Chris Bailey is back on Focused to talk about dopamine, burnout, and finding calm in these anxious times.
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
Today Apple announced the release of a few new Macs.
M2 Mac mini
The big news here is that there are multiple Mac minis. There is an entry-level M2 Mac mini and a souped-up M2 “Pro” Mac mini. The new Pro chip is clocking as an improvement of up 20% processing, 30% graphics, and 40% on the neural engine. This fills an existing gap in the line for desktop Macs between the entry-level Mac mini and the much more powerful Mac Studio.
M2 MacBook Pro
This is the next iteration of the Apple silicon MacBook Pro. The M2 MacBook Pro comes in “Pro” and “Max” configurations. This machine is iterative compared to the M1 MacBook Pro, with improvements of 20% in processing and 30% faster on graphics. Few people will need to upgrade from the M1 MacBook Pro, but those on Intel machines should look at this one closely.
Below is Apple’s announcement video.
Time tracking can pay a lot of dividends when you are trying to figure out how you really spend your time. The problem, of course, is getting good data. Timing is a Mac application that automatically tracks your time based on your current activity. It’s a smart app, that gets even smarter with a little training.
But it’s never really had an answer to tracking time on your mobile devices, until now. Yesterday Timing released a new update that lets Timing import your iPhone and iPad usage from Screen Time. The trick is that Timing will read the Screen Time data in the background (once you give it permission) and then incorporate that data with the rest of your Timing data. Daniel Alm, the developer, wrote up a full explanation.
The solution is really clever, but I wish it didn’t have to be. Just like Apple makes it easy to share your health data with third-party apps, they should also let you share your Screen Time data.
This week MacSparky is sponsored by Curio, the most advanced notebook application for note-taking and research. There have been a lot of notebook-style applications for the Mac that have come (and gone) over the years. Curio is the best of these.
That is because Curio combines simplicity with power in a way I’ve never seen in a notebook app before. Your books are easy to organize, and the canvas (Curio calls it an Idea Space) is easily customizable with drag-and-drop tools like text, images, to-do lists, mind maps, and even Kanban stacks. It also holds many file types like images, PDFs, documents, web links, and multimedia files. Make each space your own.
Professionals, creatives, and students use Curio to be more productive and focused. Whether you are finding a cure, writing a novel, or trying to survive the education system, Curio is there for you. I like the way you can jump between notebooks so quickly and context switch from one Idea Space to another.
Curio also plays nicely with others. It has built-in integrations for DEVONthink, Hookmark, Evernote, Calendar, Reminders, iThoughts, and TaskPaper.
Curio is one of those great Mac apps developed (now for 20 years!) by a dedicated indie developer. Go check it out. Make sure to use Coupon Code MACSPARKY for 20% Off!
Gone are the days of using tapes, CDs, and iPods in cars. Apple has taken center stage in most new cars sold as the iPhone replaced all of those older media sources in the car. On this week’s Mac Power Users, Stephen and I pack up and go on a tour of CarPlay.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
Chris Lawley (YouTuber, nerd, and photographer) joins Rosemary and me on this episode of Automators to talk about moving house and what that means for his smart home, as well as his journey back to the Mac.
This episode of Automators is sponsored by:
Every time I open my drawers, I smile a little bit. The reason, is Kaizen Foam.
Years ago I bought some of this and I’ve been lining my drawers with it ever since. It comes in big sheets (2′ x 4′) but easily cuts with a box cutter to fit your drawers. Then you cut bits out of it to fit the shapes of your things. And the thing is you can cut those bits out over time, as you figure out exactly what goes where. When you’re done, everything has its place … and if you are as anal retentive as I am about these things, you get warm and fuzzy all over.
If you decide to get your own Kaizen Foam, check out these guys. The trick is to buy a bundle for the free shipping. It took me a few years to work through my first bundle, but now that I’m reopening my wood shop I’ve just received my second bundle. If you’re curious, I get the 30 mm variant in black.
If you want your drawers to make you smile, look no further.
Does your email go into your inbox, or is it more like an out-of-control box? Amirite?! With the help of this week’s sponsor at MacSparky, you can turn it into a sanebox.
Take back control of your email with SaneBox. SaneBox’s A.I. will make sure that only important email stays in your inbox by analyzing your email history and learning what’s important to you. Important emails you need to deal with now go to your inbox. Emails you don’t have to deal with immediately are filtered into a separate folder and saved for later when you can switch your focus and headspace and deal with them at a later time. Goodbye, distractions. This allows you to work more efficiently.
A cleaner inbox. A more useful and productive inbox. A sanebox. You can try it out yourself and see how your inbox email is trained and sorted by signing up for a free trial, and you’ll get a $10 credit you can use towards a SaneBox subscription. Restore your sanity to your inbox with SaneBox.
Today we heard from Mark Bloomberg that Apple is indeed working on a touch-screen Mac for release sometime in the future. (The article estimates 2025.) I agree with most of the Internet that it’s a good idea.
Every time I use my iPad for an extended length of time and sit down in front of my MacBook, I inevitably reach out and tap the screen. It feels so natural.
Steve Jobs didn’t like the idea of touch-screen Macs, but that was long ago.
I expect another reason Apple hasn’t gone there is because the mac OS is not designed for meaty human fingers. If Apple were to make a touch-screen Mac, they would need to make affordances for fingers, which are much less precise than a mouse pointer.
If the Bloomberg prediction is accurate, and Apple does release touch-screen Macs at some point, I will be curious to see what accommodations Apple makes to macOS for fingers.
Related, I continue to wish Apple would be more willing to experiment with form factors. Lots of people are doing interesting things with computers these days and while many of them are terrible, some are interesting and could be useful if Apple put its design expertise into them. I still daydream about an iMac that would tilt down like the Microsoft Surface Studio into something that becomes a giant, drafting-table-sized touch-screen and Apple-Pencil-friendly iPad.
Shawn Blanc left his job back in 2011 to become a full-time writer. Twelve years later, he is the mastermind behind sites like The Focus Course, The Sweet Setup, and more. Stephen and I ask him about that journey and and how he has grown his operation from a solo venture to a team running multiple projects on the this episode of Mac Power Users.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by: