shownotes_20131117

Opening
  Opening Music
    Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
    Mandaandthemarbles.com
Sponsor: Lynda.com
  Lynda.com
    I'm so happy to have Lynda.com as a new sponsor on the Maccast
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    Over the years I've used Lynda.com to keep up my skills as a designer and a developer
    I think one of the greatest things about the site is that you have access to an incredible depth of training in all kinds of categories
    There's over 2,000 different courses, with new courses added daily.
    I've used it to brush up on my Photoshop skills, learn new tricks in OS X, and to learn new programming languages.
      But they offer courses in business software, 3D, video, audio, you name it.
    And one low monthly price of just $25 give you access to the entire catalog.
    Courses are broken up into smaller chunks so you can learn at your own pace and on your own time
      It even keeps track of what you've watched and where your at, so you can do an entire course at once or in pieces if you don't have a lot of time.
    Another thing I appreciate is the quality of the instructors. They are some of the best in their respective fields.
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    They have recently added new courses on OS X Mavericks including one by Macworld's Chris Breen
    I really want you to check it out, so we have a deal for you. You can get free trial access to the entire library just by going to lynda.com/maccast.
      There you'll find out out all the details about the service and the various services and plans they offer.
      I've also had they add some links to some course that might be of particular interest to you as a Maccast listeners.
      So get started with your free trial at L-Y-N-D-A dot com forward slash MacCast today
News
  The Retina mini rolled out quietly
    In a very odd move on Tuesday after I recorded the last Maccast, Apple soft launched the iPad mini
    Since then availability has been seriously constrained, but you can seem to get one if you want it in most places.
    You might have to do some digging, but Apple will help a bit.
      The website will let you check available inventory in store (at least in the US and UK)
      After closing time I think is the best time to check and reserve for in-store pickup next day
    Most feel that Apple did the strange "secret" midnight roll out to better manage demand because they have not been able to produce nearly enough units to meet the estimated demand
      By not publicly announcing the devices release in advance only really die hard Apple watchers were aware of the products availability on launch day.
      Since then obviously word has spread.
    They main theory behind the inventory constraints is that Apple's suppliers are having a hard time with production yields on the iPad mini's Retina Displays
      It has the same pixel density as the iPhone 5s at 326 ppi.
      Apple is supposedly using multiple suppliers to try and boost demand and last time I think I told you about the rumor that Apple might turn back to Samsung in 2014 to get even more displays to keep up.
    All of Apple's display suppliers are reportedly having trouble, but specifically we're hearing that the Sharp IGZO panels are particularly troublesome.
      I had read a report that supposedly Apple was rejecting a large number of Sharp panels because they displayed "burn in" issues, but the reports I read were that the burn in was not perceptible to the human eye. Still the panels did not meet Apple's standards.
      This week Instapaper developer Marco Arment reported that his Retina iPad mini has signs of bun in in his tests.
      He posted a web page that has a black and white checkerboard pattern that you display for several minutes and then switch to a grey screen to see if your display shows signs of burn in.
      Since he posted many sites and sources are running the tests and the issue doe seem to be mostly isolated.
      Even the images Marco posted show a very faint sign of the issue and the effect does supposedly fade out.Some displays seem to be worse than others.
      If you do have an effected display, you should take the unit back to Apple for replacement, and if possible test the new unit in store before you accept it if you can.
    iFixit did their typical teardown and there were few, but not no, surprises
      Inside it's basically an iPad Air, but scaled down
      The A7 processor runs at a slightly lower 1.3GHz clock speed vs. the iPad Air's 1.4 GHz
      The one big surprise was a much larger battery. 24.3WHrs vs the 16.3WHr battery of the original iPad mini. The run time remains close to the same, so I assume all that extra juice is mostly used to drive all those extra pixels.
  Developers get OS X Mavericks update
    Apple has seeded the first OS X Mavericks update, 10.9.1 to developers.
    Identified as "build 13B27", it's pre-release software meant for developer testing.
    Because of Apple's developer NDAs there aren't a lot of details, but we do know that Apple wants testers to focus their efforts on Mail, Graphics, and VoiceOver.
    No word on when we might see the update released to consumers, but when it comes out it will be the first point release OS X Mavericks update.
    Last week Apple did push out a minor "patch" to address issues with Mail in Mavericks, but that release only changed the build number.
  Apple issues iOS 7.0.4 update
    Apple also released their 4th update to iOS 7
    iOS 7.0.4 was released and specifically mentioned fixing an issue that caused FaceTime calls to fail for some users.
    In addition the update is said to contain additional bug fixes and improvements.
    Along with the 7.0.4 update the Apple TV also received an update to version 6.0.2. There were no obvious new features and the release notes simple state, "Includes general performance and stability improvements."
