There’s a cool bit of new tech related to FaceTime that was discovered in the latest iOS 13 beta
It is designed to address the issue of your eye line when on a FaceTime call
The trouble is when you look at the image of the person your FaceTiming with, the image the get is you looking at the screen, not at them.
To appear like you’re looking “at” them you’d need to be looking directly at your FaceTime camera, but that would not be natural.
Apple has added a setting to FaceTime, called FaceTime Attention Correction.
It’s currently supported in iOS 13 beta on only the latest device, iPhone XS, XS Max.
Possibly because the feature is using the ARKit 3 API, which is currently limited to those devices, plus the XR.
It’s believed that Apple is using ARKit and the TrueDepth cameras to adjust your eye position.
Several reviewers have noticed you can see the effect by passing a horizontal strait object in front of your eyes while the feature is enabled. The straight object will become warped in your video as a result of the correction.
Apple may snip the butterfly’s wings
Ming Chi-Kuo thinks Apple is again working on a new keyboard design and this time they’re going back to old scissor mechanism.
He says Apple will rollout the new design with the 2019 MacBook Air update.
The new scissor switches will offer durability and longer key travel something that will make many beleaguered butterfly switch keyboard users feel better.
He says MacBook Pros in 2020 should also pickup the new design.
And it does sound like it is a new design, not just a return to the old one.
It will supposedly feature glass fiber to reinforce the keys
Kuo also says the new one will be a bit cheaper to manufacture than the butterfly design.
Apple exploring foldable iPads
I would be surprised if they weren’t.
I don’t believe this report from IHS Markit analyst Jeff Lin, that Apple will have a foldable iPad in the market in 2020
He says Apple is planning the device to compete with the dual screen Surface expected from Microsoft
He also says the device will support 5G. Now that seems plausible.
Says it will have an updated A-series processor and a screen size solitary to the MacBook range.
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Shows a hole burned through the bottom of the case and into a coffee table.
The device was unplugged and in sleep mode
Apple has recalled the devices as a precaution and is replacing the batteries which in rare instances can overheat and fail.
Time Machine integrity
Play comment from Graeme
The case for multiple backups
I can say that I’ve used TM backups at least twice to do full restores without issue.
I think it’s more likely the case that drives can just be bad or have issues especially when moving around a lot of data.
Beyond just running the standard set for disk utilities, I’m really not sure of any way to check the “integrity “ of a Time Machine backup, or any other backup for that matter.
Why iCloud sync is not “backup”
iCloud, at least for Macs, is not a backup service and in some instances might even prevent you from doing backup.
This was illustrated in a email from Ron.
He was asking about BackBlaze and what gets backed up.
After CrashPlan he started to rely more and more on iCloud to sync data into the Cloud.
When he started his Backblaze trial he noticed none of his iCloud files were being backed up to iCloud.
My guess as to what is happening here is that you’re using iCloud Documents in the Cloud, which puts your Desktop and Documents into the Cloud.
I’m also going to guess that the “optimize storage on this Mac” option is enabled.
The trouble with that is, it could mean that for many of your documents the “only” copy is on iCloud.
Set up the Mac where you do your local and online backups to serve as the “master” location of all your documents.
Same should be done for Photos, if you’re using iCloud Photo Library.
iCloud is great for file syncing and storage of stuff, but it’s not backup.
Another one that often gets people is iCloud Drive.
This syncs across all your devices, doesn’t always download to iOS.
If you delete one place it deletes EVERYWHERE.
Be careful.
Thing of the Moment: BBC micro:bit
I actually got this a while ago and it’s a great little device if you’re interested in playing around with hardware and coding.
Is a programmable board, like a mini Arduino, that you can get as a bundle for under $20 bucks
It has a ton of great features
A 5 x 5 LED Matrix
Two buttons
Accelerometer and temp sensors
IO pins that you can use with alligator clips
Bluetooth
It can be programmed on the Mac
With a web based block editor Or by writing Python
Drag and drop your code file (hex) right onto the device which mounts over USB
There is also an iOS app, so you can pair via bluetooth and load and write programs that way
Code in blocks or JavaScript
Load onto device vie Bluetooth
Finally there is also a Swift playground that you can run through as well.
It offers some very simple tutorials for writing code an interacting with the micro:bit
