John Martellaro was born at an early age and began writing about computers soon after that. With degrees in astrophysics (B.S.) and physics (M.S.), he has worked for NASA, White Sands Missile Range, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Apple. At Apple he worked as a Senior Marketing Manager, a Federal Account Executive and a High Performance Computing manager. His interests include chess, science fiction and astronomy. John is the host of the TMO podcast Background Mode.
AppleInsider writes:
Apple aimed the new Mac Pro at the most demanding of all high-end users, so we went to users like that and asked what they thought. Video editors, medical experts and the Department of Defense are all considering this new Mac closely.
Hearing the reactions and purchase plans from pro users carries enormous weight.
John, who often obsesses over all things video, made the leap to 4K/UHD TV long ago. But he’s not making the leap to a 4K/UHD Blu-ray player. He tells us why.
Over at Inc.com,
Michael Gartenberg spent three years as Apple’s Senior Director of Product Marketing, reporting directly to Senior VP Phil Schiller. In his sixth encore appearance on Background Mode, Michael and I analyze Apple’s 2019 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
We started with a discussion of the new 2019 Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR. We also pondered why Apple SVP of Product Marketing, Phil Schiller, was noticeably absent from the stage. As an aside, Michael tells a hilarious story about SVP Schiller that happened back at WWDC 2013. Then we turned to Apple’s Catalyst system and some of the nuances of building and running iOS apps on a Mac. We also touched on iPad OS. Michael is well versed in Apple marketing strategies and is always a delight to have on the show.
Cult of Mac writes: “The cheese grater jokes will eventually die down, so Ikea’s Bulgaria stores this week quickly joined the fun of teasing Apple for its new Mac Pro.
At one time, it was theorized that Apple would make its own TV set, integrated with Apple TV functionality. Instead, Apple has gone one better by seeking to integrate the Apple TV (4K) into TVs made by others. LoupVentures has the strategy and the numbers.
We believe, eventually, many major TVs will embed Apple TV software. This adoption curve may be similar to CarPlay …
Apple’s approach to the living room has been… led by Apple TV which we estimate is now used in 26m US homes monthly (21% of US households). We believe there are 53 million active Apple TVs worldwide.
While this may appear to be the beginning of the end of the Apple TV box, we believe the device will retain unique value. We believe the standalone box will continue …
This is, of course, all about ramping up for Apple TV+ subscriptions.
Dr. Jo Dunkley is a professor of Physics and Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. Her research is in cosmology, studying the origins and evolution of the universe. She holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from University of Oxford.
Jo had an interesting path to her Ph.D. Her earliest love was mathematics, and soon she realized she could use math to answer questions about the real world. That led to a love for physics (at Cambridge) and getting her Master’s. While there, she discovered relativity and astrophysics, but another event inspired her to go for a Ph.D. In the second segment, we chatted about her true love, using computer code on supercomputers to model the universe and analyzing the Cosmic Microwave Background (the detectable aftermath of the Big Bang). Also discussed: inflation theory, dark matter and theories of the Multiverse.
The potentail for confusion in the macOS iTunes to Apple Music app transition in Catalina is great. Here are the facts.
According to engadget, “Microsoft discreetly wiped its massive facial recognition database.”
Microsoft has been vocal about its desire to properly regulate facial recognition technology. The company’s president, Brad Smith, appealed directly to Congress last year to take steps to manage the tech, which he says has “broad societal ramifications and potential for abuse.” Such are the company’s concerns that it even blocked the sales of the tech to California police forces. Now, Microsoft is continuing its crusade by quietly deleting its MS Celeb database, which contains more than 10 million images of some 100,000 people.
These days, it seems everything in tech privacy matters gets continuously worse. Deleting big data sets is hard to do. Good work, Microsoft.
The older Python language, version 2.7, is being deprecated in macOS 10.15 Catalina and won’t be included in macOS 10.16. The same goes for other UNIX scripting languages.
The base model of the 2019 Mac Pro is US$5999. It’s a very basic model. How much would a fully configured system cost? Who would buy that? Let’s take a look.
Dr. George Sowers holds an undergraduate degree in physics from Georgia Tech and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Colorado in Quantum Field theory. He has worked for Lockheed Martin and the United Launch Alliance (ULA) where he was the chief scientist and vice president. Currently, he’s a professor of Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines.
We chatted about George’s evolving career, from geologic engineering to physics to rocket launches with Lockheed Martin to General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Mechanics (QM), life at the ULA and finally to lunar mining. We pondered the philosophical differences between GR and QM, and then we turned to the benefits of mining water ice at the poles of our own Moon. We finished with some great advice for young engineering and physics students.
At the risk of invoking the term “cheese grater 2.0” (everyone else will), Apple has unleashed a powerful new Mac Pro that looks to have fully acknowledged the need of pros and appears to have done everything right. Congrats to Apple.
