shownotes_20140807

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    Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
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News
  Latest on the iPhone 6
    An alleged "iPhone 6" logic board from the French site, Nowhereelse.fr.
      Shows a mainboard, with no actual chips attached, but the poster claims it will have a NFC chip and a 802.11ac Wi-Fi module
      The 802.11 rumors was echoed in a VentureBeat piece.
    Where’s the sapphire?
      VentureBeat, also claims Apple is holding off on Sapphire this time around.g
      A report, coming from the site LEDinside claims that industry Sapphire ingot production is down this year and that mean there is nowhere near enough Sapphire for Apple to produce screens for the iPhone 6
      Seemingly backing up the report are other rumors that so far Sapphire displays have seemingly not shipped to assembly partners in China for production. They would need to be on the way to meet
      The rumored "not-quite 100%" Sapphire display shown in videos recently may have been a newer form of Gorilla glass
      There is some hope though. AppleInsider points out that, it is unclear if the report considers Apple's new Arizona sapphire plant or whether they only looked at existing sapphire suppliers.
      And TMO reports that PTT Research analyst Matt Margolis might know why things are so confused
        We had heard that GT Advanced Technologies had just 120 furnaces producing Sapphire in January, but now has 2,600
        The analyst also discovered that GTAT has banked $154 million in deferred revenue over the past several quarters.
        His speculation is that money is tied up in a 2-year sapphire hoard that they will sell to Apple.
    Different processors in the 4.7-inch vs. 5.5-inch designs.
      This is my worst nightmare
      Cowen & Co. analyst Timothy Arcuri claims supply chain checks tell him this scenario might just be the case.
      He says the bigger phone will get a bigger badder A8, but gives no specific details on the differences.
      He also claims clock-speed might not be the only difference, saying that the bigger phone’s chip will use a bigger die.
        That could mean a different graphics processor or possibly a new process for the fabrication of the chip.
      The A8 spec rumors we have heard have pointed to a 2GHz dual-core with 2GB of RAM
    Battery could be bigger than we thought
      Last month there were images and reports of a 1,801 mAh battery
        Only slightly bigger than the 1,560 mAh battery currently found in the iPhone 5s.
      The Chinese site, GforGames, claims the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 will actually have a 2,100 mAh battery.
      While good news that we all want to hear, the source is "sketchy" at best.
    New design leak with protruding camera lens
      Feld & Volk iPhone repair site claims to have a a completed iPhone 6 rear shell
      Show slightly recessed volume button cutouts from what we’ve seen previously
      An embedded metal, not light up, Apple logo piece that they say is very scratch resistant and speculate could be Liquidmetal alloy.
      And a protruding camera lens (yuck).
    As for when we’ll get a look at the new iPhone 6?
      Several reliable sources this week claim that September 9th will be the day of the announcement.
      The date first surfaced from Re/Code and then was quickly "confirmed" by both The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg .
  Slightly refreshed MacBooks
    Apple posted an minor update to it’s MacBook Pro with Retina display models last week.
    Basically you get a 200MHz processor bump across the entire line
    The entry level models now also have double the RAM standard. The 13-inch base model now has 8GB and the 15-inch version now comes with 16GB.
    Apple also price dropped the top of the line 15-inch with the discreet NVIDIA graphics by $100. Pricing on the other models remains the same.
    You can also still get the 13-inch non-Retina model, but now at a reduced price of $1,099 down $100 bucks.
    A GeekBench 3 result for the entry-level 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro indicates that the new machine is eight percent faster than the entry-level 2013 Retina MacBook Pro.
    As intel has been delaying the release of it’s next gen "Broadwell" chips it’s not surprising that Apple has opted to continue to give minor speed bumps and price drops to the lineup until they can properly refresh the line.
    Not long after Apple posted the Macbook updates a "mid 2014" Mac mini reference was discovered in an Apple support document for Boot Camp.
      The reference is now gone and so far nothing seems to have come in the way of a Mac mini update, though it’s WAY overdue.
      The Mac Observer points out that the last bump to the Mac mini was October 2012, more than 640 days ago. Currently the average number of days for Apple to take between Mac updates is around 373 days.
    Right after the mini slip, a French site found another nonexistent updated Mac reference.
      This time it was a mid-2014 iMac in a chart detailing which versions of Microsoft Windows are compatible with Apple hardware.
    You can’t read too much into these slips as, especially with tables, it could simply be a copy paste error. Still at the same time incremental bumps would be nice and could help boost sales going as Apple finishes out the year.
  Apple TV channels continue to expand
    Apple added FOX Now and CNBC channels
      As is typical content is limit if you don’t already have access to the cable versions of the channels.
    Channel updates might be all we get for a while
      Earlier this year we had lots of speculation of a pending Apple TV hardware update
      Gaming and motion controls were said to be a big part of the upgrade plan, but all those rumors seemed to peter out after WWDC
      Now were hearing not to expect anything until 2015. Why? Our good friends the content providers. Oh NO, they would never complicate things and gum up the works.
