Tag: HomePod

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New Books, first quarter of 2025

by straitmacvp

Take Control Books has released many new books, or revisions to previous books, over the past few months. It is important to note that you get free updates to Take Control Books until the release of a new edition. In other words, if you have the 3rd Edition of Take Control of Your Cat, you get versions 3.1, 3.1.1, 3.2, 3.3, etc., up until they release the 4th Edition. Not that they’d ever produce a book about controlling cats, since they don’t publish fiction.

I’ve had many questions about these topics over the past few months. The nice thing about Take Control Books is that you can buy, download, and start reading them immediately. You can read them on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, using Apple’s Books app. And they don’t take up any space on the coffee table or your desk.

New books include:

Take Control of iCloud 9.2 (I probably get a question about this at every meeting),
https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/icloud/

Mac Basics 1.0 (this is a general survey of everything Mac, and covers pretty much all of the utilities we’ve been covering the past several months, plus much more, including an appendix on migrating to the Mac from Windows),

https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/macbasics

Take Control of Apple Screen and File Sharing 1.0.1 (something I use in every meeting),

https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/screen-file-sharing

Take Control of iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 1.2 (updated to cover some new features added since the original release of these operating systems)

https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/ios-18-ipados-18

Take Control of iPhone Photography 1.1 (I’ve taken thousands of photos with my iPhone, and it covers many things I’ve never thought about),

https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/iphone-photography

Take Control of Siri 3.0 (the fine print says “Covers Siri on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, HomePod”),

https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/siri

Take Control of Your Apple Account 1.1 (previously called Apple ID),

https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/apple-account

Take Control of Your Online Privacy 5.1 (not always specific to Apple, and a great resource),

https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/online-privacy

If I seem to mention Take Control Books frequently, there is a reason. Once upon a time, Amazon listed thousands of books about the Mac and iPhone. Today, Amazon still has many Apple titles, but a great many of those listed are for obsolete Macs, iPhones, iPads, or obsolete software. It also doesn’t help that Apple devices usually come with just one sheet of basic instructions telling you little more than what the buttons do; the original Mac came with several complete books.

Pleasant reading.

Apple Intelligence

Very busy October for Apple

by straitmacvp

Apple updates as of October 30, 2024

So far this week, Apple has released:

New Macs

  • A new, much more powerful set of 24″ iMacs with a new M4 chip, coming with a standard 16 GB of memory (up from the past 8 GB). I recommend that if you get one, you opt for the model with four Thunderbolt 4 ports (instead of the baseline two) and get a minimum of 1 terabyte of storage.
  • a new Mac mini with an M4 or an M4 Pro processor and a standard 16 GB of memory (up from the past 8 GB). I would recommend at least one terabyte of storage. The upgraded M4 Pro model also offers Thunderbolt 5 ports (up to 120 GBb/sec) instead of Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gb/sec) ports. The mini comes without a display, keyboard or mouse, but is otherwise currently Apple’s fastest desktop machine.
  • a new set of MacBook Pro with an M4, M4 Pro, or M4 Max processor and a standard 16 GB of memory (up from the past 8 GB). I would recommend at least one terabyte of storage. The higher-end models have Thunderbolt 5 ports, and you can add up to 128 GB of memory.

Apple Intelligence

  • a software update that allows the AirPods Pro 2 to offer a hearing test, and hearing protection, and function as a clinical-grade hearing aid.
  • software updates that bring the first elements of Apple Intelligence to certain models of iPhone, iPad, and Macintosh laptop and desktop machines.
  • a new iPad mini (technically introduced last week)

Software updates

  • iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1: brings Apple Intelligence to higher-end iPads and iPhones, plus has function bug fixes and security fixes to phones dating back to the iPhone XS.
  • iOS 17.7.1 and iPadOS 17.7.1: function bug fixes and security fixes to iPhones dating back to the iPhone XS.
  • macOS Sequoia 15.1: brings Apple Intelligence to Apple Silicon-based computers and function bug fixes and security fixes to machines running macOS Sequoia.
  • macOS Sonoma 14.7.1: brings function bug fixes and security fixes to machines running macOS Sonoma.
  • macOS Ventura 13.7.1: brings function bug fixes and security fixes to machines running macOS Ventura.
  • watchOS 11.1: brings function bug fixes and security fixes to Apple Watches running watchOS 11.
  • tvOS 18.1: brings function bug fixes and security fixes to Apple TVs running tvOS 18.
  • visionOS 2.1: brings Apple Intelligence and function bug fixes and security fixes to Apple Vision Pro.
  • HomePod 18.1: brings function bug fixes and security fixes to HomePod. HomePod software is not something you can check in an obvious way; see Apple’s directions on updating.

