Turns out that iPads will continue to support being used as home hubs for HomeKit, they just won’t be able to support new Home architecture
Apple made the clarification in a satement to the Verge
So basically sounds like with iOS 16 you’ll have the option to upgrade to the new Home architecture.
If you want to continue to use an iPad as a home hub you’ll need to not upgrade and stick with the older Home architecture.
They don’t say specifically, but the feature is probably “Matter”, the new open architecture home protocol, as iPads will not be compatible with that.
Apple Watch Extreme
Mark Gurman still believes Apple will release a new “rugged” version of the Apple Watch this year focused on extreme sports
“Apple is preparing three new variations: a new low-end SE, a standard Series 8 and a rugged edition aimed at extreme sports.”
He also thinks Apple could add body temperature sensing to the Series 8 and Extreme models
This would give you an alert if the watch detects an elevate body temperature, but not a direct temperature reading
Haitong International Securities analyst Jeff Pu thinks the new higher end versions of the Apple Watches could come with larger sizes
This was also noted by display analyst Ross Young a few weeks back, though he didn’t say it would just be limited to the high end
The new report says Luxshare exclusively will be providing a “2-inch” part. That’s huge ~50.55mm
Ross Young then tweeted confirmation of a 1.99 inch display.
The new size would supposedly be in addition to the existing 41mm and 45mm sizes, so it could be something for the “Extreme” model only.
Something Mark Gurman says is the case with a 410 x 502 pixel display resolution to allow more exercise information to be displayed.
And built with a stronger metal than aluminum along with a larger battery
Pricing on the new extreme sports version could be starting around USD $900 US or higher and this new model could replace Apple current titanium “Edition” models which start at USD $799.00, but that’s a smaller 41mm model.
M2 MacBook Air goes on sale, sells out
Apple started taking orders on Friday and they units quickly moved into backorder status with some deliveries pushing out until mid July or even early August
If you want any config now looks like it’s early to mid-August
The 1TB 16GB Midnight model appears to be one of the most popular configuration
If you’re willing to get another color like silver or starlight you may have luck getting one sooner
They’ll also be in stores on the 15th so it’s possible you may be able to roll into an Apple store and snag the M2 MacBook Air of your dreams
Performance-wise early benchmarks are showing pretty much the same thing we saw with the benchmarks for the M2 13-inch MacBook Pro
With 16GB of RAM and the 8-core CPU / 10-Core GPU config about a 12 percent raw performance gain in single-core performance and almost 20 percent in multi-core
The 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro also showed some possible flaws and stumbles in architecture
The YouTube channel Max Tech has been doing som extensive stress testing and benchmarking on the new machines and found some performance bottle necks.
In my opinion many of these would not impact the majority of users of the lower end MacBook Pro, but they are worth noting especially since they might also foretell possible struggles for the M2 MacBook Airs as well.
The first discovery was that SSDs in the 256GB models seemed to perform slower than the ones in the older 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro.
This impacted read write performance and the performance of the unified memory
The reason seems to be Apple’s use of a single 256GB SSD module in the M2 MacBook Pro vs the 2 128GB modules used in the M1
The 512GB 13-inch didn’t have the same issues since it uses 2 256GB SSD modules.
It’s possible the base-model MacBook Air could also use a single 256GB SSD
The other thing they discovered was that pushing the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro to the limit, by exporting 8K camera RAW, the machines single fan couldn’t keep up and it went into thermal throttling
The CPU reached a temp of 108 digress C
This is not likely a workflow most would try to use an entry level MacBook Pro for
Still considering the MacBook Air has no active cooling it will be interesting to see if the M2 has any cooling or performance issues in certain situations.
iFixit’s teardown revealed the M2 13-inch MacBook Pro is just basically the M1 with a new chip.
At this point it seems to me if you want to opt for an “entry level” configuration (256GB storage / 8GB RAM) on a 13-inch MacBook Pro or MacBook Air you’d get better value and only slightly less (and in some instances better) real-world performance with an M1 system
Still those wanting true performance should probably be waiting for the updates to the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros which should have M2 Pro and M2 Max processors built on TSMCs new 3nm process according to DigiTimes
Offering better performance and energy efficiency
They say TSMC will begin volume production of 3nm chips in the second half of 2022
It’s also expected that the future M3 processors will use the same 3nm architecture
Mark Gurman thinks Apple is planning M3 upgrades for the 24-inch iMac likely next year and still believe Apple is planning a larger “Pro” iMac that could use M3 Pro and M3 Max processors
iPhone 14 may be lackluster and cost more
Unless you want to the Pro models, though those will also cost more.
