My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal. — KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016
How Can Apple Possibly Compete with the Tesla Model 3?
Image credit: Reuters, Tesla The lower price is enabled by economies of scale. Reuters reports: Tesla says scale from the massive facility [nearing completion in Nevada] will cut the cost of its battery pack by 30 percent to enable the lower-priced vehicle. A boatload of people stood in line yesterday to pre-order, coughing up $1,000…
iOS 9: Interact with Notifications on Your iPhone and iPad
If you tap on that “Notifications” tab I’ve indicated, you’ll see all sorts of info from the apps you’ve allowed to send you such things. Wow, they send me A LOT of news. One of the lovely things about this easily accessed list is that you can interact with the items on it. If you…
iOS 9.3.1 Fixes Problem with Tapping Links
iOS 9.3.1 Release Notes The real problem was apparently the way some third party apps were misusing an iOS API, as noted by 9to5Mac. One might assume that Apple changed the way the API can be called or changed the way misuses were handled in order to stop the problem. I installed the over-the-air version…
How to Check the Battery Charge on a 4G Apple TV Siri Remote
If your Siri remote has enough charge left to operate, you can check the battery level by going to the Apple TV Settings app and selecting “Remotes and Devices” > Remote. Here's the visual sequence… Leads to… Leads to… I think it would have been a nice touch if Apple had included a few color-keyed…
How to Use Heresy to Ignite Apple's Mac Sales
________________________ Several things got me thinking about this idea. Of course, as always, I present it as food for thought. It makes no sense to insist that this is something Apple must do. They probably won't. But consider…. First of all, during each Apple earnings report, Tim Cook notes the fact that PC sales are…
Sponsor: Daylite and Billings Pro from Marketcircle
Our thanks to Marketcircle for sponsoring TMO this week. Targeting freelancers and small businesses who work in an all-Mac environment, Marketcircle's products, Daylite and Billings Pro, are focused on helping small businesses save time and stay organized. Daylite organizes your contacts, calendar, tasks, notes, emails, projects and new business opportunities into one cohesive app. Depending…
Foxconn Buys Sharp in $3.5B Deal
Foxconn buys Sharp for $3.5 billion The boards from both companies approved the buyout on Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. Foxconn will own 66 percent of Sharp once the deal is complete, and that can grow to 72 percent starting in July 2017 when Foxconn starts converting the preferred shares it will own…
OS X: Edit Your Custom Dictionary File
If you tap the spacebar when you see a suggestion like the one above, your Mac will helpfully insert the correction, and you’ll be on your way. But what if it keeps trying to correct a word you know is right? I find this happens a lot with technical terms. Thanks for playing, but no.…
DOJ Vows to Continue Using Courts to Compel Tech Companies to Defeat Encryption
“It remains a priority for the government to ensure that law enforcement can obtain crucial digital information to protect national security and public safety, either with cooperation from relevant parties, or through the court system when cooperation fails,” Melanie Newman, a Justice Department spokesman, told the publication. “We will continue to pursue all available options…
How to Strongly Encrypt a File (for free) in OS X
_____________________ Introduction. Encryption is a vast and complex subject. There are many nuances and gotchas. In this article, we'll keep it short and sweet for beginners so that it's easily understandable for a specific, simple task. For those who want to go further and expand their knowledge, I'll list some resources at the end of…
PSA: Apple Broke Fantastical on Apple Watch
watchOS 2.2 breaks Fantastical on Apple Watch The crew at Flexibits, the company behind Fantastical, says they're working on finding the root of the problem, but there is a workaround that seems to be fixing the problem for some users: uninstall and reinstall the iPhone and Apple Watch app. Here's the run down: Go to…
So much for Never: 'Famous' from 'The Life of Pablo' Now on Apple Music
“Famous” from “The Life of Pablo” now on Apple Music Kanye is one of the members of the streaming music service Tidal, which so far hasn't been able to seriously compete with Spotify and Apple Music. Tidal had hoped to gain serious traction by offering albums from big-name artists for streaming that aren't available anywhere…
OS X: Troubleshooting Kernel Panics
The issue that often causes this behavior is what’s called a kernel panic. If that’s the case, you’ll see a window like this once you get back into your user account: Do as it says and click “Report,” and a dialog box with a bunch of technical gobbledegook will appear. You can click the triangle next…
FBI Director Comey Denies 'NAND Mirroring' Will Be Used to Unlock Terrorist's iPhone
Reporters used the opportunity to ask questions about the ongoing fight with Apple over Syed Farook's iPhone, including speculation that the method most likely to be used by an unnamed third party (that may actually be named Cellebrite) is NAND mirroring. This technique was openly proposed by the ACLU on March 7th and tossed around…
That Time the Internet Taught Microsoft's AI Chat Bot to Be Racist [Update]
Who's Tay, you ask? An “artificial intelligent chat bot developed by Microsoft's Technology and Research and Bing teams to experiment with and conduct research on conversational understanding.” And who taught her to say all these awful things? Why, the Internet, of course. Tay Twitter avatar, which I'm pretty sure costarred in a Cyberpunk movie in…
Synology Adds Native OS X Finder Searches and Offline iOS Video Transcoding with DSM6
Highlights of the DSM6 enhancements include: Synology's Content Search index is now automatically exposed to the OS X Finder, allowing users to perform truly valuable searches of the data on their network storage devices. Video Station, Synology's movie and TV-show server, will now do offline transcoding to make even more of your media compatible for…
Minix Neo C USB-C Multiport Adapter (Dock) Includes VGA or HDMI
The Minix Neo C USB-C “Multiport Adapter” is dock for the Apple MacBook that has two USB-A ports, Gigabit Ethernet, pass through charging, two camera card slots, and either HDMI or VGA depending on the model. It has some design and feature aspects that set it apart from similar products. First, this product should be…
Dr. Mac's Working Smarter: Apps that Help You With the Pomodoro Technique
Episode #167 Are you familiar with The Pomodoro Technique®? If you’re not, you really should check it out. I use it every single day to help me focus on a task and remain focused on it for as long as necessary (in 25 minute chunks). Because I’m focused on a single task, I can do…
FBI Asks Court to Cancel to Tuesday's Hearing with Apple, Court Agrees
United States Magistrate Judge Sherri Pym agreed to vacate the hearing, and asked for a status update from the FBI by April 5th. The FBI's filing said that an unspecified third party had stepped forward with a method of unlocking the device. The filing's wording implies that the third party is “outside the government,” but…
iOS 9.3 to Fix Flaw Exposing Encrypted iMessage Photos and Video
Researchers find encryption flaw in Apple's iMessage system Apple partially fixed the issue in iOS 9.0, and will fully patch the flaw with iOS 9.3, expected to ship after the company's “Let us loop you in” media event on Monday, March 21. What we know right now is that researchers found a way to intercept…
The FBI Just Turned the iPhone Unlocking Hearing into an Evidentiary Hearing
FBI gives Apple the switch-er-oo and changes next Tuesday's court date into an evidentiary hearing Apple's own legal team said it was surprised by the request, and that this is something the FBI should've requested weeks ago. The last minute change doesn't give Apple much time to prepare for a hearing where now its witnesses…
What Happens If Key Apple Engineers Refuse to Write GovtOS?
Exactly that question has been raised in an in-depth report from The New York Times in which the reporters (John Markhoff, Katie Benner, and Brian X. Chen) say they interviewed Apple employees on the subject. The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice has been fairly blithe about their ability to force Apple to create…