Soundbyte 354 – August 2024

ChristopherNews, SoundByte

HomePod mini (midnight colour)

Welcome to SoundByte! In this issue:

Summer Party

It’s summer time and LMUG is having a Summer Party. We invite members to join us at Lincoln Inn Fields, in central London, at 2pm on the 18th of August. We’ll have a Gazebo; bring your favourite food to share and we’ll do the same. Bring some cash too, as we will be hosting one of our great raffles.

The summer party will be instead of a Zoom meeting this month. Join our Slack for updates and follow the London 😜 Mac User Group on…Mastodon🐘! If you are not familiar with Mastodon, have a look at TidBit’s explainer here.

We look forward to seeing you there.

A new HomePod…colour!

The Home Pod mini line has been refreshed with a new/old colour. Black is now Midnight. I suppose you could describe it as not quite black. Made from recycled mesh, it costs £99.

What’s behind Apple Intelligence?

Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence last month and some of it has made an appearance in the beta software for IOS 18.1.

This means it is likely to become available at some point in the Autumn. Two of the more intriguing features that Apple unveiled was Smart Script which learns your handwriting, giving more options to process it and Math Notes which understands your equations. These features can generate dazzling outcomes and Apple Executives discussed these in the video below with Christopher Lawley:

These AI tools are done on device (meaning it is not sent up to the cloud risking your privacy). How has Apple’s AI learned how to do this? More details have emerged and there has been some controversy. In-line with other AI models, Apple Intelligence reads publicly available information on the web to learn about the world. Apple stated that web publishers (who may be hosting proprietary content) could opt-out by putting something called a robot.txt on their web server (like a virtual keep out sign for AI).

There are reports that some other AIs are ignoring this convention. At the same time, others are struggling to navigate copy-write law. Apple themselves, had to specifically deny that its model is scraping subtitles from YouTube videos. These are all indications of the extremely high stakes in the race to build useful AI features. All the big tech companies can see that if AIs find a real use, this could drive billions of dollars of business. But this is still a nascent technology with many mis-steps, and so far, there has been no major impact.

As Apple users, we know that great technology is not the same as a great product (that makes money). Making great products is really hard. We know this because we have seen all the failures so far. We also know that Apple has positioned AI as a feature (like Math Notes), not a product…

We can also see that in some places, AI has been used to spruce up existing features, like transcription, photo enhancement, search and automation. We might get evolutions rather than big bang changes. We can also see the murkier side where AI isn’t just reading others’ work to learn but just copying the work. This has led major records labels to sue AI companies for ripping-off their artists, when people ask their AI to create ‘new‘ songs.

Success or failure, AI development is costing a serious amount of money. The big companies are spending about a trillion dollars to build the machines to run AI on. It is perhaps the biggest bet since the Moon race! They clearly feel it’s a bet they have to make, but who will win?

Is Google about to make a mess of the web?

As AI sucks up all the information on the web, the implications for AI powered web search is perhaps becoming clearer. Why visit a great product review website if AI can just tell you. But can you trust the AI results? If it’s built into your search engine, would we have a choice? And if shady companies try to game the search, how will search engines tackle that? The Verge has a look at the mess to come here.

How Apple protected us from the Crowd Strike fiasco

Unless you live in China or under a rock, you may have heard about the massive world-wide breakdowns last month, caused by a botched software update from the cyber security company CrowdStrike.

Airport departures screen running Windows fails in Crowd Strike IT failure.

An interesting part of this story is why Apple computers were not affected. Essentially it’s because of how macOS security is now designed. Apple prevents the deep access to the operating system that Crowd Strike uses to monitor security anomalies. Instead macOS does the monitoring itself and reports the results to apps. Microsoft has claimed that regulation meant it couldn’t do the same.

How to keep your data private when you share photos

Did you know that when posting pictures to social media you could be sharing where you live? Photos from smartphones contain metadata and this can include the GPS coordinates of where the phone was taken. If this matters to you, LMUG’s technical editor recommends two Mac apps that can scrub out the metadata from photos you want to share: ImageOptim and and Squash, which you can get on the Mac App Store.

NT dead yet!

Back in March 2023, we learned that old PowerMacs are keeping the Amiga OS alive (and in active development). Now we learn that Windows NT is similarly being kept alive on the same PowerMacs! Read about this bizarre situation on the Register.

Windows NT Logo

It’s the more bizarre because Apple themselves have no such qualms about shedding legacy technologies. For example, if you want to know if your Mac is compatible with the upcoming macOS Sequoia…have a look at the short video below for the answer (spoiler – its still around 5 years support -ED):

Summer watching on Apple

Apple TV is full of original content. A good way to choose what to watch might be to see which have been nominated for awards. Indeed many Apple TV shows have Emmy nominations. Have a look here to see what might be worthy watches this summer.

Dyson Headphones

Dyson have unveiled some new high end wireless headphones. They compete with and are in the same price range and sound quality as AirPods Max, and they have a button that invokes Siri. Have a look at their introduction below:

Does working with your MacBook plugged in ruin the battery?

Battery technology gets better and better and part of this improvement is battery management. Battery management is how the battery is charged and discharged in a way that improves performance (like charging speed) and longevity (battery life and replacement). These improvements are in Apple Products via Optimised Battery Charging (in settings). This means for example, that keeping your MacBook plugged in while working might not be harmful to the battery. Read about it on Macworld.

[LMUG’s Technical Editor says this all well and good, but please could Apple bring back the battery monitoring lights. It seems that would make his life a lot easier].

A pile of Apple laptops with battery indicators showing the level of charge.

New life for old Macs!

Finally, there is a very Mac way to re-use ♻️ old Macs. Juicy Crumb has made a conversion kit to turn 2011 iMacs into functional external monitors for new Macs. Their latest rather elegant conversion kit is for the iconic G4 iMac! Have a look below at what you could do if you have this old Mac in a cupboard somewhere:

Offers for members

Find below the special offers available to our paying members. Access these great discounts from the discounts page in the member’s section of the LMUG website. 

  • AgileBits 1Password 7: 25% Discount
  • Eve Products: 25% Discount
  • EverWeb by RAGE Software: 50% Discount 
  • Opus ][ Complete Collection: 25% Discount
  • Que Publishing Products: 35-45% Discount
  • Take Control Books: 30% Discount on All eBooks
  • Teams ID, a Password Manager for Teams: 33% Discount
  • TechTool Pro: 50% Discount
  • TidBITS Content Network for Apple professionals: Get a free month of tips and articles!