Business

Easy-peasy Markdown tutorial

Written by

Got 10 minutes? Want to learn Markdown?

Follow the link. Markdown is worth knowing, it’s easy to learn, and this tutorial is focused and efficient. Easy peasy.

Apple TV+ announces special quarantine episode of “Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet”

Written by

[VIDEO] Apple:

Apple today announced that its critically hailed workplace comedy series, “Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet,” will return Friday, May 22, with the debut of “Mythic Quest: Quarantine,” a special new episode written, filmed and edited in quarantine.

Big fan of this show. The quarantine episode was filmed (as you’d expect) entirely on iPhones.

The trailer is embedded in the main Loop post.

Map made with 222 fonts named for US cities

Written by

The Statesider:

Before 1984, I had never encountered the word “font.” Then a Macintosh computer showed up in my house.

A beige block with a too-small black and white screen and a thingy called a “mouse,” the first thing I saw when I turned it on was “Welcome to Macintosh” in what I would soon learn was a font called Chicago.

The linked map is interesting. Had no idea there were so many US-city-named fonts. Obviously, a world map would have a ton more.

But the mention of the original Macintosh fonts brought me down a bit of a rabbit hole. Can you name the original Mac fonts? Here’s a link to a Wikipedia page that has the answer.

Apple releases annual Apple Watch Pride Edition bands

Written by

Apple:

Like most high school seniors, Elle Smith hasn’t had the year they imagined. Prom was cancelled. A graduation ceremony is up in the air. But one thing Elle hasn’t compromised on is weekly virtual meetings of their Austin, Texas, high school’s Genders and Sexualities Alliance, a club for LGBTQ students and allies to come together and find community. Elle restarted the club their freshman year and has led it ever since.

And:

It’s this commitment to community and advocacy that led to Elle’s being named Student Advocate of the Year by GLSEN, a US-based LGBTQ organization that has inspired and helps lead a global movement to end discrimination, harassment, and bullying in schools. GLSEN supports student advocates like Elle and provides the resources that help them change their communities, one conversation at a time.

And:

GLSEN is just one of the organizations whose work on behalf of LGBTQ people Apple directly supports with its annual Apple Watch Pride Edition band and face collection.

Here’s a link to the Pride Edition Sport Band, and to the Pride Edition Nike Sport Band.

Finding an Apple IIe just sitting out with the trash

Written by

Charlie Harrington:

Not one block away from our house did I spot something: a yellowed plastic box amid a pile of trash. No. It couldn’t be. I stopped, and went back to the trash.

It was an Apple IIe. With its CRT monitor. And a dual floppy drive.

Just. SITTING. THERE.

This is a pretty fun read. I have to say, if I came across an Apple II, just sitting in someone’s trash, I would definitely grab it, if only for nostalgia’s sake.

How about you?

Berkeley will fully close its streets to create giant outdoor dining rooms

Written by

Eater:

Owners of the Bay Area’s restaurants agree on one thing: It’ll be damn near impossible to stay in business if their dining room capacity is cut. While California’s guidelines for restaurant reopening don’t specify a specific slash in capacity, they do require social distancing measures between patrons and workers, which means that to make enough money to remain afloat, restaurants need way more space to serve diners.

In response, officials across the Bay Area have discussed taking over street space for restaurant use — and now, Berkeley has put that discussion into action, as today it introduced legislation to fully close many of the city’s streets, repurposing them as seating areas for the city’s vibrant restaurant scene.

See also: Lithuanian capital to be turned into vast open-air cafe.

Makes me wonder, is this a temporary adjustment, or more of a seismic shift in thinking that will stay for the long haul?

TSMC announces intention to build and operate an advanced semiconductor fab in the United States

Written by

This is not a rumor. It’s a press release from TSMC itself.

TSMC today announced its intention to build and operate an advanced semiconductor fab in the United States with the mutual understanding and commitment to support from the U.S. federal government and the State of Arizona.

As a reminder, TSMC is a chip fabricator with a long relationship with Apple, starting with the the A5 SoC back in 2011, and is said to be the chip fabricator behind the rumored ARM-based Mac (that last bit is a rumor).

Construction is planned to start in 2021 with production targeted to begin in 2024.

Can’t help but think about the fabled Foxconn plant in Wisconsin.

Rene Ritchie digs into the new, high-end MacBook Pro

Written by

[VIDEO] Lots of detail here, with just a bit on the lower end model (with two ports) and the MacBook Air. But mostly a thoughtful running commentary on the high end model. Video embedded in main Loop post.

