shownotes_20220403

Opening
  Pre-roll: Coda
    This episode of the Maccast is brought to you by Coda. More on them later in the show.
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News
  Weak sales for iPhone SE
    Citing unnamed sources Nikkei Asia says Apple is already cutting production on the recently updated version of the iPhone SE due to lower than expected demand
    The report claims Apple is asking it’s suppliers to cut back up two to three million units for this quarter
    Ming Chi Kuo also lowered his predictions on iPhone SE sales for 2022. Taking it down from 25 to 30 million units to 15 to 20 million units as a result of lower demand.
    Apple also has reportedly lowered production on the iPhone 13, but that is normal due to where we are in the current iPhone cycle.
    Could it be that consumers are done with an iPhone that still features older tech even if it’s at a lower price?
      Home button, Touch ID, single camera?
      What about the size? Is 4.7-inches too small now?
      The iPhone mini is also reportedly on the way out this year… so maybe 6.1 inches is the new “small” phone size?
      Would be nice if maybe Apple could somehow make the iPhone Mini the “new” SE bringing the features and size of the mini at a lower price. Maybe bot $429.00, but maybe $499.00 (instead of $699)? Might be a tall ask? Maybe if they drop to a single camera lens and lower the storage to the SE sizes (64, 128, and 256)?
    The same report also claimed Apple was cutting production of AirPods by 10 million units, but that was contradicted by Ming Chi Kuo in a tweet where he said suppliers Luxshare Precision & GoerTek denied that claim.
  Continued Maps improvements
    Apple seems to have sent it’s ground teams off around London, Manchester, and Birmingham in the UK in an effort to further refine Maps and features like Look Around.
    They’re using humans with the specially designed Apple “backpacks” to gather map data in Berkshire, Greater London, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands, across over 85 specific towns and boroughs.
    The surveys are currently ongoing and will run through May 20th
    Apple Maps in the US will be able to provide better real-time roadway hazard information thanks to an integration with the Safety Cloud from HAAS Alert that was announced this week
      Drivers approaching emergency vehicles, incident responders, work zones, and other hazards on the road sourced by Safety Cloud will receive an alert in Apple Maps, giving them advance warning of a potential safety issue ahead.
      Hopefully Apple can also fix the feature that asks you to confirm if a road hazard has cleared, so that it actually asks you when you are actually at the location if the hazard rather than up to a mile or so away.
  Reports of Apple TV+ “growing pains”
    I have to imagine for a tech company to grow into a global entertainment company it’s not easy. I would expect that there would be bumps in the road.
    Apple TV+ seems to have done amazingly well, at least from the outside, and a lot is probably due to some amazing hiring and recruiting efforts of key Hollywood players early on.
    Still… this week Business Insider ran an article citing some “growth” issues within Apple’s entertainment group
    The piece hints that the Apple TV+ content division is understaffed and there are issues in some of the content rollouts
      The story calls out marketing and publicity as one areas in particular that sees to have been struggling
    They report claims there are management issues due to lack of resources and the burnout rate is high because of massive demands on employee resource
    Not only that, but supposedly some potentially serious mistakes are being made including one incident where a show supposedly began streaming before a contract had been signed.
    The pandemic delays also seems to have caused extra stain because many projects are now having to run simultaneously further straining Apple’s staff
    Apple seems to be wanting to do more and more in-house vs farming projects out to studios and that could put even more strain on their resources.
    Despite what the report claims I have to imagine, if any of these claims are even true, that this is an issue that Apple is more than capable of handling.
    Whatever Apple’s content teams are doing it seems to be working and I think for consumers any of the supposed “growing pains” are not showing themselves.
    So far Apple TV+ has been maintaining the rumored 2022 goal of releasing a new premium series or film every Friday in 2022
    Not only that, but the quantity over quality strategy seems to be bringing in some dividends
      Apple’s film Coda won three Oscars, including Best Picture (the first for ANY streaming service). They also got awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Screenplay
      Apple TV+ has more than 250 wins in award ceremonies and almost 1,000 nominations in just two years
      And it’s estimated that Apple TV+ subscription revenue nearly doubled year over year to an estimated 2.2 billion according to Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi
      Plus some recent numbers put Apple TV+’s US paid subscriber base at about 12 million
    And of course Apple continues to grow that quality content this week we had a couple big Apple TV+ announcements
      First a new series called, Dark Matter, based on a popular book of the same name by Blake Crouch
        The series will star Joel Edgerton and will follow his character Jason Dessen who is abducted one night while walking home on the streets of Chicago and pulled into an alternate version of his life.
        The book is a hugely popular sci-fi title and has been called one of the “best sci-fi novels of the decade”, so I’m sure fans will be excited to see this coming to Apple TV+
      Then a new film set during the space race with many details being kept secret according to Deadline
        What’s not secret is that the film will start Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans and be directed and executive produced by Jason Bateman
        Seems like the title (or maybe working title) is Project Artemis and Apple reportedly paid more than $100M to secure the film.
