Governor Henry McMaster has awarded US$6 million so the University of South Carolina and Benedict College can create eight Apple computer labs.
Mac
Twelve South Launches MagicBridge Extended to Join Magic Keyboard and Trackpad
On Tuesday Twelve South launched a new product called MagicBridge Extended. It’s an enclosure to combine an Apple Magic Trackpad 2 with a Magic Keyboard.
Emulating Mac Plus, Mac II, and Mac 128K on iOS
Ex-Apple Technology Evangelist Matt Sephton tweeted a photo of painting on an iPad Pro in the style of Mac OS 7, otherwise known as System 7. He shared a way to do this via software emulation. A tool on GitHub called Mini vMac lets you emulate Mac Plus, Mac II, and Mac 128K on your iDevice. It requires iOS 9 or later, a ROM image from one of the three systems, and disk images with Mac software.
Brother-Sister Duo Charged With Stealing MacBooks From Stanford
Two people pleaded guilty to federal charges this week in a scheme to steal and re-sell hundreds of MacBooks from Stanford.
Castaneda was charged with thefts totaling around $4 million, while $2.3 million in stolen goods were attributed to her brother. Authorities say the computers were sold on Craigslist to an uncharged co-conspirator, a Folsom man, who resold them to people living in other states.
The article mentions approximately 800 MacBooks.
Fantastic Safari Extensions and Where to Find Them
Apple started moving Safari extensions to the Mac App Store in 2017. Here’s where to find and install extensions to add extra functions to Safari.
Judge Approves Class Action Lawsuit for MacBook Butterfly Keyboards
Judge Edward Davila has approved a class action lawsuit against Apple over its butterfly keyboards.
Memory Bit-Flip Error, Justin Long's Change of Heart, Oak Island Catchup, with John Kheit - ACM 544
Bryan Chaffin and John Kheit dive into the memory bit-flip error that is apparently becoming common. They also catch up on their favorite show, The Curse of Oak Island, and they discuss Justin Long’s change of marketing heart.
After Ad Campaign, Intel Launches ‘PC vs. Mac’ Website
After releasing its ad campaign featuring Justin Long, Intel released a “PC vs. Mac” website comparing the platforms. Juli Clover shares:
Intel positions PCs as more “personalized” to fit a user’s “specific hardware and software needs,” while the M1 Macs offer “limited” device support, games, and creation applications. “The bottom line is a PC offers users a choice, something that users don’t get with a Mac,” reads the website.
Notice how all of Intel’s examples are features of Windows, not Intel, a.k.a. actual performance statistics. What a joke.
New ‘XcodeSpy’ Malware Targets Apple Developers
A new form of malware has been discovered that explicitly targets Apple developers. It’s called “XcodeSpy.”
Justin Long is Now ‘PC Guy’ in New Intel Ads Mocking Macs
Apple fans are familiar with the ad campaign in the mid-2000s. Justin Long was Mac Guy and John Hodgman was PC Guy, and they compared the different platforms. In a series of new ads from Intel, Justin Long is now PC Guy, mocking Apple’s Macs as Intel is surely still reeling from the announcement of the M1 chip. There are five ads in total of the “Justin Gets Real” campaign: 2-in-1 Flexibility, PC Gaming, Having Choices, Touch Screens, and 3 Monitors.
Avira Security Updates Mac App With New Code
Avira Security released the latest version of its software suite on Tuesday. It’s been rewritten with Apple’s Swift, SwiftUI, and Combine frameworks.
AirBuddy 2 - Connect AirPods to Your Mac with One Click: $8.99
We have a deal on AirBuddy 2, a Mac utility that allows you to connect your AirPods to your Mac with one click. With AirBuddy, you can also open your AirPods case next to your Mac and see the current status right away, just like it works on your iPhone or iPad. It’s $8.99 through our deal.
Apple Releases macOS Big Sur 11.3 Beta 4 to Developers
A couple of weeks after releasing beta 3, Apple on Monday has seeded macOS Big Sur 11.3 developer beta 4 to developers.
Adobe Updates Photoshop With M1 Support, Saying its 50% Faster
Adobe announced on Wednesday that it updated Photoshop to support M1 Macs, and the company says it runs 1.5X faster.
This Open Source Tool Can Generate Serial Codes for Hackintoshes
The developer behind Docker-OSX released a standalone tool to generate serial codes that can be used to create “a virtual army of Hackintoshes.”
