer support and a large documentation library which provides a great resource when you get stuck.
Visit: linode.com/maccast to set up your first Linode and get a $20 credit when you use promo code: maccast2019
Feedback, commentary, opinions
Done with HBO Apple TV Channel.
I tried, but after the poor user experience and the limitations I’m going back to HBO Now app.
The Channel UI is just too hard to navigate for browsing and because Apple killed all the usefulness of the TV app and up next with is trying to up sell me on content I don’t have access to, I’m finding myself moving away from the TV app.
I was also wrong about being able to access the HBO Now app with my HBO for Apple TV subscription.
Apparently, even though I cancelled HBO Now, it was still linking back to that account which was active for the remainder of my subscription renewal date.
It was confusing because it let me link a second email address, my Apple one, to my existing HBO Now account.
So the HBO Channel ONLY can be accessed from an Apple Device. That sucks. Especially since it’s the same price.
I guess the exception would be a Roku, Fire TV, or Samsung Smart TV.
But what about an Android device, a PC, or web browser?
Refresh your old Mac with an SSD
Play comment from Paul
I've talked about this in the past and it is well worth doing for your aging Mac
If you don't feel comfortable enough to do it on your own, then consider checking with a local independent Apple repair shop.
If you are upgrading an iMac you will need to cut adhesive strips that attach the display so you'll need replacement tape, which comes with the OWC kit.
If you have an older iMac, one where you remove the display glass you need to be careful to really clean the glass well before reinstalling.
Can I get pseudo random shuffle?
Play comment from Bryan
This is something we actually covered a LONG time ago on the Maccast.
The fact that the same songs might seems to be coming up more frequently is actually part of the "randomness" of the shuffle.
If you're shuffling say 100 songs it is just as likely that song say 54 comes in in the first 10 tracks each time you start that shuffle as it would be that it never comes up in the first 10 tracks. That is the definition of random.
What you're actually asking for is Apple to use a shuffle that is not random but is biased to prefer songs that are less frequently played or less recently played and to weight them to the front half of the "shuffled" playlist so you're less likely to hear the same songs.
That is something Apple could do I guess, but they don't offer that currently.
You CAN sort of do it yourself though by setting up a "Smart" playlist with the "least recently" played items as your seed. Then just shuffle that playlist.
Closing
Supporters
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