Check out our deal on a pair of knit touchscreen gloves. They let you use your iPhone or Android device when it’s cold without your hands freezing. They feature a specially engineered grip as well as a conductive palm and fingertip design that let you tap, swipe, and slide on your smartphone. They’re $10.99 through our deal.
How to Limit Website Access on Your Mac
David Nield shared some helpful tips on how to limit website access on your Mac or PC. It includes controlling browser cookies and browser privacy settings.
We’ll also explain how to restrict the cookies and other data websites can save locally on your laptop. It’s up to you whether you let sites track your identity across the web to better personalize the ads you see, but you should know the options that are available.
Mining Bitcoin Is Bad for the Environment
Mining bitcoin is bad for the environment. According to a new paper, mining one dollar’s worth of bitcoin takes twice the energy to mind the same value of copper, gold, or platinum.
One dollar’s worth of bitcoin takes about 17 megajoules of energy to mine, according to researchers from the Oak Ridge Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, compared with four, five and seven megajoules for copper, gold and platinum.
Mining bitcoin takes a lot of computing power, and those computers likewise need a lot of energy.
Would Apple Woo Black Listeners in iHeartMedia Grab?
According to the Financial Times, which I can’t link here due to its paywall, Apple could be trying to woo radio listeners of color with its iHeartMedia grab.
Even with its mounting debt and impending bankruptcy filing, iHeartMedia has a crushing grip over the radio industry with over 850 stations. Nielsen research found black people spend more time listening to the radio than any other ethnic group averaging more than 13 hours a week, making them a prime target for Apple’s radio expansion dreams.
Personally, I think that’s an odd conclusion to draw from the iHeartMedia rumors, and I don’t think Apple has ever set out to target a specific audience.
Apple Pencil 2 is the iPad Pro's Mouse
Ben Bajarin argues that the Apple Pencil 2 is the iPad Pro’s mouse, especially with the new gesture support.
Apple’s new gestures clearly support this theory. Apple may be easing people into this new functionality but the idea of a multi-touch function on the Apple Pencil seems like a logical path forward. At the moment, you can customize the double tap gestures on Apple Pencil to switch between the two tools you use the most.
I agree with Mr. Bajarin; when you double-tap on the Apple Pencil 2, think of it as a right-click. The iPad Pro doesn’t need a trackpad or mouse, and I personally hope Apple won’t add them. Those are legacy tools.
21 of The Best Camera Apps for The iPhone
Digital Trends has compiled a list of 20 iPhone camera apps. «Whether you’re looking for a new way to shoot, edit, or organize your photos, these camera apps are here to help. Turning a boring shot of your feline companion into a masterpiece has never been easy.» Oddly, a very good camera app that specializes in low light photography was omitted, NightCap Camera, so I’ll add it here as #21.
Turn Images into Animated Characters with CrazyTalk Animator 3 Pro: $79
We have a deal on CrazyTalk Animator 3 Pro, a Mac app that helps you turn images into animated characters. It features motion templates, 2D character templates, motion libraries, a 2D bone rig editor, facial puppets, audio lip-syncing tools, and more. It’s $79 through our deal.
MacBook Air vs Windows laptop - 10 Years On
Back in 2008, the MacBook Air was miles ahead of anything available on the Windows platform. Tom Warren at The Verge says that 10 years on that is no longer the case and that «Apple’s new MacBook Air doesn’t do much to overtake these [sic] latest crop of Windows laptops». He certainly has a point that last week’s MacBook Air update was «more a refresh than a revolution,» and that there has been a «quiet revolution» in Windows laptops over the last decade. He also discusses how the new iPad Pro has once again changed the tablet vs laptop debate, as iPad sales grow.
Apple’s new MacBook Air won’t drive the laptop market forward significantly, but the iPad Pro is stealthily making advancements. It’s been clear for some time that Apple is prioritizing the iPad Pro over the MacBook as its consumer “computer” of choice, but it was made even clear during Apple’s event earlier this week. Apple revealed it has sold more iPads in the past year than the entire lineup of notebooks from any single manufacturer. “This makes iPad not only the most popular tablet, but the most popular computer in the world,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook.
The Missing Announcements from Apple's October Event
Now that we have had a chance to fully digest what was announced at Apple’s event in Brooklyn last Tuesday, it is time to consider what was missing. Over on 9to5 Mac, they note the absence of announcements relating to an iPad Mini 5, AirPower and wireless charging for AirPods, any upgrades to the iMac line, an ECG app in Watch OS 5.1 and updates to the 12-inch MacBook. Few were really expecting new AirPods or AirPower, but other devices had been the subject of rumors, and it was surprising we didn’t hear about at least some of those products at Apple’s «There’s More in the Making» event. Here’s a snippet:
Apple’s October event included the tentpole announcements everyone was expecting: new iPad Pros, a new MacBook Air, and an update to the Mac mini. Many of the smaller updates, however, did not come to fruition.
Perhaps most perplexing of all is AirPower, which was promised as coming in 2018, but is still nowhere to be found. AirPower is also the product with the most confusing future. Does it still exist? Will we see it eventually, but in a different form? Only time will tell it seems.
TMO Background Mode Encore #2 Interview with Tidbits Managing Editor Josh Centers
Josh Centers is the Managing Editor of Tidbits.com and has published several Take Control (TC) books. He’s the author of Take Control of Apple TV and Take Control of Home Automation. He’s been writing the Take Control books for iOS since version 8, and his latest book is Take Control of iOS 12. I invited Josh to return to Background Mode to chat about this latest iOS version that has many new features. After a brief story about how Josh got started in his tech writing career, we had a very interesting chat about the creation and editing process of the TC books. We moved on to a discussion of the new 2018 iPhones. After the break, we dug into the details iOS 12. Finally, we finished with a cool story about his latest 4K TV adventure.
