Invite to the next Apple streamed event went out last Tuesday. Simply called, “Unleashed”
It will take place on Monday, October 18 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time from the Steve Jobs Theatre and the Apple Park campus, but it is once again a digital only event.
Any yes, Monday is not a typical day for an Apple event, but there it is.
The expectation in the community is Apple will use the event to unveil the next generation of the MacBook Pro with 14-inch and 16-inch sizes and with pumped up Apple M1 silicon, likely called M1X
The machines are also expected to have a major design overhaul with thinner bezels, larger displays, and the flatter edge geometry
The updated M1X is expected to have more cores in both the CPU and GPU with a 10-core CPU (8 high performance and 2 high efficiency) and 16 or 32 core GPUs. They will also offer more RAM options possibly up to the 64GB
The machines should also ditch the TouchBar and bring back many popular ports including the SD card slot, HDMI, and MagSafe
Newer rumors surfacing
The display would be a miniLED with 120Hz adaptive refresh rates
Display analyst Ross Young call them , “scaled up 12.9-inch iPad Pro” displays.
Liquid Retina XDR display
“Base” ram and storage would be 16GB and 512GB respectively
1080p FaceTime camera. Similar to the M1 iMac
The screen may have a notch.
Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives is predicting that as many as one-third of all MacBook Pro owners could update to a new M1X MacBook Pro over the next year.
Apple could also use this event to unveil the rumored upgrade to AirPods
The 3rd gen is expected to look much more like the AirPods Pro the smaller stems and a similar smaller case design. But they would not have “Pro” features like Active Noise Cancellation.
I would also assume Apple will unveil the launch date for macOS Monterey
It’s looking less and less likely that Universal Control will make the release date as a completed feature
Allows multiple Macs and iPads to be operated the same time using the mouse and keyboard.
The 10th macOS Monterey beta doesn’t have it though you can “force” it on with a feature flag and it has a “Beta” label.
An outside rumor that is not likely, but could happen is an additional version of the M1 Mac mini, with an M1X processor. Sort of like a Mac mini “Pro”
Mac shipments up
Canalys has published it’s most recent report on worldwide PC shipments covering the third quarter and thing look good for Apple and the PC industry
The global PC market grew by 5% during the quarter to 84.1 million shipments. That is small than the past five quarters though. Those saw double digit growth.
The smaller number is being attributed to worldwide supply chain issues.
Apple has been able to stay ahead of that a little bit and their growth in the quarter shows it.
The numbers showed Ma shipments up 14.4 percent over the same quarter last year. With Canalys estimating that Apple sold 7.82 million Macs during the quarter
Those numbers s also boosted Apple’s marketshare up from 8.5 percent last year to 9.3 percent. Making Apple the fourth-largest PC maker behind Lenovo, HP, and Dell
If you are in the market for an iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro best get it sooner than later. Apple IS reportedly getting hit with supply chain issues on iPhone components
Specifically components from Broadcom and Texas Instruments.
A report from Bloomberg claims that despite wanting to produce 90 million iPhone 13 models in the back half of the year that might not happen due to the component drought.
Apple has reported told manufacturing partners that the 90 million goal is probably not going to happen and could drop by as much as 10 million units.
For you and me that means the already slightly constrained iPhone 13 supply will probably only get more constrained as we approach the end of the year and into next year.
It’s also likely that chip shortages could impact the shiny new MacBook Pros Apple announced Monday as well.
The site looking into how many seeders the shows have on popular Torrent sites.
They found that Apple's most popular shows and movies have at least 2,000 active seeders on each major piracy site, going up to as many as approximately 125,000 seeders per title in some cases
As you might image the more popular shows like The Morning Show, See, and Ted Lasso are seeing more pirating
The story notes that Apple is doing what it can to try and curb the piracy. They work enforcement partners who flag illegal content and issuing DMCA takedown orders for pirated content.
They note that through one such firm Apple has issued more than 320,000 DMCA orders to Google and on August 16th they issued their highest number of requests in a day at 8,500
The piece also notes however that these requests seem to be doing very little to stem the tide.
I actually look at the rise in piracy of Apple TV+ shows as a good thing. It means these shows and the service are getting popular. I think that also contributes to buzz and I think more people are willing to pay for quality content than will be willing to steal it.
Apple TV+ will premiere a new animated series based on Harriet the Spy on November 19.
