Lightning Cable with Built-in Battery: $39.95

We have a deal today on the Nomad Ultra Rugged Battery Lightning Cable. It’s a lightning cable with a portable battery built right into the cable. It has a capacity of 2,350mAh, and the cable is designed to charge your phone first—from the battery if necessary. You can get it through us for $39.95.

NASA Offers Free Code In New Software Catalog

Every year since 2014, NASA has published a software catalog, On Wednesday NASA released a software catalog with over 1,000 free code samples. The free code is divided into 15 categories like robotics, aeronautics, climate simulators, biological sensors and guidance systems. Although the code is free, some restrictions may apply. For some, any U.S. citizen can apply to use it. Others can only be used by other federal agencies. And there is even some open-source code in the catalog. Open-source code can be directly downloaded, but most others require you to create an account, or in some cases sign a government contract or a usage agreement. If you’re in the sciences or like to tinker at home, be sure to check out this year’s NASA catalog.

iPhone 8, Lightning, and Hey Siri on the Mac - TMO Daily Observations 2017-03-03

We’re learning more about what to expect when Apple ships the iPhone 8 this fall, and it’s looking like we won’t have to give up our Lightning ports after all. John Martellaro and Jeff Butts join Jeff Gamet to look at Lightning and USB-C, plus Touch ID and finger print sensors embedded in the display. Jeff Butts also shares a tip on using «Hey, Siri» on your Mac.

Apple Bundles Final Cut Pro X, Logic Pro X, Other Pro Apps for Education for $199.99

Apple announced Pro Apps Bundle for Education Thursday. It includes all of the company’s pro software—Final Cut Pro X, Logic Pro X, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage—in one bundle for $199.99. «The industry-leading apps used by professional video editors and musicians are now available at a special price for qualifying college students, teachers, and education institutions,» the company said. Purchased individually outside of the education channel, these apps would total $629.95. This is no substitute for new professional Mac hardware, but it is a statement of support for the pro market, and it comes in the wake of CEO Tim Cook telling shareholders that Apple cares about the pro market. Getting students embedded with Apple’s software is a good way to hook them into the Apple ecosystem.

New Apple iPad Pro Spot Shows the Power of Apple Pencil to Sign Documents

Apple has a new entrant in its iPad Pro commercials where the company responds to tweets from real people. The new one is called No more printing, and shows how you can use iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to sign documents. It’s anchored around a tweet from @ROSESplease about printing personal documents on the company printer. I thought these spots were interesting when they launched, and found it interesting that Apple was interacting indirectly with social media and tweets from real folks. As time goes on, however, I find that I don’t think about these adds at all. That certainly wasn’t true with many other Apple campaigns. Then again, I’m not the target demo for these spots. This is the fifth spot in the series, making it likely they’re performing well for Apple.

TextExpander 1-Year Single User Plan: $19.98

TextExpander is one of our must-have Mac and iPhone utilities at TMO, and our friends at Stack Commerce have put together a deal on it. TextExpander expands snippets of text to much longer blocks of text. Your signature, a formula, addresses you have to type all the time, etc. It can also insert variables or things in your clipboard. Our deal is $19.98 for a one-year, single user license for macOS, iOS, and Windows. That’s half off regular price.