        Johansson and Evans also had another film project for Apple TV+ called “Ghosted”, but Johansson had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Ghosted is still filming but Ana de Arma stepped in to take on Johansson’s role.
        Johansson is also starring in and producing the film “Bride” for Apple TV+
    Apple’s first live sports on Apple TV+ are also likely to help their numbers.
      Staring April 8th Apple will air two Friday Night MLB Baseball games weekly
      Not only that but the games for the first 12-weeks will be available for free even if you don't have an Apple TV+ subscription.
      The games are available in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom
  Apple wants Apple Pay in-house
    Bloomberg is reporting that Apple has a multiyear plan to try and reduce their reliance on financial partners like Goldman Sachs
    They claim Apple is developing in-house processing technology through a project codenamed “Breakout”
    They are working on services for not only processing, but lending risk assessment, fraud analysis, credit checks, and dispute handling along with tools for calculating interest, rewards, approving transactions, reporting data to credit bureaus, increasing credit limits, and more.
    It’s looking like Apple’s first solo financial product might be a “Pay in 4” payment option for Apple Pay called (surprise) "‌Apple Pay‌ in 4”.
      It would be part of a larger delayed payments offering called "‌Apple Pay‌ Later” which will likely have a an option for long-term payment plans called "‌Apple Pay‌ Monthly Installments."
      While Apple will likely run the "‌Apple Pay‌ in 4” piece in-house the longer term financing would probably still be handled by a partner like Goldman Sachs
    Controlling their own destiny may also be the key for Apple taking features like Apple Card and Apple Cash international since those offerings currently rely on partners who are focused in the US and finding international partners can be a slow process.
    It’s likely all of this ties into other recent rumors about Apple possibly offering a subscription service for their hardware
  Under-screen tech in flux?
    Ming Chi-Kuo seems to be waffling on his predictions on the future of “under-screen” tech for future iPhones
    In a tweet the analyst rolled back earlier predictions that Apple would have at least one model of iPhone with under-screen TouchID by 2023
    The tweet seems to indicate Apple now has less interest in a TouchID solution to compliment FaceID now that they have FaceID with masks working
    Still both Kuo and display analyst Ross Young are now predicting that Apple will have and under-display FaceID solution soon.
      Kuo says by 2023 and Young by 2024
    Regardless if you been expecting or hoping for the return of TouchID to any of Apple’s flagship models that is seeming to be less and less likely
    And speaking of screens… we continue to hear rumors of Apple exploring the possibility of foldable displays for future products
      This week it’s from The Elec who says Apple is working with LG on a foldable OLED panel that actually has an ultra-thin cover glass
      The panels that LG has been developing are larger sizes so it’s believed the first products with the tech from Apple may be an iPad or MacBook.
      The Elec report didn’t comment on size, but Ming-Chi Kuo claimed Apple is “actively testing” a 9-inch foldable device.
      Kup thinks Apple’s priorities for releasing foldable devices will be medium, large, and then small and that Apple won’t likely release a foldable until at least 2025
    And still on the topic of screens… iFixit did their teardown of the Apple Studio Display and internally they say it looks more like a computer than a display
      And that’s because it basically is… with the A13 chip, internal power supply, fans, speakers, and cameras
      They note that the internal power supply is an amazing feat of engineering, but it’s also why the display need as a massive amount of cooling and why it requires an almost 50 percent thicker chassis than the iMac
      Good news is they can also see no hardware reason why the camera would be having issues, so just like Apple said, there should be a software fix for the low quality images experienced by early users.
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Feedback, commentary, opinions
  The “mini” option
    So we’ve been talking about where the new Mac Studio, Mac Studio Display, and the death of the 27-inch iMac leaves the “high-end” consumer desktop.
    It felt to me like there is a bit of a hole for the person who wants to spend about 2-3 K on a desktop Mac with a nice Apple Display
    So I asked for some feedback from our community and I recieved this great response from Paul
    And Paul wasn’t the only one who is viewing the Studio Display + Mac mini as the viable option. Here’s what Niv had to say…
  Not so stupid iOS tricks
    I ran across a couple of nifty iOS tricks this week and wanted to share in case you missed them.
    First is a cool copy / paste trick that relies on Continuity and the Universal Clipboard
      It came from Michael Tobin on Tik Tok
      To use it make sure Handoff is on on both devices
        Settings > General > Handoff
        Set “Allow Handoff” to On
      Make sure WiFi and Bluetooth are on on both devices
      Make sure you are logged into iCloud with the same Apple ID on both devices
      Now in photos or from an image in Files…
        Three finger “pinch in” on the photo and it should “copy” it.