I think supply chain, technology, and the economy are getting the better of Apple and iPhone this year as the rumors in advance of a fall iPhone announcement consider Apple making some radical choices
First Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple’s 5G modem efforts are struggling and have not bore fruit yet
Maybe starting with buying Intel’s struggling 5G modem group wasn’t the best choice in hindsight?
Kuo claims Apple’s internal modem development has “failed” and that Qualcomm will continue to provide the iPhone’s 5G modems at least into the second half of 2023
Originally Apple had hopes to use only 20 percent of Qualcomm 5G modems by that time.
The DigiTimes is reporting that Apple has had to cut initial iPhone 14 shipments back by about 10 percent.
They are still anticipating large demand, but had to lower the amounts due to ongoing component shortages
Plus now all the price hikes on components due to the shortages seem to be taking a toll
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives believes we could see a $100 base price increase across the iPhone 14 product line
That means a “base” model iPhone 14 could start at USD $899 with the Pro models starting at USD $1,099
Not sure if it’s also due to the component shortages and supply chain, but we already mentioned Ming-Cho Kuo’s statements that Apple this year may reserve the A16 processor for the higher end “Pro” iPhone models
This week Mark Gurman says his checks are indicating the same thing. The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max will use the same A15 processor and the Pro and Pro Max will get the A16
And Kuo thinks this strategy will continue moving forward
This also may be a revenue generating move by Apple convincing more customers to step up the the higher cost Pro models
It’s also believed new screen features like the no-notch hole+pill punch through cameras and the low power “always on” display will be limited to the “Pro “ models
MacRumors also noticed that Apple is lowering trade-in values on devices, though I think that’s something they typically do anyway based on market values and conditions
Apple TV+ proves small, but mighty
Apple TV+ may not have the most content of the streaming services, but many data point continue to illustrate that their focus on quality content has aid off.
For the second year in a row a survey of average IMDB scores and US streaming customer data done by Self Financial has shown that Apple’s shows have the highest average IMDb scores of any streaming service
Apple’s average score of 7.08 beat out all other services and in family content they scored even higher with a 7.34 average, beating out even Disney+
Still on quantity, Apple is obviously far behind it’s competitors, but does that really matter? You can only watch so many shows and if you had to pick wouldn’t you want to pick the best?
Apple TV+ shows are also the most nominated of any streaming service for this years Hollywood Critics Association awards
Apple TV+ shows received an amazing 53 nominations
The popular shows Severance and TedLasso topped the list for Apple with 12 nominations each
Apple also gained 1 percent more of the US streaming market in the past 3 months according to data from JustWatch.
This while Netflix lost 2 percent and smaller players like Apple, Disney, and HBO all gained 1 percent
Interestingly Amazon Prime is at 20 percent share, but I feel like they don’t really count? It’s bundled with Prime and I watch almost nothing on Amazon.
For upcoming new content Apple continues to sign exclusive new “first look” deals
this past week Apple did a deal with Animal Pictures, which is owned by Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne
The Hollywood Reporter says, “the multi-year deal, Apple will get the opening shot at series and digital feature projects developed at the company.”
Rudolph’s new Apple TV+ series Loot also debuted on Apple TV+ this past week
Steve Jobs awarded posthumous Medal of Freedom
The white House announced the 17 recipients of this years recipients Presidential Medal of Freedom and Steve Jobs made the list posthumously (paas-chuh-muhs-ly).
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the “highest civilian honor” in the United States and is given to those whom have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.
Jobs was picked because, “His vision, imagination and creativity led to inventions that have, and continue to, change the way the world communicates, as well as transforming the computer, music, film and wireless industries.”
iPad mini not charging, not just you.
MacRumors obtained a recent note sent by Apple to service providers about a possible issue impacting the iPad mini 6th generation after updating to iPadOS 15.5
The issue seems to impact some iPad mini owners and prevents them from being able to charge after updating to iPadOS 15.5
Apple seems to confirm that it’s not a hardware issue since replacing the battery will not resolve the problem. Their also telling service providers to recommend restarting the device as a temporary fix
Though you’d need to notice your device is not charging and reset it BEFORE the battery goes completely dead. Otherwise you’ll be stuck.