Utah rejects Apple-Google exposure notification API, turns to app made by start-up instead

Written by

Kif Leswing, CNBC:

More than 45,000 people have signed up for Utah’s contact tracing app, Healthy Together, since it was released in late April, the app’s developers told CNBC. That represents about 2% of the state’s population, but could still be helpful to the state’s health department as they attempt to track and notify people who might have been exposed.

And:

Healthy Together was built by Twenty, a social media start-up that previously built an app that helps young people meet up in person. After the pandemic started, the state of Utah reached out to the company, the founders said. With their staff of about 50 employees, they repurposed their social media-oriented technology for contact tracing in three weeks.

Privacy? No. Here’s how it works:

“Jeff and Sarah are two individuals in this example who don’t know each other but they both have the app on their phones. And so the both phones are emitting Bluetooth and GPS signals,” Allgood said. “Through that data we can identify whether or not two people have spent some time together.”

Here’s the costs involved:

Utah’s governor’s office spent $2.75 million for the app and other improvements, and will pay $300,000 per month in maintenance fees, according to public records cited by Utahpolicy.com, a website focusing on local politics.

One issue I struggle with, no matter the approach, is adoption. If few people (2% of the population, in Utah’s case) sign up for the app (fair to assume even fewer actually use the app?), can it still be effective?

And with all that juicy data out there, how long until that data finds its way into other hands, hands without the public good at heart?

The user also has a choice to share their location data with the public health department if they test positive, and any Bluetooth or GPS data is deleted after 30 days, Twenty said.

Good to know.

Some iPad Pro users complaining that the Magic Keyboard causes excessive battery drain

Written by

Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

A number of users are now airing their frustrations about battery life issues. A slice of Magic Keyboard owners are noticing that their iPad’s battery drops quickly when using the keyboard with the backlight enabled, and some reports indicate battery drain problems arise even when the iPad is idle and not in use.

I’ve seen a good number of people complain about this on Twitter. Hopefully, this is fixable with a software/firmware patch.

FBI serves warrant on Apple to obtain information from Senator’s iCloud account

Written by

Los Angeles Times:

Federal agents seized a cellphone belonging to a prominent Republican senator on Wednesday night as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into controversial stock trades he made as the novel coronavirus first struck the U.S., a law enforcement official said.

And:

The seizure represents a significant escalation in the investigation into whether Burr violated a law preventing members of Congress from trading on insider information they have gleaned from their official work.

On the Apple side:

A second law enforcement official said FBI agents served a warrant in recent days on Apple to obtain information from Burr’s iCloud account and said agents used data obtained from the California-based company as part of the evidence used to obtain the warrant for the senator’s phone.

I’m curious what part of Burr’s iCloud account the FBI got access to. Was it iCloud Drive? Was it iCloud backup (perhaps Burr’s backup was not set to be encrypted)?

From Apple’s iCloud security overview:

iCloud secures your information by encrypting it when it’s in transit, storing it in iCloud in an encrypted format, and using secure tokens for authentication. For certain sensitive information, Apple uses end-to-end encryption. This means that only you can access your information, and only on devices where you’re signed into iCloud. No one else, not even Apple, can access end-to-end encrypted information.

For a clue on what information might have been available to the FBI, take a look at Section III of Apple’s Legal Process Guidelines (H/T Mike Wuerthele, AppleInsider).

Bit of a rabbit hole there, but an interesting read. Seems clear the FBI got what they needed.

Apple plans to return more staff to offices in break from rivals

Written by

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. plans to soon start returning more employees to its major global offices while other tech companies are continuing work-from-home policies through at least the end of 2020 due to Covid-19.

And:

The first phase, which includes staff members who can’t work remotely or are facing challenges working from home, has already begun in some regions globally. It will expand to major offices across late May and early June, Apple has told staff.

See also, Twitter Will Allow Employees To Work At Home Forever.

Thirty-six thousand feet under the sea

Written by

Ben Taub, The New Yorker:

Past twenty-seven thousand feet, the pilot had gone beyond the theoretical limit for any kind of fish. (Their cells collapse at greater depths.) After thirty-five thousand feet, he began releasing a series of weights, to slow his descent. Nearly seven miles of water was pressing on the titanium sphere. If there were any imperfections, it could instantly implode.

