Mac Observer Apple Keynote Live Coverage

Join TMO‘s staff on a Google Hangouts on Air as we watch and cover Apple’s «hello again» Mac event. Not only will you hear live commentary from TMO staff, you’ll get to see a little behind-the-scenes action as the team publishes coverage of the announcements. You can also post questions and comments, but you’ll need to click through to the YouTube page for the stream to see and use that feature.

Rotating Car Phone Stand: $13.99

We have a deal for you today on the Rotating Car Phone Stand. It’s a mount for your iPhone (or Android device) with a suction cup for your windshield or dash. Like the name implies, it rotates, making it easy to get the orientation you need for the task at hand. It’s $13.99 through us.

Duet Display Update Turns Your iPad Pro into a Real Mac Graphics Tablet

Duet Display was already a great app for using your iPad Pro as a second display for your Mac, and now its latest update makes it a proper graphics tablet, too. The new version supports Apple Pencil angle and pressure sensitivity, so you can draw in apps like Adobe Photoshop without having to invest in Wacom’s Cintiq tablet. You can use Duet with other iPad models, too, but you won’t get Apple Pencil drawing support. Duet Display cost US$19.99 a year, but is temporarily available for $9.99, so grab your copy now.

TMO Daily Observations 2016-10-26: AAPl Q4 Earnings, Microsoft's Surface Studio

Apple’s fourth quarter earnings report numbers came out yesterday, and some say they look good while other say they look bad. Kelly Guimont and John Martellaro join Jeff Gamet to share their perspectives on how Apple is performing, plus they offer up their reactions to Microsoft’s just announced Surface Studio ahead of tomorrow’s new Mac launch event.

Martian Notifier Smartwatch: $29.99

We have a different kind of deal for you today on the Martian Notifier Smartwatch. This device can receive and display notifications, and trigger your smartphone’s camera. You can customize vibration alerts, too. It’s available in black, red, or white, and it’s priced at just $29.99. There are videos on the deal listing, along with more information.

TMO Daily Observations 2016-10-25: iMessage Wish List, Original iPod Music Collection

Give us enough time with an app we really like and we’ll find something to improve. Bryan Chaffin and Dave Hamilton join Jeff Gamet to talk about Apple’s iMessage platform and Messages app, and Bryan has some interface improvements he’d like to see. They also look at the CD collection Apple gave the media with the original iPod, and Jeff notes Apple’s Apple ID Two-Factor authentication setup bug seems to be fixed.

MyScript Nebo iPad Pro Note Taking App Temporarily a Free Download

The iPad Pro and Apple Pencil make for a great note taking combo, and MyScript Nebo lets you amp that up with built-in handwriting recognition. Nebo converts what you write into editable text, lets you add formatting, turns your drawings into editable graphics, exports to Microsoft Word or any app that supports text editing, and more. It’s one of our favorite note taking apps, and you can get it for free instead of the usual US$8.99. MyScript says the price drop is temporary, so be sure to grab your copy right away.

Last Chance for The Award-Winning Mac Bundle

This is your last chance to Pay What You Want for The Award-Winning Mac Bundle. It’s 13 Mac apps, including Drive Genius 4, The Hit List, DeltaWalker 2 Pro, Nisus Writer Pro, Aurora HDR, WinZip 5 Mac, VPN Forever: 3-Yr Subscription, Project Planning Pro, Letter Opener for macOS Mail, Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro, Screen Grabber Pro, eXtra Voice Recorder, and PhotoStitcher. That’s a quality list of apps (and services). Pay anything, even a penny, and you get three of them. Beat the average price—$13.03 as of this writing—and get all 13. Beat the leader’s price, and you’ll earn an entry in an iPhone 7 giveaway. You can read all the details on the deal listing.

The 20 CDs Steve Jobs Gave Journalists with the First iPod

Remember the first iPod? It was a thing. It held 5GB of music and was the size of a deck of playing cards. And there was no iTunes Store. The music industry was angry at Apple, worried that Steve Jobs wanted everyone to pirate CDs so he could sell us hardware. It was a whole big thing, but journalist Nobuyuki Hayashi reminded us of a tidbit I’d completely forgotten about. Apple sent out iPods to many journalists. Those iPods had music on them—20 albums worth chosen specifically and deliberately by Steve Jobs and the iPod team. And in an effort to show the music industry Apple was their ally, each of those iPods came with those 20 albums on CD. Mr. Hayashi recently found his bundle of CDs. He wrote an interesting post about it, including a list of all 20 albums. Spoiler, there’s a Dylan album, two Beatles albums, Nirvana, Bob Marley, Yo-Yo Ma, the Dave Brubek Quartet, a soundtrack, and more. It’s a fun snapshot look at an age that was radically different than the one we take for granted today.

TMO Background Mode: Interview with Author and Podcaster David Sparks

David Sparks is a business attorney, Macworld author, podcaster and all around Apple product expert. He’s one of those people who started on one path—an aerospace engineering student—then changed gears to become a law student at Pepperdine University. David tells the story of his law school years and how people often think of law school as more onerous than it really is. His original plan was to be a prosecutor, but then he found that business law for small companies was much more satisfying. We chatted about his interest in all things Mac and the dawn of his Mac Power Users podcast with Katie Floyd in 2009. Today, David is a popular speaker and a fixture in the Mac Community with 346 podcasts and several books. Come take a career journey with me and David.