Yesterday, we posted a few links to articles on taking screenshots on your Mac and, more specifically, how to eliminate the drop shadow when you take a screen grab of a window.
This morning, Kirk McElhearn wrote a complementary piece showing how to change where your screenshots are saved. Me, I like saving them on my desktop, the easier to drag them into my Twitter client.
Got into a nice Twitter discussion this morning about screen shot technique. Make your way through the responses for some solid tips.
The linked Tidbits article (from 2015 but still fresh) covers two important points: How to disable drop shadows for all screen shots as well as a really nice technique to add a border to a screenshot. Good stuff, worth a look.
UPDATE: This Useful Mac post is a great article that offers a bit more detail on screen shooting. Includes this super helpful hint when using ⌘⇧4 to take your screenshot. Press the spacebar to take a screenshot of a specific window, then hold option before clicking a window to eliminate the drop-shadow. [H/T Mark Boszko]
Nice set of tips from The App Factor.
Apple has announced that iOS 10.3, just released as a first beta, will automatically migrate your data to Apple File System (APFS). APFS is already part of macOS Sierra, but in a limited form.
Make a backup before you install the iOS 10.3 beta. And hop over to the main Loop post for some resources to learn more about APFS.
Mac King Fu:
Knowing how much a Mac has actually been used by its owner can be very useful if you’re buying pre-owned. A Mac three years old that’s been used very infrequently could be a better purchase than a two-year old Mac that’s been left running 24/7, for example.
While physical condition of the Mac gives a clue, you can garner some further clues by a little software probing. It’s not entirely accurate, and comes with substantial caveats, but could be worth a try.
Very interesting read. I definitely learned a few things about the myriad of data in the System Profile app. Useful if you are buying, also useful if you are selling.
Note that option-clicking on Apple > System Information… is a shortcut, bypassing the more traditional Apple > About This Mac menu item.
This is one of those posts that you file away, bookmark with future reference in mind. Nice job by Rob Griffiths.
[VIDEO] Stephen Hackett gives a bit of a guided tour through the Mac affectionately known as “The Cube”. I had one of these. Interesting design, innovative use of materials, a sign of the times at Apple. Click the main Loop post for the video.
Just a taste:
The Touch Bar’s accessibility support is bountiful. There is a lot of functionality built into that little strip, all of which makes using the Touch Bar easier. The one feature that stands out the most is Zoom. Zoom is where the magic happens, and it’s my favorite Touch Bar accessibility feature.
What Touch Bar Zoom (System Prefs → Accessibility → Zoom → Enable Touch Bar Zoom) does is bring up a virtual Touch Bar on the bottom of the screen when you touch anything on the Touch Bar. Slide your finger back and forth, and the Touch Bar (real and virtual) moves accordingly. A circle icon follows your movement that fills in (think: iOS app updates in App Store) when you select an option, but Apple tells me you don’t need to wait for it to fill completely to select an item. In practice, I find Touch Bar Zoom to work great; animation is smooth and there’s no no lag between moving through and selecting options.
Nice job, as always, by Steve Aquino. No one does detail like Apple.
This might seem a mundane, niche product announcement, but take a minute to read this post from Jeff Benjamin:
The 2016 MacBook Pro has endured criticism for its lack of I/O ports, but what that it does have — two or four Thunderbolt 3 ports based on your configuration — have lots of potential. For example, it’s now possible to connect an external GPU (eGPU) box via Thunderbolt 3 and tap into the power offered by a full-sized graphics card.
Imagine a box that offered the power and expandability of a Mac Pro that plugged into a port (or two) on your MacBook Pro.
You’d have the lightness and portability of a laptop and, arriving at your desk, you’d have a large display and the growling power of large, desktop class expansion cards, limited only by the transfer speeds of Thunderbolt 3. And Thunderbolt 3 is no slouch.
Interesting possibilities there.
Hope this isn’t the closest we come to the real thing.
Click through to the main Loop post for an amazing graphic from Steve Troughton-Smith.
Steve used a variety of emulators to emulate a huge representative range of Mac OSes, from System 2 through System 7.6.1, then Mac OS 8.6, then on to Rhapsody developer release 1 and so forth, ending with Yosemite.