And:

For the next hour, he explored the featureless beige sediment, and tried to find and collect a rock sample. Then the lights flickered, and an alarm went off. Vescovo checked his systems—there was a catastrophic failure in battery one. Water had seeped into the electronics, bringing about a less welcome superlative: the deepest-ever artificial explosion was taking place a few feet from his head.

If there were oxygen at that depth, there could have been a raging fire. Instead, a battery junction box melted, burning a hole through its external shell without ever showing a flame. Any instinct to panic was suppressed by the impossibility of rescue. Vescovo would have to come up on his own.

This was a riveting read, a ripping yarn.

Apple urges ambitious Chinese supplier to challenge Foxconn

Written by

Nikkei Asian Review:

Apple has advised one of its Chinese AirPods assemblers to make a major investment in an iPhone and MacBook metal casing provider, a move the California tech titan hopes will create a formidable alternative to another of its longtime suppliers, Taiwan’s Foxconn, multiple sources told the Nikkei Asian Review.

And:

The deal, if realized, would give Luxshare the ability to produce high-quality metal casing as well as access to smartphone assembly know-how, which would take it a step closer to becoming the Chinese version of Foxconn — a single company with operations that span nearly the entire electronics supply chain. Such a move could ultimately help Luxshare grab a share of iPhone production, which ships around 200 million units each year.

Good move to diversify the supply chain. Interesting that that diversification brings Apple deeper into China.

Second gen AirPods (not Pro) get new firmware

Written by

The AirPods Pro got their new firmware update last week. Now that same firmware version is rolling out to the second generation of the original AirPods.

To check your firmware, go to:

Settings > General > About > (Your AirPods)

Interestingly, my second gen AirPods grabbed that since-pulled 2C54 firmware update and have still not updated. No clue how long they’ll be stuck on 2C54 and there’s no way to force an update.

The amazing lever mechanism at the heart of the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard trackpad

Written by

iFixit updated their iPad Pro Magic Keyboard teardown with a look underneath the trackpad.

Take a minute, follow the headline link, scroll about halfway down the page to that GIF showing the innards of the trackpad, with a finger pressing the switch to show how it works.

What looks like multiple buttons in the X-ray is actually just one button and a simple, elegant lever system. The single button is at the center of the trackpad, where the mechanism is rigid. When you apply pressure near the center, whether top, middle, or bottom-center, you are directly pressing the button. Press near the top, bottom, or one of the corners, however, and the lever system comes into play, forcing the contact plate in the center upward to make a click happen.

To quote Phil Schiller, Can’t innovate anymore my ass!

All the gear that goes into capturing Google Street Views

Written by

This article popped up on Hacker News this morning, though it is dated December 20th. Glad it did. Fascinating read, with lots of photos of the various gear used to create Street View models.

I’d love a similar detailed look at Apple’s mapping gear.

Zoom in to the most detailed photo ever of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch

Written by

The Rijksmuseum:

The Rijksmuseum’s imaging team led by datascientist Robert Erdmann made this photograph of The Night Watch from a total of 528 exposures. The 24 rows of 22 pictures were stitched together digitally with the aid of neural networks. The final image is made up of 44.8 gigapixels (44,804,687,500 pixels), and the distance between each pixel is 20 micrometres (0.02 mm). This enables the scientists to study the painting in detail remotely. The image will also be used to accurately track any future ageing processes taking place in the painting.

Not quite as well known as the Mona Lisa, The Night Watch is still one of the great master paintings. Like the Mona Lisa, if you do get to see the painting in person, you are kept at enough of a distance away that it is impossible to truly see any of the detail.

With this hyper-resolution release, you now have the chance to see this painting up close. The detail is amazing. Check out the lace collar (the brightest center of the image), zoom in to first see the lace, then a bit more to appreciate the brush strokes that create the illusion of lace.

Amazing also is the smoothness of the interface. Scrolling is effortless, with no lag. Brilliant work.

Some of the world’s best cloud talent is assembling in an unlikely place: Apple

Written by

Protocol:

It’s getting cloudy over at Apple.

Nice little turn of phrase there, Tom Krazit!

A new book from BuzzFeed News’ Alex Kantrowitz reported that Apple’s internal engineering teams operate “in a state of tumult,” staffed by contractors from different firms that find themselves in constant conflict over resources and priorities. “Until Apple gives the division a hard look, its employees will be stuck spending their time reworking broken internal software, and wishing they were inventing instead,” he wrote.

The book in question is Always Day One, released April 7th.

In late 2018, Apple announced plans to invest $10 billion in data center construction over the next five years, adding capacity in Iowa alongside five existing data centers.