Just type in a command, and it will set up a CSV file full of serial codes. “You can generate hundreds and thousands of serial numbers, just like that. And it just generates a massive list.
Nimble’s Spring 2021 Replay Charging Collection is Environmentally Friendly
Recently, Nimble introduced its Spring 2021 REPLAY Collection filled with fast-charge accessories produced with a low carbon footprint.
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite Adds iPad App, M1 Support
Graphics suite CorelDRAW has added support for M1 Macs and created a brand-new iPad app. Built to take advantage of the power of Apple silicon, the team’s testing showed dramatic performance boosts on these new systems. When comparing a variety of common tasks on a MacBook Air 2019 (Intel chip) vs a Macbook Air 2020 with M1, across the board, most scenarios showed a minimum 2x speed improvement on the M1 system. Some tests were dramatically higher, including an image resampling scenario that produced speed results more than 20x faster.
Apple Discontinues iMac Pro, Product Sold While Supplies Last
Over the weekend Apple confirmed that the iMac Pro has been discontinued. Devices will continue to be sold until supplies run out.
Mac App Electrum Wallet With Backdoor Spotted in Wild
An Electrum wallet with a backdoor has been spotted in the wild by ConfiantIntel. They noticed that it’s another example of a piece of malware notarized by Apple. Link to tweet thread below.
These fake wallets were introduced during a Malvertising attack our security team discovered early this week, involving the hacking of a Major SSP. The hackers redirected the victims to https://electrum-4.github[.]io/ asking them to install an update of the electrum wallet.
In a separate tweet, it looks like one of Patrick Wardle’s tools can detect it.
Satechi Releases USB-C Multi-Port Adapter
Satechi announced on Thursday the launch of a USB-C multi-port dock. It has USB-C PD charging, HDMI and VGA display ports, USB-A data ports, SD card slots, and Gigabit Ethernet, with two detachable USB-C cables – perfect for on-the-go or docked at your desk. Compatible devices include: 2020/2019/2018/2017/2016 MacBook Pro, 2020/2018 MacBook Air, 2020/2018 iPad Pro, 2019/2017 iMac, iMac Pro, 2015/2016/2017 MacBook, Microsoft Surface Laptop 3/Surface Pro 7/Go, Google PixelBook Go, ChromeBook, Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro S, HP Spectre Convertible, Razer Blade, Huawei Matebook and more USB-C devices. It costs US$99.99 but with the code MULTIPORT20 you can get 20% off. Valid until March 15.
M1 Support Coming to Open Source Email Client ‘Thunderbird’
In the latest beta version of Thunderbird the company added a welcome surprise in the notes: Future support for Apple’s M1 Macs. These notes apply to Thunderbird version 87 beta 1 released February 26, 2021. What’s New: Native support for macOS devices built with Apple Silicon CPUs; New user interface for adding attachments; Clicking on an already-selected pill in the recipient list will now allow editing the address; Copying a large message to an IMAP server would sometimes prematurely display a time-out error; OpenPGP: Messages with a high compression ratio (over 10x) could not be decrypted; and other fixes and improvements.
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Runs on a Modified iMac G3 Processor
Apparently the Perseverance rover is running on a modified PowerPC 750 processor which was also used in the original iMac G3 from 1998.
Run Virtual Machines on M1 Macs With ‘UTM’
UTM is an app I recently discovered that lets you run virtual machines on M1 Macs. It uses Apple’s Hypervisor virtualization framework to run ARM64 operating systems on Apple Silicon at near native speeds. On Intel Macs, x86/x64 operating system can be virtualized. In addition, lower performance emulation is available to run x86/x64 on Apple Silicon as well as ARM64 on Intel. For developers and enthusiasts, there are dozens of other emulated processors as well including: ARM32, MIPS, PPC, and RISC-V. Under the hood of UTM is QEMU, a decades old, free and open source emulation software that is widely used and actively maintained. While QEMU is powerful, it can be difficult to set up and configure with its plethora of command line options and flags. UTM is designed to give users the flexibility of QEMU without the steep learning curve that comes with it. Mac App Store Link
CleanMyMac X Gets Redesign and M1 Mac Support
On Thursday MacPaw announced a redesign of its CleanMyMac X app as well as native support for Apple’s new M1 Macs.