The 10-episode series will launch with the first five episode available on the 19th and then the remaining five episode will launch in spring 2022
It’s based on the children’s novel of the same name and is produced by The Jim Henson Company
Apple TV+ has also given a straight to series order for a new comedy show starring Jason Segel called Shrinking.
It’s a 10 episode series that focuses on Segel’s character who is a “grieving therapist” who starts breaking the rules and telling his patients exactly what he things.
The show will have some key members of the team that also works on Ted Lasso including series co-creator Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein (yes f’ing Roy Kent)
Goldstein, Lawrence, and Segel will serve as writers on the new “Shrinking” series and Jason Segel is an executive producer as well.
"The Problem with Jon Stewart" is now Apple's top unscripted series according to Entertainment Weekly
The bi-weekly debuted on September 30th and according to the publication beat out The Oprah Conversation to become the services top unscripted series
It probably helps that the new show marks Stewart’s return to television.
Apple Watch Series 7 is out.
And it’s great and reviewers love it as long as you’re not looking for a lot of new features
The TLDR; is it’s got a bigger screen and charges a little faster
If you use Apple’s included puck which is also now all aluminum
Of course there are a few more “exclusives”
A couple of watch faces that take full advantage of the larger display
A QWERTY keyboard, with swipe typing.
IP6X-rated dust resistance, but that’s mainly because this is the first Apple Watch Apple tested for a dust rating.
Slightly brighter always on display.
Bottom line is if you have a Series 6 you’re probably not missing much. Earlier watch owners, it might be a nice upgrade.
Also, if you’re considering an “entry level” watch you’re gonna get more bang for your buck with the Apple Watch SE vs. the Series 3. Do yourself a favor and spend the extra USD $79 bucks.
There was a small launch day bug that impacted several popular 3rd party apps
Apps like CARROT Weather, Drafts, Fantastical, and PCalc were missing their icons
Also icons from those apps were getting cut off in complications
I saw it first reported on Twitter by PCalc developer James Thomson
The issue seemed to impact Apps with vector icons
Apple’s App Store team quickly responded to the issue an pushed out updates for the App. If you still have apps that are effected run your App updates or manually remove and re-add the app.
HomePod gets new software lead
Apple might be about to get more serious about competing in the smart speaker space according to Bloomberg
They say Apple has re-hired an engineer, Afrooz Family, who worked at the company from 2012 to 2016
Family had left Apple along with Apple design team member Christoper Stringer to co-found a speaker company called Syng.
At Syng they created a very high end speaker they say is “the world’s first “Triphonic” speaker” and it was focused on creating spatial audio experiences.
They claim the speaker is able to project sound around a room with “pinpoint accuracy” creating the impression that specific sounds or instruments are coming from distinct areas of the room
Family will be leading software development on the HomePod/AppleTV team.
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Feedback, commentary, opinions
Follow-up
Multiple reports from members of the Maccast community confirming touch intermittent touch issues in iOS 15
Parts of interface just go dead or unresponsive to gestures
Restarting the app usually fixes it for me, but some note having to restart their devices.
Seems to happen in iOS 15 and iPad OS 15 and on multiple generations of device, so feels like software.
Let hope Apple addresses it soon. I think I have not had the issue since updating to iOS 15.0.2?
I asked if Pages, Numbers, and Keynote were still referred to as iWork
Although I had also asked for suggestions on what to call the productivity suite and Paul wrote in to suggest PNK (pink).
I may have caused some confusion in my segment covering the new Accessibility option for AirPods with the AirPods are firmware 4A400 update.
We talked about two features. 1) Custom adjustments you can make to how Transparency mode works. 2) Customizing the audio profile of your AirPods using a hearing test or Apple’s configuration wizard.
Bob wrote me to point out I have inadvertently said the feature were for AirPods (not making the distinction) that the Transparency option would only work on AirPods Pro.
I’m sorry for any confusion, but yes, because Transparency and Noise Cancelation are AirPods Pro only features that piece only works with AirPods Pro.
Vincent was having the dreaded “Disk Not Ejected Properly” issue with an external Pegasus drive
I had mentioned I have be plagued by similar issues and tracked it down to a bad hub, but also said that bad cables could be the culprit
He tries several of those things and that didn’t help.
Promise support finally got back to him and said the issue was indeed something in the latest BigSur update
They claim it’s something to do with the drive not staying asleep, I assume when the “put drives to sleep” option is set in the Energy settings.