Apple is currently beta testing iPadOS 15.6, which may solve the problem when it's released to the public.
Enhanced Apple Maps in more places
Apple has expanded it’s improved Apple Maps experience into three more countries
Customers in France, New Zealand, and Monaco can now enjoy more accurate faster navigation, improved imagery along with with three-dimensional landmarks and locations, detailed views of roads, shopping malls, parks and greenways, and more
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Feedback, commentary, opinions
Apple’s “family” discussion
Some interesting feedback came from the community based on our discussion from the last episode.
Tony felt like the limit of 6 was OK since the average family size in the US as of 2021 was just over 3 people.
But he thought Apple’s policy of always charging the main account holder’s card for purchases and not allowing adult family members to have cards attached for their own purchases was frustrating
Daniel felt like having a default of six people for the fixed charge for the services was good, but that maybe Apple could offer a price to add additional family members above six?
Paul agreed that hopefully with the Family iCloud Album there would be some controls in place to prevent editing or delete photos in the shared album.
but also wondered about situations, specifically with shared family albums, where you may want to be in the shared albums with two different families
Example, a daughter may want to share in her own families album and then also be in the shared album of her husbands family
Today that is not possible as you and only be in on Apple Family plan at a time. You can switch families, but then can’t switch back for 90 days.
This is to prevent “sharing” of purchased content like Books, TV Shows, and Movies.
My main need is for DAS, though a NAS option may also be nice.
My only issue with losing Drobo is I do think they had by far the easiest solution for non-tech people.
The “Beyond RAID” made it easy to just drop in a set of drives, regardless of matched sizes or not, and set up a system that provided a good balance of performance and redundancy.
Synology offers a similar technology with their hybrid RAID technology, but that’s in a NAS product
With ThunderBay you’ll still need to set-up a traditional RAID
Most would want RAID5 or RAID6, single or dual redundancy
But you’ll want all your drive bays filled with the same size drives.
It will support different size drives, but in that scenario it will only use the size of the smallest sized drive in the RAID to create the RAID.
So if you had a 4TB drive an 3 8TB drives the total storage available to make the RAID would be 16TB, not 28TB
Now you could partition the other 8TB drives into 4TB partitions and get the other 12TB back to use as other storage, not in the RAID, but still that’s complex to set-up and manage.
I also just find the software, OWC’s SoftRAID, and the Synology management software a but more technical and complex vs what I had with Drobo.
Still I own a Synology and it’s amazing in it’s power.
I can set-up file sharing, Docker, VPN, personal cloud storage, and more.
What DAS and NAS solutions are you using and what are some of the things you like and maybe don’t like?
Customizing MacControl Center
Rick asks, can it be done?
The answer is “sort of”
Rick specifically doesn’t want the music player or focus
I would argue you want “Focus” because that is now where you can manually enable “Do Not Disturb”
Great for when you’re sharing your screen, making presentations, or just need some peace
But yes, if you go into System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar you’ll see two sections: “Control Center” and “Other Modules”
“Control Center” items can be configured, but not removed from Control Center
Unfortunately for you Rick both Focus and “Now Playing” (Music Player) are in this section.
“Other Modules” can be added or removed from Control center by selecting them in the sidebar and checking or unchecking the “Show in Control Center” option.
These include items like “Accessibility Options, Battery, and Fast User Switching”
I have experienced this, but the issues never persisted.
Apple claims it’s “a small percentage of AirPods Pro” and that the issues are:
Crackling or static sounds that increase in loud environments, with exercise or while talking on the phone
Active Noise Cancellation not working as expected, such as a loss of bass sound, or an increase in background sounds, such as street or airplane noise
The program covers affected AirPods Pro for 3 years after the first retail sale of the unit.
This feels fairly reasonable to me in terms of time frame? After that it’s probably time for new AirPods anyway?
I personally had my AirPods Pro mics fail and am now waiting for the new ones to get announced so I can replace them. In the meantime I got a set of Beats Studio Buds on sale for USD $120 bucks at Walmart. They have noise cancellation, spatial audio, the same easy pairing, and sound good. They’re just missing the magic device switching because they don’t have the H1 chip