  Apple might be acquiring PrimeSense
    iMore is reporting that it looks like Apple might be just a few days away from finalizing a deal to acquire PrimeSense
    PrimeSense is an Israeli technology sensor company. They actually developed the 3D visual sensor system that was originally used in Microsoft's XBox connect product
    The companies technology can map out 3D environments and track movements of bodies, faces and facial expressions. That data can then be used to do all sorts of things from facial recognition to gesture control.
    Rumors of the acquisition began floating around last July and now seem to be heating up again.
    Back then the rumors placed Apple's cost to acquire the company at $280 million although now they are saying the deal could be worth $345 million.
    As for what Apple would do with the technology? You're imagination is as good as mine, but we had already heard rumors of an Apple TV with gesture controls.
    Applications for iOS and Macs also seem interesting, especially fro things like gaming.
    I would also imagine that Apple has many ideas that we haven't even thought of yet.
    Tim Cook said at the D11 conference, "The whole sensor field is going to explode. It’s a little all over the place right now. With the arc of time, it will become clearer."
    PrimeSense would be a nice stick of dynamite in Apple's sensor technology portfolio.
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    It makes it super easy to scan documents in high quality right on your iOS device
    It's quick and easy and has the tools you need to get the images in fast and looking good
    You shoot the picture with the camera in the app or you can import from your camera roll, or your favorite cloud service
    Scans are automatically cropped, sized to standard paper sizes, and visually enhanced for legibility.
      You can also manually adjust them for the best quality
      Save in color, greyscale or text
    Now you have a high quality scan on your device that is a PDF.
    You can send it to PDFpen for further editing, email it, print it
      You can also put it in iCloud, open it in another app, or send it to Dropbox, Evernote, Box, Alfresco, and Google Drive.
      There is also export for iTunes, FTP, and WebDAV
    That alone would be awesome, but the best part? You can OCR the document
      It highlights as it scans
      Embeds the OCR data making your PDF searchable
      Plus, you can copy the OCR'd text and paste into other apps, emails, etc.
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Feedback, commentary, opinions
  Help with Shuffle by Genre
    On the last show we brought up an issue in iOS 7's Music app that it was tricky to get the player to shuffle music by genre.
    In that show a listener had discovered a workaround that involved using the search feature to get the results he wanted
    After that episode many of you wrote in to tell me that there is an easier way.
    Play comment from Walt
    Obviously the one caveat to this is that you do need to have a device that supports Siri, but still a great tip.
  Fixing some annoying OS X Mavericks bugs
    At startup Michael was getting an error message about his Keychain
      "com.apple.internetaccounts.xpc wants to use "Mike" keychain. Please enter keychain password."
      Entering it would get past this, but on the next reboot it would show up again.
      I found the solution on an Apple discussion board
      Basically you have to reset the Keychain.
      1) Go into Keychain Access
      2) From the Menu, selected Keychain Access then Preferences
      3) Under General clicked on "Reset My Default Keychain"
      4) Entering your user password it will remove your user keychain and rebuilt it.
      You'll need to re-enter all your saved passwords after that, but it should resolve the issue.
    I was having an issue with any iCloud saved documents in the new Pages.
      I could create new documents, but the next time I would try to open them I would get an error simply saying that Pages could not open the file.
      The answer there was that I had to completely log out of iCloud on my Mac and log back in.
      System Preferences > iCloud. Then log out.
      It will give you several warnings. I choose the leave local copies of things like my Contacts, etc. on my Mac and all seemed to be fine.
      Once I logged back in I was able to use Pages with iCloud saved files just fine.
  Apple can't find your Tweet Peeps
    Play comment from Todd
    I haven't confirmed this, but I think the issue is that the search results that Apple uses comes from your Contacts and not a search of Twitter's users database
    On the Mac in the 'Internet Accounts' (Mail, Contacts, and Calendars pre-Mavericks), in the Twitter account you can use the 'Update Contacts' feature
      This will scan you contacts and import any matching Twitter usernames for your contacts, based on email address.
    When you are then searching in the Share Sheet, I think it uses this data to try and suggest Twitter names when you're typing an @username.
    If they are not in your Contacts, even if they are a valid Twitter username, it won't show up.
    That's why I often avoid the Apple 'Share' option for tweets and just use a dedicated client like Tweetbot.
  Email with MacSparky
    Our friend David Sparks from Mac Power Users has just released the 4th book in his Mac Sparky Field Guide series and this time it's all about Email.
    Of course you can get your copy on the iBookstore now, but I figured I just get David on the show to talk to us about the new book and maybe give us a sneak peek and some tips.
    Play interview with David.
Closing
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