Let’s just get them out of our system now. FCPX writes:
I thought I’d get ahead of the predictable 2019 Mac Pro complainers before its [probable] announcement at WWDC on Monday.
Feel free to add your own in the comments here.
Digital Trends writes:
While streaming is obviously more convenient for most of us, anyone who wants the best possible picture and sound quality for their home theater needs Ultra HD Blu-ray. The format offers more stability and better fidelity than streaming, and it’s a pretty significant leap forward from 1080p HD Blu-ray, too
This is a really well-written article and covers a lot of ground.
John Kheit is a New York attorney and a regular Contributor to The Mac Observer. We share many common interests, including the 4K/UHD/HDR TV revolution, 8K TV and displays, Wi-Fi/5G technologies, and the state of Apple.
We chatted about the legacy magic touch of Apple exemplified by the launch of the iPhone in 2007. Has Apple lost the ability to surprise us with solutions to problems we didn’t know we had? Along the way, the touchy subject of Apple’s Butterfly keyboard came up. In the second segment, we discussed 8K TV, mostly with regard to 8K as a computer display, but also from the perspective of the near future of 8K television and what the HDMI 2.1 standard might bring us. J.K. has some strong opinions, so brace yourself.
From Kickstarter:
“5 throw pillows inspired by 5 iconic, game-changing products of the technology world. Each pillow takes you through a different era in the computer revolution and celebrates the memories we made during these times. Made of super soft, high quality plush material, these 3D pillows feature fine embroidery, smooth contours and artisan style craftsmanship.”
Although it will be years before the first humans set foot on Mars, NASA is giving the public an opportunity to send their names — stenciled on chips — to the Red Planet with NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, which represents the initial leg of humanity’s first round trip to another planet.
“From now until Sept. 30, you can add your name to the list and obtain a souvenir boarding pass to Mars here:”
The question we must always have for the high tech giants is embedded in this essay at the Internet Health Report:
“Are you going to harm humanity and, specifically, historically marginalized populations, or are you going to sort of get your act together and make some significant structural changes to ensure that what you create is safe and not harmful?”
Given the demonstrated proclivity of many high tech companies to, without adult supervision, create technologies that callously enrich them at our great expense, the above is a great question to ask. Every day. Of every technology.
Amy Zirkle is the interim CEO of the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA). Prior to joining ETA, she spent 17 years working as a Senior Economist focusing on technology matters including mobile payments in the developing world. She holds an S.M. degree from M.I.T. where she served as a Research Associate at the M.I.T. Media Lab as well as the M.I.T. Research Program on Communications Policy.
Amy and I talked about her work at the M.I.T. Media Lab, the early days of electronic payments and their exploding growth today. We also chatted about the new tap & go cards, their security, and how they work. I asked about the CurrentC disaster as well as restaurants and gas stations and how they seem to lag behind modern payment methods. We finished with a discussion of the future of electronic payments.
Cult of Mac reports:
Some sources previously stated that the [macOS 10.15 Music] app would be made using Marzipan, which lets developers easily port iPad apps to the desktop. But new information reveals that won’t be the case.
In fact,
The Mac’s next-generation Music app will be based on iTunes, not ported over from iOS.
This makes some sense. The legacy macOS iTunes has a lot of Mac-specific code, including iOS device syncing and encrypted backups. But it’s probably also just phase one in the evolution of iTunes/Music on the Mac.
Carbon Copy Cloner users recently noticed a warning that ONE file, /private/var/db/fpsd/dvp, isn’t being backed up. Here’s why. (tl;dr. It’s not a problem.) This Apple discussion explains the situation for this user:
Carbon Copy Cloner gives me an error when I finish backing up, saying I can’t copy this file to my backup drive because it didn’t have permissions. What is it, and is it safe to use the backup without this file? When I go to the file in Finder, the folder it’s in doesn’t give me access.
Wi-FI 6 is coming. For the geeks, that’s 802.11ax. CNET has a great article that explains it all. But even if you buy a new Wi-Fi 6 router/base station later this year, it won’t speed up your Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) devices, But take heart. Intel’s Ice Lake CPU supports it and so will, likely, the 2019 iPhones. Read all about Wi-Fi 6 in this excellent overview. Your inner geek will thank you.
Intel’s struggle to get to a 10 nm production process, its latest CPU roadmap, the new Ice Lake CPUs, and what it all means for the Mac are nicely presented by Jason Cross at Macworld. This is must reading for all Mac users.
On Wednesday [5/8], during an investor presentation, Intel extended its public roadmap through 2020 and gave an update on future products and manufacturing processes. Here’s what that means for the Mac.
![Throwboy Makes [Apple] Iconic Pillows](https://www.macobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Throwboy.jpg)
