John Kheit has been searching for a wireless keyboard with a numeric trackpad that he likes, and he’s finally found it, the Matias Wireless Aluminum Keyboard. He put it through its paces and fell in love. Check out his full review for more.
Designed By Apple in California Book Leaps from Print to Video
Apple’s new coffee table book showing the history of its products in photographs is a beautiful representation of the company’s designs. Most of those products, it turns out, are in Stephen Hackett from 512 Pixels personal collections, so he put together a video showing his collection along side Apple’s photos. It’s cool to see the original iPod and iPhone, G4 Cube, iBook, next to their photos. It’s also proof Apple sold at least one set of iPod socks. You can check out Stephen’s video on YouTube.
TMO Background Mode: Interview with the Founder of olloclip Patrick O'Neil
Patrick O’Neil grew up in a family of photographers, and so designing a portable, add-on lens set for the iPhone was a natural thing to do. It all started as a Kickstarter project over five years ago at his kitchen table. Immediately successful with the iPhone 4, Patrick, along with his partner, was able to launch the olloclip company and has built these amazing lens kits ever since. The olloclip lens system is designed to have different creative options in your pocket: macro, fisheye, wide-angle or telephoto. We talked about the optics and engineering of these lenses, the mobility emphasis, keeping up with Apple’s changes, and how the product has evolved. Here’s Patrick’s story: from kitchen table to a company with almost 50 people readying the new lenses for the iPhone 7 and (joy!) the 7 Plus.
TMO Daily Observations 2016-11-21: Farewell AirPort Extreme, MacBook Pro Touch Bar First Impressions
Apple’s wireless routers look like they’re headed down the same path as the now defunct Thunderbolt Display. Dave Hamilton and Bryan Chaffin join Jeff Gamet to look at the state of Apple’s WiFi router lineup, and explain why they think it’s fine the AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express, and Time Capsule are heading out to pasture. They also offer up their thoughts on the new Retina MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar.
The Surface Studio Reviews Have Arrived, and They're Very Positive
According to CNET, “Microsoft’s ambitious love letter to creative professionals is the touchscreen iMac of your dreams.” That’s the Surface Studio, and the reviews, which are now starting to appear in print, back up the original assessment that this is a beautiful, functional, innovative computer for creative professionals. While not perfect in the first version, it has the capacity to cause these professionals to take Microsoft much more seriously in this market than before. Page 2 of Particle Debris sizes up this challenge to Apple.
Apple Watch Users get 5K Challenge for Thanksgiving
Apple Watch owners got a special challenge Monday morning when Apple urged them to walk, run, or wheelchair 3.1 miles, or 5K, on November 24th. That’s the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, so instead of spending the day binging on turkey, pie, and watching football, Apple is pushing to get people outside and active by offering a special Thanksgiving Day Challenge badge.
Apple Quietly Kills AirPort Extreme by Breaking Up Wireless Router Team
There’s a good chance the next time you buy a Wi-Fi router for you Mac, iPhone and iPad network it won’t come from Apple. The company reassigned the engineers from its wireless networking team to other projects and doesn’t have plans to continue developing its AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express, and Time Capsule products.
Nifty MiniDrive MicroSD Card Adapter for 13" Macbook Air: $32.99
We have a deal for you today on Nifty MiniDrive, a MicroSD card adapter that seamlessly plugs into your 13″ MacBook Air. Using your MicroSD card, you add up to 256GB of storage without having a USB drive sticking out the side. You can get the Nifty MiniDrive for MacBook Air $32.99, and our deal includes versions for other MacBook models, too.
MGG 632: The Truth and Its Relatives
Your questions answered, including those about Sierra’s keyboard viewer, recommended OS and RAM configurations for older (and newer!) Macs, Stopping apps from launching on login, finding photos on your iPhone, Bluetooth interference and more. Then it’s Cool Stuff Found and some tips. How can you go wrong? By NOT downloading this episode.
Peter Cohen's 'A History of Hard Drives'
Peter Cohen has penned a fabulous “History of Hard Drives” for BackBlaze. He walks us through the earliest days of mainframe-related storage to today’s SSDs, with lots of historic photos to illustrate the timeline. I love lore of all sorts—particularly computer-related lore—and I gobbled up this post. That said, I don’t often link to company blog posts as a Cool Stuff Found, but Peter talks about his employer very little—the focus is the history. If you’re a nerd, it’s a great read.
