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Photographer Using FaceTime to Take Portraits During Lockdown

Charlotte Henry ·

Lockdown is hard for everyone, including creative people used to being out and about playing music or creating art. One photographer, Tim Dunk, found a way to keep taking portraits – using FaceTime. He explained how on Peta Pixel.

I then had an idea to sustain myself creatively and socially, and threw it out to a few contacts — maybe with the use of some common apps and bits of tech, I could continue to make work. Using FaceTime, a MacBook Pro, and my subject using an iPhone under instruction, I was able to make portraits of people in isolation, distanced from the world and the people that make it up. I’ve been lucky enough that my FaceTime portraits have really caught folk’s attention, and I’ve been fielding a lot of questions from other photographers.

Apple’s Clips App Updated to Support Mice, Trackpads
Cool Stuff Found

Apple’s Clips App Updated to Support Mice, Trackpads

Andrew Orr ·

Apple updated Clips, its creative tool used to send quick, fun videos over social media. Version 2.1.1 appeared yesterday with the following features:Use Clips on iPad with a mouse, trackpad, or Bluetooth keyboard for new ways to create videos (requires iPadOS 13.4); Use the Duplicate button to instantly create a copy of a clip with all its effects; Tap the Split button to divide any clip in two; Make stickers pop on and off the screen—just split any clip and apply stickers to either of the two new sections; Give your video the look of an 80’s arcade game with updated 8-bit stickers and the new Game Over poster; Celebrate spring with the floral Springtime poster; Choose from 11 new Mickey and Minnie Mouse stickers, each with its own expressive animation; Performance and stability improvements. 

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Jack Dorsey Donates $1 Billion to COVID-19 Relief

Charlotte Henry ·

Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey announced Tuesday that he has moved $1 billion worth of Square equity into an LLC to fund COVID-19 relief, NBC News reported. This equates to around 28 percent of his total net-worth.

Dorsey’s investment in coronavirus relief is the most significant financial pledge by a private individual to date. Several other current and former tech executives, including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, have each pledged $100 million. Unlike other donors, Dorsey also promised to keep a consistently updated public record of all the donations. Once the pandemic is over, Dorsey said, the rest of the $1 billion will be dedicated to “girl’s health and education, and UBI,” which is short for Universal Basic Income, a program that calls for each person to receive a certain amount of money from the government every month.

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Will Apple Kill Beats? Probably Not This Year

Andrew Orr ·

As shared by The Loop, there is some speculation on whether Apple will end the Beats brand. iMore says Apple should kill it, while 9to5Mac claims to have learned there is no plan to kill it. It started because of a separate rumor that Apple will release over-the-ear headphones under the AirPods brand. Quote from the iMore piece:

If Apple is truly planning to release over-the-ear noise-canceling pair of headphones similar to the Bose 700 has Jon Prosser suggests, it would be incredibly redundant to continue to release Beats as well. The Apple brand is just more valuable to Apple than the Beats brand — plain and simple.

My two cents is that Apple will probably phase out Beats, but not this year. It will be a gradual process over the next 10 years, like how the iPod touch still gets an occasional refresh but otherwise isn’t mentioned. You can’t kill a brand like Beats overnight. Once over-the-ear AirPods come out, and they will, phase one will be complete. There will be an AirPod for each Beats category, because you can’t leave customers hanging without alternatives, thank you very much.

TMO Deals

CleanMyMac X One-Time Purchase License: $67.99

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on CleanMyMac X, software that cleans the junk out of your Mac. I love CleanMyMac X, and I’ve been using it for while now—I’m delighted we’re offering a deal on it. Speaking of which, that deal is for the one-time purchase version of CleanMyMac X for one Mac. (MacPaw also offers a yearly subscription version). It’s $67.99 through our deal, more than $20 off the regular price. Our deal listing also has an option for the 2-Mac  version.

NatGeo@Home – Home Education Hub from National Geographic
Cool Stuff Found

NatGeo@Home - Home Education Hub from National Geographic

Charlotte Henry ·

National Geographic launched NatGeo@Home on Tuesday. It is a set of home education resources that families can use together whilst in lockdown. There are a whole host of activities available, including games, videos and science experiments. There are lots of activities that are organized by how much time they take – 5, 15, or 30 minutes. Furthermore, there are resources for teachers alongside those for parents and children. It is all available for free.