Incredible!
Andy Ihnatko, writing about fake news:
I’ll use Apple as an example. They had a problem on their hands in the form of a deeply-negative Consumer Reports headline: “New MacBook Pros Fail to Earn Consumer Reports Recommendation.” CR had tested the new MacBook Pros and concluded that the battery life of all three models were insanely inconsistent.
Response Option 1: Apple calls the report “Fake News” and dismisses Consumer Reports as “failing, sad, and pathetic.” Next question.
Response Option 2: Apple disagrees with CR’s findings and tries to substantiate their results. An examination of CR’s testing methodology — done with the publication’s help — reveals no fudging, but identifies many quirks in the test protocol that probably contributed to a suspicious result.
Apple did exactly the right thing. If the original CR review was totally screwy, it shouldn’t be hard to demonstrate why, and Apple certainly has the resources to put in that kind of effort. Moreover, doing so indicates that they want to earn the trust of their customers, instead of demanding it.
And:
Apple emerges from all of this looking great, and everybody (Apple, Consumer Reports, and consumers) walks away with a better understanding of the issue.
This is exactly where the bar should be set. Truth seeking behavior.
See the main Loop post for a look at two thought experiments, one from Rob Rhyne (via John Gruber) and the other from Mark Hibber. Both quite interesting.
Good tutorial for folks new to the Mac.
Short answer:
There was no USB-C back in 2012 when Apple shipped Lightning on iPhone 5. It didn’t exist. The spec wasn’t even finalized until August of 2014.
But there’s more to this article. I especially appreciate the overlay showing the relative footprints of USB-A, USB-C, and Lightning.
Will the iPhone ever move to USB-C?
USB-C would require another port change for customers. Many people weren’t very happy with the last one, and Lightning was 10 years after Dock. It’s only been 5 years since Lightning. And in that time, with hundreds of millions of devices on the market, Lightning has become ubiquitous enough that everyone has it, typically in abundance.
Interesting that the Mac has made the first move, going all-in on USB-C. I wonder if there’s a prototype USB-C iPhone floating around an Apple campus somewhere.
Solid walkthough of the process of hunting down the largest files on your Mac. The old way was to use the Finder and construct a search based on file size. The modern way is to use the “About This Mac” storage tab to do all the heavy lifting for you.
Jonny Evans takes a short look at some noteworthy USB-C hubs. Of particular note is the HyperDrive kickstarter:
Announced last year, HyperDrive occupies two of your MacBook Pro’s four USB-C slots. In exchange, it provides you with twin USB 3.1 ports, a microSD and an SD slot, a single USB-C port (at 5Gbps), a Thunderbolt 3 port and HDMI video output. You can power two displays at 4K or a single display at 5K with this.
All this for only $69. Seems like a terrific solution, assuming it ships. Here’s the Kickstarter link.
Great post from Jeff Benjamin about the emerging 8K standard from VESA (They created the DisplayPort standard) and HDMI.
One particular point of interest:
One of the biggest takeaways is that HBR3 enables support of 4K at 60Hz using only two DisplayPort lanes. This means that DisplayPort Alt Mode via the USB-C interface can provide full 4K resolution at 60Hz, and still have two high-speed lanes remaining for SuperSpeed USB operation.
Why is this of note? Take the recently released LG UltraFine 4K Display, for example. That display takes advantage of DisplayPort Alt Mode, but the remaining downstream USB ports are forced to use antiquated USB 2.0 due to the lack of bandwidth. HBR3 would solve such an issue.
And:
To be fair, this isn’t exactly new, as DisplayPort 1.3, which was ratified in September 2014, also includes HBR3. VESA thereafter rolled HBR3 into DisplayPort 1.4. Unfortunately the Thunderbolt 3-enabled MacBook Pros and the 12-inch MacBook still rely on the HBR2-laden DisplayPort 1.2 for external display connectivity.
Fascinating stuff.
Three ways to speed up your Mac, all via Terminal and the defaults write command. Good stuff from Rob Griffiths.
Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:
Interviews with people familiar with Apple’s inner workings reveal that the Mac is getting far less attention than it once did. They say the Mac team has lost clout with the famed industrial design group led by Jony Ive and the company’s software team. They also describe a lack of clear direction from senior management, departures of key people working on Mac hardware and technical challenges that have delayed the roll-out of new computers.
Combine this with Tim Cook’s response to employees in an internal memo:
“Some folks in the media have raised the question about whether we’re committed to desktops,” Cook wrote. “If there’s any doubt about that with our teams, let me be very clear: we have great desktops in our roadmap. Nobody should worry about that.”
It’s not that I am worried. It’s more that I recognize that Macs are in the back seat now. Especially the Mac Pro.
Letting the Mac Pro languish is shortsighted thinking. As I’ve said many times, Apple developers are foundational to Apple’s success. Inside Apple, developers are building the secret future. Outside Apple, developers are building the apps, macOS and iOS, that bring life and revenue to the ecosystem. Make sure those developers have the best tools possible so they can do their work efficiently and effectively.
And don’t let elegant design be a bottleneck for the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro need not be retail store pretty. Just make it powerful as can be, let me add memory and drives, swap out video cards, VRAM, GPUs, SSDs and the like for third party options, and get it to me ASAP. It can be ugly or plain, just not loud. As long as it runs the latest macOS and is compatible with all the major power tools, like Final Cut Pro, Logic, ProTools, Xcode, Photoshop, etc.
Steve Hackett, 512 Pixels, posted a link to an upcoming collectible figure, the 3D printed Macinbot Classic.
If you are into collectible figures, take a look. There’s a reasonably detailed model of the Macintosh Classic, circa 1990, along with a font briefcase and a pet mouse. All very cute.
But the story behind the actual Macintosh Classic makes fascinating reading. The Macintosh Classic came along after Steve Jobs’ ousting, with Apple trying to find their path, exploring both openness (via the Mac II) and low cost (via the Macintosh Classic).
This is all laid out pretty well on the Macintosh Classic Wikipedia page.
I had no idea. I have to say, that really is one ugly Mac. That said, ugly is in the eye of the beholder.
Nice collection of problems with solutions from Mac Kung Fu. Bookmark and pass along.
Zac Hall, writing for 9to5Mac, details his three weeks of experience with his 15 inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro. Zac really puts his machine through its paces and focuses on the details. Definitely worth the read if you are considering a Touch Bar Mac.
[VIDEO]: I love this video. Fascinating to see the original version of each of these features, watch each evolve. Nice find by Stephen Hackett.
Jeff Porten, TidBITS:
If you’re using or considering buying one of the new MacBook Pro models with the Touch Bar (see “New MacBook Pros Add Context-sensitive Touch Bar,” 27 October 2016), be aware that some people are seeing their machines shut down repeatedly and unexpectedly. The problem might be with external hard drives connected via Thunderbolt 3’s USB-C ports, which is, of course, the only way to connect them.
I began researching this after I was unable to copy a large number of files from one external USB drive to another using my new MacBook Pro. The copy was going to take a long time regardless, but when I came back to check on its status, my laptop was powered off and I had to start it up again manually. Restarting the copy additional times resulted in similar shutdowns.
In my case, I was presented with an error message telling me about the shutdown, with the messages “CPU Machine Check Architecture Error Dump” and “CATERR detected! No MCA data found” in the highly technical error report that automatically gets sent to Apple.
Hopefully, this issue, as well as the graphics glitching issue reported yesterday, is a sign of early days with a new architecture, and will be resolved either with a software update (best possible solution) or a design fix (with some repair path for early adopters).
Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note:
In 1984, the Mac’s software engine, which included an AppleTalk network stack and a LaserWriter driver, ran on a single Motorola 68000 CPU and needed just 32K of ROM and 128K of RAM.
And:
Today, macOS is a fully-grown computer operating system, pleasant, fast, flexible. But it’s also enormous — RAM and disk storage requirements are measured in gigabytes — and it isn’t exactly bug-free. An ex-Apple acquaintance recently told me there are something like 10,000 “open” bugs on an on-going basis. The number that are urgent is, of course, a fraction of the gamut, but like any mature operating system, macOS has become a battlefield of patch upon patch upon patch.