I’ve always wondered when Apple would follow their “own the entire stack” approach (that has seen them use their chip-design prowess to create and extend their hardware lead in the phone space) to wean themselves from dependence on Amazon’s cloud expertise as “one of AWS’ biggest customers”.

Looks like that day is arriving.

Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X

Written by

Apple:

Apple today unveiled a major update to Logic Pro X with a professional version of Live Loops, a completely redesigned sampling workflow, and new beat-making tools.

Just one example of the new tools Logic rolled out:

With Live Loops on the Mac, Logic users can now create music in new freeform and nonlinear ways. Loops, samples, and recordings can be organized into a new musical grid, where musicians can spontaneously perform and capture different arrangement ideas into the timeline.

And:

Logic Pro X has been optimized to take advantage of the latest Mac hardware and the power of macOS, delivering incredible performance when working with the most demanding projects with thousands of tracks and hundreds of real-time plug-ins.

If you use Logic Pro X, spend a few minutes reading Apple’s press release. There’s a lot of new stuff to play with. Better yet, jump to Apple’s Logic Pro page. There’s a ton to absorb.

Props to Apple for keeping this a free upgrade.

Side note: I wonder what is meant by “latest Mac hardware”? Does this include the new 13″ MacBook Pro? The picture in the release shows the Mac Pro, released last December. Hoping the optimizations apply to the later laptops too.

COVID-19: Which Apple Stores have reopened?

Written by

Michael Steeber has pulled together an interactive map of US Apple Store openings.

Follow the link above and uncheck the Temporarily Closed checkbox to see US Apple Stores reopening this week.

I asked, Michael said he’d keep updating the map over time, so bookmark the link if you’re interested. Anyone know of such a map for the rest of the world’s Apple Stores?

How to mirror your Apple TV to your Mac

Written by

Josh Centers, TidBITS:

A reader recently emailed me to ask how to mirror an Apple TV on a Mac. There are two main reasons you might want to do this: to capture screenshots or video for documentation, or so you can give a remote presentation that involves the Apple TV.

Interesting that the only requirement with the current model is that both your Apple TV and your Mac be on the same WiFi network.

The secrets behind the runaway success of Apple’s AirPods

Written by

Not sure there are a lot of secrets revealed here, but this is an interesting read.

A few callouts:

“It was almost like wildfire how quickly it spread,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of product marketing, says. “It’s done even better than we could ever imagine.”

And:

Compared with, say, the Apple Watch, which took years to gain momentum, AirPods are a much easier, and cheaper, product to market. “Everyone’s using a smartphone, and so therefore headphones,” says Neil Cybart, founder of Apple analyst firm Above Avalon, “whereas the younger demographic is moving away from wristwatches.”

And:

According to Joswiak, Apple “had a vision for our wireless future for many years” before the first AirPods were unveiled. “We had this incredible wireless product, the iPhone,” he says. “And yet, what began to feel odd is when you saw somebody using wired headphones. Right then you thought, why would you attach the wire?”

When was the last time you saw someone wearing old-school wired Apple EarPods? Apple got rid of the floppy/CD drives when they were still widely used. Same with the headphone jack. Looking back, the “courage” decision has turned into an unquestioned success for Apple.

Comparing the base 13-inch MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air

Written by

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

Apple recently updated the 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the $1,299 base model remains a popular alternative to the $999 MacBook Air. To help with your buying decision, read our comparison of the notebooks below.

This comes up a lot. Is it worth the extra $300 for the 13-inch MacBook Pro? Where’s the value?

If you are considering this question, dig in. Obviously, the choice depends on what you’ll be doing, and how much you care about the display, speakers, Touch Bar, speakers, processing speed. The article lays out the specifics.

Thunderbolt security vulnerabilities and the Mac

Written by

The linked Thunderbolt security report details 7 specific vulnerability scenarios. I can only imagine that Apple is long aware of these and will address them.

One in particular I found interesting is the weakness on Macs that run Boot Camp:

Apple supports running Windows on Mac systems using the Boot Camp utility. Aside from Windows, this utility may also be used to install Linux. When running either operating system, Mac UEFI disables all Thunderbolt security by employing the Security Level “None” (SL0). As such, this vulnerability subjects the Mac system to trivial Thunderbolt-based DMA attacks.

The way I read it, the vulnerabilities occur when a device is allowed to update its firmware. A Mac running Boot Camp disables Thunderbolt security and opens the door for attack. Here’s detail on the DMA attack.