Connected: It Looked Like a Liam →

Linked By Federico Viticci

In the aftermath of Apple’s iPhone SE and iPad Pro event, the boys assemble to talk the news, Stephen’s growing army of iMac G3s and Apple’s naming struggles.

A long episode of Connected this week, discussing the announcements from Apple’s March 21 event and lots more. You can listen here.

Inside Liam →

Linked By Federico Viticci

Liam completes an iPhone disassembly process every 11 seconds, with dozens running through the system at all times.

About 350 units are turned around each hour, equivalent to 1.2 million iPhones each year. Apple wouldn’t say when Liam started its work, but emphasized the project is still in the research and development stages.

As of right now, the company puts Liam to work Monday through Friday — it gets the weekend off.

Apple granted Mashable’s Samantha Murphy Kelly early access to a warehouse where Liam, the company’s new recycling robot, was operating. Fascinating story (alas, with no actual photos of the full robot).

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Streaming Music Edged Out Digital Downloads in 2015 →

Linked By Federico Viticci

Micah Singleton, writing for The Verge:

Streaming is now the biggest revenue stream for the music industry in the US, generating $2.4 billion in 2015. The RIAA has released its report on the state of the US music industry in 2015, and streaming music has edged out digital downloads in revenue for the first time. After declining last year, the music industry as a whole grew once again in 2015, selling $7 billion worth of music, a 0.9 percent increase from the year prior. Despite declines in digital downloads and physical sales, streaming music has managed to keep the industry on an upward trajectory.

“In 2015, digital music subscription services reached new all-time highs, generating more than $1 billion in revenues for the first time, and averaging nearly 11 million paid subscriptions for the year,” RIAA CEO Cary Sherman said in a memo sent out with the report. “Heading into 2016, the number of subscriptions swelled even higher — more than 13 million by the end of December — holding great promise for this year.”

The writing has been on the wall for a while, though streaming has edged out digital downloads only by a small portion (0.3%) in the US in 2015.

Count this as another instance of Apple cannibalizing one of its businesses to keep up with the times – we could argue that Apple Music was launched just in time amid a declining trend, without an ad-supported model that the RIAA clearly doesn’t like.

(I wonder if YouTube will accelerate the international expansion of YouTube Red anytime soon.)

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The 9.7-inch iPad Pro and the Missing USB 3 Speed →

Linked By Federico Viticci

Speaking of technical differences between the 9.7-inch iPad Pro and the 12.9-inch model, here’s Jeff Carlson on USB 3 transfer speeds:

If we were talking about laptops or desktops, this would be a bigger deal, because there are more occasions when you transfer data over USB. Looking at broader iPad usage, really not a lot of data passes through the Lightning connector other than if you sync to a computer using iTunes. Most people don’t need it.

But for photographers who want to transfer photos for review or editing from a camera to the iPad, this is almost crippling.

When I reviewed the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, I made a short comparison video showing import speeds using the old SD card adapter and the new USB 3-capable one. Transferring 1.5 GB of image files took 30 seconds via USB 3 and 2 minutes 20 seconds via USB 2. That’s the actual data transfer; just moving image thumbnails so I could preview the photos before importing took 23 seconds via USB 3 and 1 minute 16 seconds via USB 2.

He also mentions fast charging with the 29W USB-C Adapter. As soon as I took a break from our coverage yesterday, that’s the first thing I bought from the Apple Store.

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Igloo: An Intranet You’ll Actually Like [Sponsor]

By Federico Viticci

We all struggle with productivity. We are constantly pressured to accomplish more, and to do it quicker. There is no one definitive way to accomplish that, and we have all devised our own little method to make things work.

At Igloo, they think your way is the best way, they just want to support you, and make your way better.

Work has evolved and your tools should too. Never email yourself a file again. Bring your company into the 21st century - send your IT guy to try Igloo Software for free.

Igloo is an intranet you’ll actually like.

Our thanks to Igloo for sponsoring MacStories this week.

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro Has 2 GB of RAM →

Linked By Federico Viticci

Here’s a single Geekbench run with stats on iPad Pro 9.7” pic.twitter.com/vwqlKtsIUm

— Matthew Panzarino (@panzer) March 22, 2016

Matthew Panzarino ran some Geekbench tests on a 9.7-inch iPad Pro, which shows 2 GB of RAM as well as a slightly underclocked CPU compared to the bigger iPad Pro, which has 4 GB of RAM.

2 GB of RAM was one of the first things I heard about the new device yesterday, and part of the reason why I’m going to stick with the 12.9-inch Pro. In addition to a more comfortable iOS experience, I like knowing that I’m using the most powerful iPad hardware currently available (I don’t count the camera as essential to what I need to do on an iPad).

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DeskConnect Brings Fast File Transfers Between iOS and OS X

By Federico Viticci

Before he co-founded Workflow, Ari Weinstein was the creator of DeskConnect. Originally born out of a hackathon, DeskConnect was a Mac and iOS utility to speed up the process of transferring bits of text and files between devices. Based on a cloud service and built with speed in mind, DeskConnect predated Apple’s Continuity efforts with AirDrop in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite; when it launched in the summer of 2013, DeskConnect was featured by Apple on the Mac App Store and it ranked in the top charts for several consecutive days.

However, after Weinstein and Workflow co-founders Conrad Kramer and Nick Frey began working on the app that would later win an Apple Design Award, DeskConnect was put on the shelf so the team could focus on their powerful take on iOS automation. They never forgot about DeskConnect, though. With a major redesign and adoption of modern iOS technologies, DeskConnect’s comeback, launching today on the App Store, brings an even faster way to share documents, photos, and just about anything across multiple devices. After testing the new DeskConnect for the past couple of weeks, it’s impossible not to be impressed with its simplicity and speed.

Apple Releases Classroom App for iPad →

Linked By Federico Viticci

One of the core changes of iOS 9.3 is Education, and a big part of the updated framework is the Classroom app. Apple has now released Classroom on the App Store, and it’s a free download for iPads running iOS 9.3.

Classroom is a powerful new iPad app that helps you guide learning, share work, and manage student devices. It supports both shared and one-to- one environments. You can launch a specific app, website, or textbook page on any device in the class, or share student work on a TV, monitor, or projector using Apple TV. You can even reset a student’s password, see which apps students are working in, and assign a specific Shared iPad for each class.

Apple also published a PDF document detailing the features of Classroom, including Shared iPad and Screen View. You can read it here.

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The 9.7-inch iPad Pro: Our Complete Overview

By Federico Viticci

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro.

At a media event held earlier today at its campus in Cupertino, Apple took the wraps off the highly anticipated smaller iPad Pro. With a 9.7-inch display (same size of the iPad Air 2) and carrying (mostly) the same features of its 12.9-inch counterpart, the smaller iPad Pro brings all the power of the bigger iPad Pro in a more compact package with some new additions as well.

“iPad Pro is a new generation of iPad that is indispensable and immersive, enabling people to be more productive and more creative. It’s incredibly fast, extremely portable, and completely natural to use with your fingers, Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard. And now it comes in two sizes,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.