And:
When the Apple smartphone project started, the key decision was the choice of software engine. Should Apple try to make a ‘lite’ version of OS X (as it was then known)? Go in a completely new direction?
[Note that Jean-Louis was the founder and CEO of Be, Inc.]
And:
It appears that a new direction may have been tempting. At the time that Apple’s smartphone project began, an Apple employee and former Be engineer offered Palm Inc. $800K for a BeOS “code dump” — just the code, no support, no royalties. The engineer was highly respected for his skill in mating software to unfamiliar hardware; BeOS was a small, light operating system; draw your own conclusion… Palm, which had purchased Be a few years before that, turned him down. (I learned this when I was asked to become Chairman of PalmSource, Palm’s software spinoff)
Wow. I had not heard this bit before.
I could go on with the excerpts, but you really should read this piece for yourself. Terrific writing from someone who lived at the intersection of Apple and history.
Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:
Since new MacBook Pro models launched last month, an increasing number of early adopters have reported serious graphics issues on Apple’s latest notebooks. The glitches and other problems appear to be most prevalent on built-to-order 15-inch models, but standard 13-inch and 15-inch configurations are also affected.
One owner, Jan Becker, reports:
Apple called me from Cupertino. They put together a group of engineers to get to the root of this. I re-created the incident while I was on the phone with them and sent them the log files of the crash. They also want to “capture” my MacBook Pro with all the files on it to investigate more.
I love this response by Apple. Though they appear silent, they really do throw everything they have at a problem to get to the heart of it. They take this very seriously.
In a possibly related note, ZDNet’s David Gewirtz wrote about switching from the high end 15″ dual-GPU model to a 13″ single-GPU MacBook Pro:
It’s pretty interesting how the dual GPU architecture is supposed to work. Part of the time, the lower power, but also lower-performing, on-chip Intel HD 530 graphics processor is used. When crunch time comes, the Radeon Pro 460 with 4 GB of video RAM kicks in and pounds pixels onto the screen.
I’ve used this dual GPU architecture before. About four years ago, I bought the most powerful Windows laptop I could find, a beast of a Sager. It had a dGPU configuration.
When it worked, it was breathtakingly fast. When it worked.
Over the 18 months or so that machine was my main machine, I had constant driver problems. The GeForce GTX 670M didn’t always run properly. The on-chip Intel video driver wouldn’t properly change settings. System hangs and freezes attributable to driver conflicts were a regular occurrence. It was maddening.
It’s not clear that the dual GPU design is behind this wave of glitches. Reportedly, some of the glitches occur on a 13-inch single-GPU model. But most of the issues seem to occur on the 15-inch dual-GPU model.
Regardless, an interesting problem. Hoping Apple shares the details on the cause, once they figure it out.
Have a USB-C based Mac? Considering a possible purchase? If so, you’ll likely want a USB-C hub, a cheaper solution than the dongles a hub will replace.
Cody Lee, writing for iDownloadBlog takes a look at a number of USB-C hubs he recommends. Take a look.
Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note:
There’s more to the Mac’s future than its current good numbers. After enjoying a good time in the sun, the Mac is on the same downward slope as the rest of the PC market.
What do you do when your business is part of a declining world? Do you decrease prices to gain market share? Bad idea, this is the PC clone makers’ race to the bottom, a game in which everyone loses as products become commoditized, undifferentiated, and, ultimately, worthless.
Jean-Louis explores the possibility of a last Mac, as the market abandons the PC and settles for good on touch screen phones and tablets. I’m a hardcore Mac user, and i don’t see such a product (even enhanced by 3rd party add-ons) that would provide an experience superior to my Mac.
That said, I would not bet against such a product eventually arriving. If I had an iOS device that had the right keyboard and pointing device (so I could keep my hands on the keyboard, with a touchpad in thumb or finger’s reach), one that ran all my biggest apps and fully supported software development, a device that allowed me to extend my desktop with add-on displays that allowed for big code listings and image editing views, that’s something that would definitely offer me a reason to make the switch.