      The report says ongoing contractual issues with cable companies and Comcast's pending purchase of Time Warner Cable has put a kink in any update coming any time soon
      Sources in the television industry, of course, have denied that cable companies are behind the delay. They claim Apple plans are a bit too ambitious and they have simply "bitten off more than they can chew," needing permission from too many different rights holders to "create the service they wants to offer."
      These kinds of statements on both sides seem to me to give some credibility to long ago rumors that Apple wants to create a subscription TV service that offers an alternative to cable.
      But we’ve also had rumors that Apple wanted to partner with cable providers for content, so who knows.
  Production delays for iWatch
    KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo in a note to his investors said he believe Apple will push back production of the "iWatch" from September to the second half of November.
    That could mean that Apple sells significantly fewer units in 2014.
    Some reports have said Apple could sell between 5 to 10 million units in 2014, now Quo feels that number could fall to just 3 million units this year.
    Kuo also thinks not all the units will use Sapphire glass because of production "bottlenecks".
Feedback, commentary, opinions
  Use a PC with Target Display Mode
    Scott is looking to upgrade his iMac and wants to know if he could use 'Target Display Mode' with the new model to use it as a display for his work PC from time to time.
    For those who aren’t familiar "Target Display Mode" was a feature Apple added to the iMac in 2009.
      People wanted to be able to use their iMacs display as a display for other computers and devices
      With an adapter going into the Mini Display port on the iMac in Target Display Mode you could connect Display Port, DVI, or even HDMi sources.
    You can use the feature with any Mac that has a built in display, so a MacBook Pro could also be used as a display for another Mac.
    To enable Target Display Mode:
      Connect the two Mac via their Mini-Display ports or Thunderbolt ports
      Make sure both computers are turned on and awake.
      Press Command (⌘)-F2 on the keyboard of the external display computer.
      If you want the external display Mac to play audio as well as video from the primary Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Sound, then click Output. Select the external display Mac in the list of devices.
    To turn off Target Display Mode press Command (⌘)-F2 on the keyboard of the external display Mac.
    So that’s cool and all, but Scott needs to know if it will work with his PC which doesn’t have Thunderbolt.
    The answer there is 'no' and not because it’s a PC. The issue is actually Thunderbolt.
    Even though Thunderbolt is Mini Display Port compatible, it uses a Mini-Display port connector, it’s different
      Because the connection doesn’t carry just the display signal it also carries data I/O
    This means that a Thunderbolt Mac CAN be used in Target Display Mode, but only for sources that are also using Thunderbolt.
      Older Macs and non-Thunderbolt sources like PCs, game consoles, etc. will not work.
      If you had an older Mini-Display Port model iMac though, it would work. Even for the PC and even if it’s output was DVI or HDMI using the appropriate adapter to Mini Display Port.
    So Scott I think your answer might be to pick up an inexpensive LCD monitor as a display for your work PC. Goodness is that could also be used as a second monitor with your new iMac using the right Thunderbolt adapter.
    If you really want to use the Macs display as a monitor for your PC you may have one more option
      Screen Recycler
      It uses VNC to mirror the display over the network.
      Performance might not be that great so could only be a solution if your PC tasks are simple. No video editing, games, etc.
  iTunes, NAS drives, and RAID
    This week I had a couple of listener questions that I felt were a little outside my own experiences.
    One question was about using iTunes with a NAS and the other about RAID drives, specifically a Synology RAID.
    I don’t have personal experience with NAS or RAID so I called for some backup.
    Dave Hamilton hosts the Mac Geek Gab podcast at The Mac Observer each week and I happen to know he’s worked with NAS drives and has a Synology RAID, so I asked for some help on these next could questions.
    Play segment with Dave.
  iOS Folders without a name
    Andrew emailed me to show off a cool way to organize your apps.
    Since many of us have some many apps and, if your like me, you typically use Spotlight to find and launch the apps. Then folders with categories aren’t really necessary.
    And if that’s the case why not do something fun with your apps.
    Andrew organized his into folders, but by icon color.
      So a folder of red icon apps, one of orang, one of yellow, blue, etc.
    But if you do that then you probably don’t need or want category labels below the folder.
    But iOS requires a category. Some have just entered a "period" but then you have a little "dot" under each folder.
    Luckily Andrew found a little "bug" that solves this issue and oddly it’s the "Starbucks" App.
    If you take the Starbucks app and drop it on another app to create a folder it will create that folder without a name. I tried it and it works.
    You don’t even need to keep the Starbucks app on your device. Just download it, use it to create your nameless folders, then remove it.
  Get Presentations
    Our friend David Sparks has generously given us 5 free copies of his new MacSparky Field Guide book, "Presentations"
    It is and awesome iBook covering everything you need to know about creating and giving great Keynotes and presentations.
    The first five people to send me an email with the subject line "Present Me Presentations Please" will get a code for a free copy.
    I will be a stickler about the directions here. The subject line needs to be exact, "Present Me Presentations Please"
    If you don’t get a code back within a few days, that means you didn’t win, but consider buying the book. It’s just $9.99 on the iBook Store
Closing
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