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Connected, Episode 291: The Scrooge McDuck of Computers→

On this week’s episode of Connected:

Myke and Federico share their impressions of the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro and Stephen reveals the number of items in his collection and the group announces The Hackett Number — the computers-per-capita figure for Stephen’s household.

You can listen below (and find the show notes here).

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Connected, Episode 291

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Apple Maps’ Look Around Feature Expands to Chicago→

Apple has updated the Look Around feature of the Maps app to include Chicago, and as always, Justin O’Beirne has all the details.

According to O’Beirne, Chicago, which is the tenth US city to be added to Look Around, is the biggest expansion of the feature by land area to date. Not only is the city included, but so are many of the surrounding suburbs. The feature still covers only about 0.3% of the land area of the US, but by covering eight of the country’s ten largest US cities, Look Around accounts for nearly 14% of the US population.

For more details on the update, including fantastic animated GIFs that visualize the expansion of Look Around to Chicago and previous cities, be sure to read O’Beirne’s full story.

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Catalina Developer Beta Changes How Mac Laptops Charge to Extend Their Batteries’ Lifespans→

The developer beta release of macOS 10.15.5 has a new feature in the Energy Saver section of System Preferences called Battery Health Management that changes the battery charging behavior of Mac laptops with Thunderbolt 3 ports. According to a story by Jason Snell at Six Colors, Apple says:

…the feature is meant to reduce the rate of chemical aging of the MacBook’s battery, thereby extending its long-term lifespan—but without compromising on day-to-day battery life.

The feature works by analyzing the temperature of the battery over time, as well as the charging pattern the laptop has experienced—in other words, does the laptop frequently get drained most of the way and then recharged fully, or is it mostly kept full and plugged in?

Battery Health Management can be turned off by unchecking a box in System Preferences.

As Snell points out, Apple’s approach here is in contrast to what it did with the iPhone’s battery in 2017, which embroiled the company in controversy and ultimately, led it to issue a public apology. It’s good to see Apple take the initiative to explain how the new power management feature works and give users a way to turn it off when it makes sense, though I expect to leave it turned on most of the time myself.

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Halide Team Experiments with iPad Pro’s LiDAR Scanner→

Source: Halide Blog

Source: Halide Blog

Sebastiaan de With, on the Halide blog, goes deep on the 2020 iPad Pro’s camera module. His examination reveals that the device’s wide camera is virtually identical to that of the 2018 model. And the ultra-wide camera, unfortunately, isn’t quite up to the quality level of what’s found in the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro.

The most exciting and impressive aspect of the camera system is the LiDAR Scanner. The Halide team actually went to the trouble of building an entire proof of concept app that utilizes the LiDAR Scanner to capture your surroundings.

With Halide, we’d love to use the depth data in interesting ways, even if it’s low resolution. There was only one problem: there are no APIs for us as developers to use to get access to the underlying depth data. They only expose the processed 3D surface.

What if we re-thought photographic capture, though? We built a proof-of-concept we’re calling Esper.

Esper experiments with realtime 3D capture using the cameras and LIDAR sensor at room scale. It’s a fun and useful way to capture a space.

I always love reading de With’s in-depth explanations and comparisons of new iPhone or iPad cameras, and this was an especially fun one.

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Adapt, Episode 23: Modular Computing and iPad Sizes→

On this week’s episode of Adapt:

Federico and Ryan discuss using the iPad Pro as a modular computer, and the pros and cons of the 12.9-inch and 11-inch models in different setups. Afterwards, a Keynote presentation about, to the surprise of no one, the iPad.

You can listen below (and find the show notes here), and don’t forget to send us questions using #AskAdapt and by tagging our Twitter account.

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Adapt, Episode 23

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Connected, Episode 290: You Strike Me as a Wheel Guy→

On this week’s episode of Connected:

Federico rejects a new iPhone charging solution, Myke opens a new store and Stephen passes a collection basket to add a set of wheels to his Mac Pro. Then, the three talk about the new iPhone SE.

You can listen below (and find the show notes here).

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Connected, Episode 290

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Apple Shares ‘Creativity Goes On’ Video on YouTube→

Apple today published a new video on YouTube that shouldn’t be missed. It’s called “Creativity goes on,” and it celebrates the resilience of humanity amidst a pandemic and self-quarantine.

The video shows how people around the world are using Apple devices to express themselves and connect with each other. One example shows an elderly man and presumably his grandson playing chess together, with the grandfather connecting over FaceTime on the child’s iPad. Another features a person following an instructional yoga video that’s playing on their Mac. The soundtrack for the whole thing is lovely, evoking Apple’s traditional sentimental holiday videos. It’s well worth 98 seconds of your time.

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