      Then in a text field in an app on the other device (like Messages, Notes, Pages, email, etc) do a three finger “pinch out” gesture to paste the image
      It can be tricky to master these gestures, but once you do it feels like magic because it’s like you virtually pick up the image on one device and place it on the other device.
    The next trick is a nod to the roots of macOS.
      Older Mac Geeks will know who Clarus the Dogcow is.
      If you don’t… if you’ve ever been printing on the Mac and you look at the page orientation icon you’ve seen Clarus the dogcow.
      It was part of a bitmapped digbat font called Cairo designed by Susan Kare (who did the fonts and icons for the original Mac). See the [great article by Steven Hackett](https://512pixels.net/dogcow/) at 512 Pixels if you want to know more of the Dogcow history
      Regardless… this trick works on iOS if you have Predictive typing enabled…
        To turn predictive text off or on, touch and hold the smile emoji or the globe icon. Tap Keyboard Settings, then turn on Predictive. Or go to Settings > General > Keyboard, and turn Predictive on or off.
      Now if you type “Clarus” you’ll see the dog and cow emoji displayed as predictive options.
  A couple of backup questions
    Brian emailed me about our discussion back in mid-March about the possible continued convergence of Apple’s notebooks and iPads
      It got Brian thinking that an iPad and Magic Keyboard upgrade for his current iPad might also be a viable replacement for his aging 2014 MacBook Pro
      But that did bring the question about backup… specifically local backup.
      If you have an iPad as your only device… is there a solution for local backup?
      Unfortunately the answer is largely “no”.
      The good news is iCloud backup for iOS devices is really pretty good and works reliably (at least it has for me)
      But what happens if you don’t have consistent reliable internet?
      You’d really still need a Mac to connect to (wired or wireless) to backup an iPad locally.
        Luckily you could still use an older Mac for this.
      The only other option for backing up directly from an iPad would really be manually (at least for files and data)
        You can connect a USB thumb drive to an iPad
        The SanDisk iXpand line actually has a Lightning / USB-C option and they app will backup Photos and contacts
      Brian mentions it’d be great if Apple built a local backup “appliance” for iOS devices and I agree.
        Something like the TimeCapsule that could have built-in storage and that you could attach external storage to for local backups of your iOS devices.
    The other backup question came from Niv who we heard from earlier. Here was his question.
      I actually just use the “Documents & Desktop” feature of iCloud and it works great, plus it’s built in.
        On your devices with limited storage you can set it to “optimize” storage and it will only sync recent files locally
      Synology and other NAS drives do offer “private” cloud options so that would be another way to go.
      You also have other cloud storage solutions like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive
  App for stabilizing video
    Dan wrote in because he recently got a lower cost drone on Amazon
    It has some great features like WiFi Live Video, Auto Return Home, Altitude Hold, follow me, waypoint flights, etc.
    But Dan notes that the video while it looks great can be a little shaky since at the price point (just over 100 bucks) the drone doesn’t offer image stabilization.
    So Dan asks, “Do you know of any software that stabilizes the video?”
    Yup. And it’s built into every Mac… [iMovie](https://support.apple.com/guide/iMovie/stabilize-shaky-clips-mov52b5a78a6/mac)
    Not only that, but iMovie can help with both shaky video and rolling shutter (jellyroll)
    For image stabilization:
      Select the video clip in the timeline
      Click the “Stabilization” icon (looks like a camera with shake lines above and below it)
      Check the “Stabilize Shaky Video” checkbox
      Adjust the Stabilize Shaky Video slider to compensate based on the amount of shake you have in your video
      You’ll see an activity indicator until the clip has been analyzed and stabilized which can take some time depending on the speed of your Mac
    For rolling shutter:
      Select the video clip in the timeline
      Click the “Stabilization” icon (looks like a camera with shake lines above and below it)
      Check the “Fix Rolling Shutter” checkbox
      Click the Fix Rolling Shutter pop-up menu and choose how much rolling shutter correction is applied to the clip.
    I’m sure they may be other tools out there and if you know of one you like let us know about it.
  Thing of the Moment: Reflex
    I love great little “one trick” utilities that solve everyday problems for us on our Macs and this weeks “Thing of the Moment” is one of those.
    It comes from Fernando who says that he was using a tool called “Mac Media Key Forwarder” to solve this issue, but that apps was abandoned by the developer.
    The issue Fernando is solving has to do with media players and how the media keys on the Mac react when changing the focus on media players.
    See if you’re using an app like Music or Spotify to play music on your Mac the media keys will control playback for that app
    That is until you switch focus and say start playing a YouTube or Facebook video in your browser. At that point the media keys control that player and not your Music.
    So Fernando found an app called [Reflex](https://stuntsoftware.com/reflex/)
    When this is running it allows you to tell the OS to keep the Media keys always in control of either the Music app or Spotify
    That way if you start playing a YouTube video and want to pause Music you can tap the media key on your keyboard and do just that.
    Pretty nifty. And it’s free.
Closing
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