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Confirmed: There is no U1 in 2020 iPad Pros

Charlotte Henry ·

There has been some speculation about whether or not 2020 iPad Pros contain a U1 ultra-wideband chip. At Daring Fireball, John Gruber revealed that a “little birdie” has confirmed to him that no, there is no U1 chip in the device.

So the tech specs don’t mention it, Apple never mentioned it, and the U1-enabled features in iPhone 11 models aren’t there. And iFixit’s teardown found no hidden U1 chip…. I confirmed with a little birdie who would certainly know the answer: there is no U1 chip in the new iPad Pro, and if there were one, Apple would have told us so.

Cool Stuff Found

‘iPad Main Menu’ Concept Reimagines App Settings

Andrew Orr ·

Alexander Käßner uploaded a concept video called iPad Main Menu. On Reddit he says it’s the result of a bachelor thesis. It introduces app menus that are accessible with an always-present icon on the dock, and/or a three-finger tap. It’s similar to the right-click menu we see on macOS. I love it because it gives you quick access to all app settings, which end up in different locations depending on the whim of the developer (hamburger menus notwithstanding). Main Menu is consistent.

The main menu is split into two columns. We find the most common actions on the left, such as cut/copy/paste, and app-specific features are on the right. Main Menu also works with a keyboard, so you “never lift a finger again.”

Update: Mr. Käßner also has a website for the concept here.

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FaceTime is Helping Parents See Their Newborn Babies

Charlotte Henry ·

In a story that’s both sad and uplifting, CNN outlines how parents are seeing their newborn babies and partners are supporting women giving birth during the coronavirus outbreak. There are specialist apps, but one of the key ways contact is happening is over FaceTime.

An increasing number of hospitals are banning or limiting visitations to nurseries specializing in the care of ill or premature newborns — a demographic that is particularly vulnerable to contracting outside sicknesses. Video chat services like FaceTime have become a lifeline for many families grappling with these changes, giving them a chance to bond with their babies from afar. Julianna Grogan, a New York City-based mother who was diagnosed with COVID-19 before the birth of her daughter on April 2, told CNN Business her husband and doula cheered her on during the delivery via FaceTime, as they were not permitted into the room. “They were watching the whole time,” she said. “Luckily, I had a stand with a clip to attach my phone to the bed.”
Podcast

Writer and Raconteur Bob 'Dr. Mac' LeVitus (#2) - TMO BGM Interview

John Martellaro · · 1 Comment

Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus is a writer, book author and raconteur. He writes for the Houston Chronicle and The Mac Observer, and he specializes in the “Dummies” books about Apple products like the Mac, the iPad and iPhone.

In this episode, Bob and I focus on the practice of working from home. We covered work strategies and techniques, workspace and hours, software vs. paper tools, clothing and eating, task management, multitasking vs. single focus and more. We delved into microphones and cameras for a Mac as well as some video conferencing apps and touched on the notion of spending time learning unfamiliar but essential internet technologies. We closed with a discussion of music to work by and a great library app called Libby.

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Kindle vs Apple Books on iPad Mini

Charlotte Henry ·

I’ve long enjoyed reading on a Kindle (I have a PaperWhite model). I find the e-ink display a nice break from the usual screen I use. However, when 9to5 Mac‘s Bradley Chambers moved away from the Amazon device, he began reading on the iPad Mini, and soon decided Apple Books was the best service for him.

Once I sold my Kindle Oasis, I decided that the iPad mini would be the best device for reading books from Apple Books. While it’s more expensive than the 7th generation iPad, in the long run, it’ll be a more comfortable device to hold for reading. One thing I quickly noticed was that Apple Books has audiobooks built right into the app. With Kindle on iOS, you generally use the Audible app. I expected Apple’s audiobooks to be very expensive as I remembered from a few years back, but to my surprise, they were all in line with Audible’s pricing.

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Russia Implicated in BGP Hijacking Incident This Week

Andrew Orr ·

Russian telecom company Rostelecom is implicated in a BGP hijacking incident which rerouted network traffic from Akamai, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and others.

BGP stands for the Border Gateway Protocol and is the de-facto system used to route internet traffic between internet networks across the globe…

BGPMon founder Andree Toonk is giving the Russian telco the benefit of the doubt. On Twitter, Toont said he believes the “hijack” happened after an internal Rostelecom traffic shaping system might have accidentally exposed the incorrect BGP routes on the public internet, rather than Rostelecom’s internal network…

But, as many internet experts have also pointed out in the past, it is possible to make an intentional BGP hijack appear as an accident, and nobody could tell the difference.