The Great Internet Blocking Conspiracy – Mac Geek Gab 807

Options for Apple TV Volume, Silencing CarPlay upon connect, LTE internet options, and managing the shared family calendar only scratch the surface of this episode’s content: the mailbag overflows with your tips and questions, and John and Dave do their level best to share, answer, entertain and inform! Press play to learn about all this and more; and learn five new things in the process!

To RAID or Not (to RAID)? – Mac Geek Gab 805

Do you close your Terminal sessions correctly? Does iStat Menus work after you migrate? Are you getting Notes to launch as fast as possible? You’ll be able to answer “yes” to all three of these things after just the first few minutes of this week’s show. Stick around and learn about taming CarPlay, sharing Calendars, using a VPN with your Apple TV and much more. You’ll definitely hit your quota of learning at least five new things with John and Dave this week.

BMW Owners Suffer ConnectedDrive Outage, Affects CarPlay

Some BMW owners have suffered a ConnectedDrive outage, and it affects CarPlay.

What seems to be happening is that because of the ConnectedDrive outage, cars are unable to confirm that users have paid for the CarPlay option in their vehicle. Because the car can’t make that authentication, BMW owners have no access to CarPlay, nor the other ConnectedDrive features.

BMW has purportedly acknowledged the ConnectedDrive outage to customers, but has yet to comment publicly or offer any sort of timetable on when the issue might be resolved.

Toyota Retrofits Older Vehicles for Apple CarPlay

Owners of Toyota’s Camry and Sienna vehicles will be able to add Apple CarPlay and Amazon Alexa as part of a retrofit.

Toyota says it will be notifying Camry and Sienna owners and “encouraging them to contact their dealer” about the retrofit; the installation will be done at dealerships. We reached out to Toyota to ask if the retrofit costs anything, and a spokesperson for the brand said there “may be a small service charge” and that dealers will be able to provide more information. Toyota doesn’t say how long it will actually take to complete the installation.

Touch Bar & The Terminal – Mac Geek Gab Podcast 748

Do you need an elbow connector? You might after listening to this episode! That, after all, is what Cool Stuff Found segments are all about: discovering stuff you didn’t know existed, and now you need! In addition to that, of course, your tips are shared and questions are answered, including some about iCloud Archives, CarPlay, and Watch Notifications. Hosts Dave Hamilton and John F. Braun guide you through all of this and more, just press play and enjoy learning at least five new things!

Scout FM Introduces New Features, Like Compatibility with CarPlay

Scout FM is a podcast radio service that streams a curated selection of podcasts and radio shows. Today the service is getting new features, including compatibility with Apple’s CarPlay. A cool new feature is called Commute Mode, which automatically finds shows for you that fit your commute time. Scout FM is a bit different than other podcast apps. You don’t subscribe and download podcasts. Instead it’s more similar to a traditional radio station. There are stations focused around categories like Daily News, Brain Food, and True Stories. You just pick a station and immediately start listening. App Store: Scout FM – Free

Ford CarPlay is Here for 2016 Models Via Software Update

Ford just announced that CarPlay is coming to all of its 2016 model vehicles with a new software update. CarPlay requires an iPhone 5 or later, and running iOS 7.1 or later. You can either take your car to the nearest Ford dealer for the Ford CarPlay update, or do it yourself.

Apple Ships iOS 10.3 with Find My AirPods, More Siri, Apple File System, More

Apple shipped iOS 10.3 Monday, a significant update to the company’s mobile operating system. Major features include the ability to find your AirPods under Find My iPhone; new Siri integration with third party apps; new CarPlay features, including daily curated playlists from Apple Music; and perhaps most importantly, the official rollout of Apple File System.

Mazda Will Add Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Retroactive for Some Models

Mazda announced Monday that it will (finally) add support for Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto technologies. Cars.com reported (via AppleInsider) that Mazda was short on specifics, but that support for both platforms will be retroactive with models that have Mazda Connect. That platform first appeared in in the 2014 Mazda3. There’s no specific timeline for the rollout, but Mazda made the announcement as part of the 2017 introduction of the Mazda CX-5 (pictured below). The company did say a “potentially minimal hardware addition” may be necessary, but it didn’t explain what that might be or how much it will cost. Cars.com also noted that once Mazda is on board, Toyota will be the last major holdout to support these mobile connectivity platforms from Apple and Google.