Support told him this is something the OS controls and not Pegasus. The issue must happen when it’s coming in and out of sleep mode or maybe when PowerNapping?
Vincent was able to fix it by going into the Terminal and changing the Power Saving settings of the Pegasus
I almost always turn off these two Energy Saver options when on power adapter:
Put hard disks to sleep when possible
Enable PowerNap when plugged into a power adapter (off)
Apple TV+ product placements
I’m been hearing from the community that there are some who feel Apple TV+ shows are more “heavy handed” than they need to be with Apple product placements
Josh wrote in to comment that he’s felt it most in The Morning Show and Ted Lasso. Specifically citing a scene from Lasso where Roy Kent says, "Hey Siri... play Keeley's .... playlist”. Saying that particular “plug” broke the mood.
Josh feels that, “there are very clear and long shots on various phones and devices”
I’m also seen these comments on Twitter and in other posts. Often times people pointing out the use of Apple specific sounds for ring tones and alerts or prominent placement of the Apple logo on a laptop in a scene.
I’m curious how the community feels?
I’m not going to say I haven’t noticed these things in some of Apple’s shows, but so far it he not bothered me nor do I think it’s “heavy handed”
All shows, in a contemporary setting, these days seem to feature tech. A lot of them have Apple tech.
It’s logical to me to expect that ALL Apple TV+ produced shows are only going to have Apple tech.
When I see long shots of an iPhone screen it’s often of Messages and these are texts you are meant to read.
The noises and ringtones also seem appropriate.
And the “Hey Siri” dialog could just have easily been Alexa if it wasn’t an Apple show.
Now if they broke out Apple references in a period piece or a future sci-fi drama like See or Foundation I might take issue, but so far (as far as I know) that has not happened.
But what do you think?
Faster backups. Faster Drives.
I have to admit that for me when picking a drive for my cloned backups I don’t go much further than looking for just a Seagate or Western Digital 2.5-inc USB-C drive that is at a good price.
I just don’t put that much thought in it.
But maybe I should? As Andy pointed out to me this week, if you care about how long your backups take, a better drive or more specifically a “faster” drive can make a huge difference.
Ideally going with a SSD would be great, but SSDs are still not cost effective on a dollar per GB level
And lets be really honest, these are backup drives, how fast do you need them to be? They are running in the background or over night. We’re typically not waiting on them.
That said, paying more for a 7,200 RPM HDD, vs just going with the cheaper 5,400 RM drives could yield some nice results.
Andy says by buying a Oyen Digital Novus 4TB External USB-C drive he saw his backup speeds improve by 10x
Now upping your speed will up your cost. Looks like by 30-50% more, so you’ll have to weigh your need for speed vs your budget.
If you are going to use the cheapies, then CCC recommends using them only for “Data only” backups, not bootable and to format them as HFS+ (not APFS)
They say performance of APFS on 5,400 RPM drives is “unacceptably poor”.
My issue with 7,200 RPM drives is most, if not all, are desktop drives and they are big and require an external power supply which is far less convenient.
Still I wasn’t familiar with [Oyen Digital](https://oyendigital.com) before this and seems like they make some really nice professional storage products.
iOS Focus mode confusion
Bob ran into a kind of funny situation when he updated to iOS 15
What happened is that he and his wife share an Apple ID
He was working on his iPad and his wife had left to run an errand when Bob got a notification on his iPad that he was “driving”
Well he obviously wasn’t but his wife was.
What Bob experience was one of the settings in the new “Focus” modes that came with iOS 15
Focus modes are really cool and sort of the evolution of “Do Not Disturb while driving”
They can get set-up and edited by going into “Settings” > “Focus”
Within a focus you can set which people and which apps are allowed to send you notifications when that mode is active
You can share your focus status in Messages so people know you might not respond immediately
You can also set up custom home screen layouts just for that focus mode
And you can schedule focus modes based on events or automations.
Finally you can share your focus modes across your devices and this is where Bob ran into trouble.
Because he had Do Not Disturb while driving on (which is now a focus mode with a “driving” automation) that focus mode kicked in, but his devices (including his wife's) had the “Share across devices” option enabled.
This is sync’d via your iCloud account and since they share an Apple ID… yup you guessed it. When the focus mode enable on his wife's iPhone, it also enabled on his iPad.
The “fix” for this is to simply turn off the “share across devices” option on his wife’s devices. Or have her get her own Apple ID.
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