It is only Wednesday, and there is a possibility Halloween could bring something new, too.

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Keep your Apple software current

by straitmacvp

Apple has a page that lists all current Apple operating systems. At the moment, it shows:

  • iOS 17.3.1 for iPhone
  • iPadOS 17.3.1 for iPad
  • macOS 14.3.1 for Macintosh
  • tvOS 17.3 for Apple TV
  • watchOS 10.3.1 for Apple Watch
  • visionOS 1.0.2 for Apple Vision Pro

I strongly recommend that you bookmark this page:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222

as Apple updates it when new versions are released.

You should also note that, further down the page, it documents when Apple security updates were released, and what machines they covered.

If you want to be informed, via email, of security updates, go to this page,

https://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/security-announce

fill in the blanks, and Apple will send you an email every time a security update is released.

This page,

https://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo

shows several other mailing lists, covering everything from accessibility features, how to write programs in AppleScript, how to configure Macs and Apple devices for use in the federal government, and other even more obscure topics.

But what if I want to know more?

If you want to get very geeky, you can apply for a free Developer account,

https://developer.apple.com

which gives you access to Apple programming tools, where you can build applications, write scripts, and do odd things, some even useful.

If you are curious about programming, but aren’t sure if it is for you, know that most Apple software is written in a programming language called Swift. It has nothing to do with a famous singer. You can play with Swift using Swift Playgrounds, available for iPad and for Mac. You can read about that here:

https://developer.apple.com/swift-playgrounds

Swift Playgrounds can be downloaded, for free, from the Mac app store and the iOS app store.

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WWDC23, Troubleshooting Demonstration

by straitmacvp
WWDC23, Troubleshooting Demonstration
A Swift logo is used to promote Apple's World Wide Development Conference, starting at 10 a.m. PT on June 5, 2023.

Apple is using a Swift logo (Swift is a language developed by Apple) to promote their World Wide Developer Conference 2023, better known as WWDC23.. While it is aimed at programmers and software designers (and the Swift logo is a strong suggestion that development will be the main focus), Apple has traditionally highlighted a consumer-friendly introduction to new products, operating systems, and other goodies in the opening keynote of the conference. This year, the conference will be both in-person and streamed online.

The keynote — and everyone is encouraged to stream it, since it is free — starts Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, June 5, 2023. More details are available on Apple’s site. You can stream it on an iPad, Macintosh, or Apple TV — pretty much anything that can stream video from the Internet.

Then on Saturday, June 10, 2023, at 1 p.m., SMUG will have an in-person demonstration of Computer Troubleshooting for Non-Techies, covering both Windows and Macintosh computers, at Trinity United Methodist Church in Sequim. Check this website for more details, plus a poster for the event, plus three odd troubleshooting guides.

Woman computer techie and her faithful dragon busy troubleshooting four computers.

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Books about Macs Black Friday sale

by straitmacvp

In recent meetings, we’ve mentioned Take Control Books. Originally done as an offshoot of one of the first Macintosh mailing lists (established in 1984), Take Control Books are electronic books dealing with mostly Mac-centric topics, such as macOS, Photos, Pages, etc.

Take Control Books is having a “Black Friday” sale on some of their most important books, including several mentioned in recent meetings. While I haven’t read most of these, I do have quite a few of their books, and highly recommend them. They cover critical Mac topics quite well.

Here is the announcement of their sale, with links:

✩✩✩

The sale is on! From now through next Monday, December 2, we’re having a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale—50% off on our most recent releases. No coupon or special links are required.

Here are the books that are on sale:

Connect and Secure Your iPhone and iPad
Take Control of Automating Your Mac
Take Control of Calendar and Reminders
Take Control of Catalina
Take Control of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13
Take Control of macOS Media Apps
Take Control of Notes
Take Control of Photos
Take Control of Upgrading to Catalina
Take Control of Wi-Fi Networking and Security
Take Control of Your Apple ID
Take Control of Your Browser
Take Control of Your Digital Photos

The sale ends promptly at midnight on Monday, December 2 (Pacific time).

✩✩✩

They have a large number of books available, covering almost any Mac or iOS topic you can imagine: https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/catalog/

The nice thing about their books: because they are electronic, you can find a book you want, buy it, download it, and be reading it almost immediately. Books are available in ePub (iPad and iPhone), Mobi (Kindle), and PDF (Acrobat) format.