It’s that time again on Mac Power Users!
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
Keyboard Maestro got a big update, so on this episode of Automators, Rosemary and I are here to report on the new features.
Here comes 2024! I’m beginning to sell sponsorship for the blog and newsletter for next year. If you’re interested, drop me a note.
I am so pleased to welcome Fantastical as a new sponsor of the MacSparky blog. I’ve been using Fantastical since they first released their menu bar app and changed the calendaring world many years ago.
Over the years, it has evolved into a powerful calendaring system for me. Here are just a few of the ways that Fantastical’s unique features make my life easier:
There are so many reasons why I’m a Fantastical subscriber. If you’re looking for a calendar app that gets updated more than once a year and is made by complete calendar nerds, look no further.
Through the end of November, MacSparky readers will receive the biggest discount of the year and new users will save 50% by using this link – visit the Flexibits site to download the free trial.
Apple didn’t release any new iPad hardware this year, but according to Ming-Chi Kuo, that’s changing next year with iPad updates across the board, including the long-awaited OLED iPad Pro.
That’s good, and I hope that’s all true. But I also know how easy it was to go a year without iPad upgrades. I routinely hear from listeners and readers wanting to know about future iPhones and Macs. Questions about upcoming iPad hardware are a lot more rare.
To me, this is a better indicator of Apple’s success with the iPad than its failure to ship new iPad hardware in 2023. Now, the iPads are so solid and reliable that folks are waiting a long time to upgrade.
I purchased my iPad Pro in 2019. It still works great, and I don’t expect to buy an OLED iPad in 2024. For a nerd like me, four-going-on-five-year-old Apple hardware says something.
To pile onto this point (and I’ve been saying this on the podcast for a while now), I think we’ll get to the same place with the Apple silicon Macs. Apple has done an excellent job of figuring out Mac hardware, particularly with the arrival of their M-series chips. I expect we’ll be happy and hang on to them for a long time. That’s one of the reasons why I think Mac shipments (as reported by Apple last week) are down. The hardware is excellent and lasts a long time. That results in slower upgrade cycles, and that’s good!
I also expect this will be no surprise to Apple which partially explains why services are becoming such a big deal to them.
John Gruber spent more time with Vision Pro, focusing on the Photos app, including Spatial Video and panoramic photos. In short, John was impressed, and this is just the first iteration of this stuff.
These things are hard to predict. (It took a pandemic for video chat to get legs.) Nevertheless, as families and friends are spread to the four winds, this holodeck-like experience could be a big deal. Moreover, I’ve lost enough people to appreciate how memories fade. My dad died over 30 years ago, and I’d give a lot to be able to feel his presence again, even if just part of a silly spatial video file.
If this takes off, it could become a killer feature for Apple’s future Vision products. And as explained by John, when iOS 17.2 releases you’ll be able to start recording those spatial videos immediately with your iPhone 15 Pro, even if you don’t yet own a Vision Pro headset.
It’s that time of year again and the official Focused 2024 wall calendar is now available and shipping. (I got mine a few days ago.)
I love this calendar. It puts your entire year on the wall so you can see how you’re doing and when you’re busy. I’ve been using them for years, and I find them an excellent way to control the flow of my year.
It’s also been nice for my family to come into Endor Studios and look at the calendar so they know when I’m available. This would be an excellent tool for anybody working at home or with a team.
We’ve put a lot of work into the design of this calendar over the years, and it’s both functional and attractive.
I always mount mine on foam in the vertical orientation and hang it on the wall.
While I have never had a problem making content as MacSparky, I struggle with all the other little bits of running the business. I just want to make stuff. It’s my sincere desire to keep doing this for the duration and I acknowledge that if that’s to happen, I also need to work on the business parts of MacSparky, so one of my goals has been to (slowly) get better at that.
As part of that effort, I’ve set up a Testimonial system that I’ve been slowly rolling out and it’s going really well. I now have MacSparky Walls of Love for both the Field Guides and the Labs. If you have a moment and would like to leave a testimonial for the Fields Guides and/or the Labs, I’d sure appreciate it.
I recently guested on the iPad Pros Podcast with Tim Chaten to talk about Obsidian both in general and on the iPad. The show came out great.
In Jason Snell’s (excellent, as usual) review of the new M3 24” iMac, he reports on the currently-non-existent large iMac: “Apple told me that it has no plans to develop a 27-inch iMac again.”
Apple said the same thing to The Verge.
I have received many emails and messages from listeners and Labs members wanting to get a large iMac and asking how long they will have to wait. Based on this reporting, my answer will be, “Don’t wait; it’s not coming.”
I used to be a large iMac guy. I owned several of them over the years. If they released one today, I would not be interested. I’ve found I prefer the new world of separate computers and displays. My current display (a Pro Display XDR) has now worked with three different Macs. While there’s a higher cost going in, I think the math works out over time. Moreover, you can avoid that higher cost if you buy a non-Apple display.
When you look at the Mac compared to the iPhone, it is a blip on the Apple product line. Moreover, I expect if we had the numbers, you’d find that desktop Macs are but a blip compared to laptop Macs. So, when it comes to desktop Macs, we’re talking about a blip of a blip. I can understand why Apple doesn’t want to spend the time and resources to make a large iMac.
In hindsight, their messaging on this has been pretty straightforward: They view the 24-inch iMac as halfway between the little one and the big one and good enough for an iMac. I bought my daughter (a teacher) an M1 iMac as a graduation present (in yellow!). She loves it. I asked if she thinks it should be bigger, and she declined, “It fits perfectly on my desk.”
If you want something bigger, they want you to buy a Mac mini or Mac Studio along with one of their displays. Many people will not be happy with this decision but that is the reality. That doesn’t mean Apple isn’t capable of changing its mind. Remember when they got out of the display business? But if you need new hardware, I would not plan on waiting for that day.
I don’t think Apple is being coy. I think they view themselves as out of the big iMac business.