Automators 94: Legal Nerd-ness with Jeff Richardson

On this week’s episode of Automators, Rosemary and I are joined by Jeff Richardson: lawyer by day, automator for life.

This episode of Automators is sponsored by:

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Journaling Webinar Now on YouTube

Last week I did a free webinar on how (and why) I journal. It came out great, and I’ve got a lot of positive feedback on it. I usually add the webinar content to the appropriate Field Guide after I’ve finished it. In this case, however, I don’t have any Field Guide where adding a 45-minute journaling webinar makes sense, so I’m posting it to YouTube. Enjoy

There are a few links I mention in the video. Here they are.

Sparky’s Journal Prompts Page

Also, if this sort of thing interests you, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. I’m going to be posting there more regularly going forward.

Audio Hijack is Getting Scripting Support

Rogue Amoeba has the details on their website:

Perhaps the single most notable change, however, is something making a return from years back: scripting support. In the years since Audio Hijack Pro 2 was replaced by Audio Hijack 3, we’ve never stopped getting requests for some type of scripting to make a return. After much research and experimentation, we’ll soon be providing a from-the-ground-up JavaScript-based scripting system, as well as Shortcuts support.

I agree with Jason Snell. Audio Hijack has been my go-to audio recording tool for years. As a podcaster, I can record my mic, the Zoom audio, and a combined version of everything all at once. It’s this ability in Audio Hijack that has all of us nerds with our knickers in a bunch about podcasting on the iPad. It’s powerful enough, but it cannot do that.

That said, every time I record a show, I issue a silent prayer for Audio Hijack to get scripting support so I don’t have to take so many manual steps, even using my beloved, there is only so much I can do. This is going to be an awesome update. I can’t wait to put it in the rotation.

Apple and Support for Old Hardware

There are a lot of knocks against Apple that, when I hear them, I say, “Yup. That’s about right.” They charge too much for storage on new Macs. They’re secretive about new products, which is smart. But they are also often secretive about little stuff, which seems dumb. They are way too stingy with free iCloud storage. (5GB?! Really? In 2022?)

But then there is a separate category of knocks against Apple that baffle me. One of those is the idea that they cripple old devices, so you’ll buy a new one. Where do people get that idea? Until recently, my wife was running a 10-year-old MacBook. I know multiple people that are still using an iPad 2. (The iPad 2 shipped in 2011.) The same goes for the iPhone. When measured against the march of technology, Apple supports ancient iPhones.

John Gruber recently posted a story about Google dropping support for their Pixel 3, a three-year-old phone. At the same time. Apple still supports the iPhone 6S, which shipped in 2015. I honestly don’t get the argument that Apple is usint software updates to kill old hardware. In reality it is just the opposite.

If you look at the iPad in particular, I know a lot of people running old hardware quite happily. Apple keeps the software updates coming and the iPad is like the energizer bunny. It just keeps going and going. I have a theory that we’ll get similar longevity from Apple Silicon Macs, but that remains to be seen.

Dashboard 2.0

I missed this post from Stephen Hackett a few days ago, but I couldn’t agree more that we need Dashboard to come back to the Mac. I actually used the Dashboard before it was removed, but in today’s world with Swift UI, a Dashboard 2.0 should give you widgets zooming into your main screen. Imagine if instead of having to give a whole space to my Comms Board, I could just make it zoom in and out as needed?

This also came up on the most recent episode of the Mac Power Users. I think the trick of making a Dashboard 2.0 that would get traction among the users would be to make it fully compatible with Swift UI widgets and let the users put them all over the screen, not just the right corner as they currently are relegated with the Notification Center.

I realize this is just wish-casting, but wouldn’t it be nice?

The Supply Chain and the Apple Silicon Release Schedule

Today 9to5 Mac put together some great sources indicating that the supply chain problems everyone else is facing are finally catching up with Apple. At the last quarterly earnings call, Tim Cook explained that for Apple, the supply chain problem wasn’t the big money parts, but the little commodity bits and pieces.

Apple made a fortune, partly because of its mastery of the supply chain. People will write books about how they did it at some point if they haven’t already. It looks, however, like that run may be hitting a few speed bumps.

There is a lot of speculation about new iMacs, MacBook Airs, and Mac Pros. I can’t help but wonder if these emerging supply chain issues may slow down that product release pace. At WWDC 2020, Tim Cook promised Apple would finish the Apple Silicon transition in two years. You can argue about whether that deadline happens at this year’s WWDC or on December 31. Time is running out either way.

If Apple is indeed going to be supply-constrained and not able to get everything out by this artificial deadline in sufficient quantities, will they announce on time and release in very limited quantities, or will they just let the date slip and wait to announce until they can deliver more units? Historically, I think the answer would assuredly be the latter. They’d wait. I know Apple is a different company than it was 20 years ago, but I hope that even with their current size, they’d still wait.

Mac Power Users 624: Apple Apps That Need Some Polishing

Apple ships a wide range of applications across its family of operating systems. However, over the years, they have received uneven amounts of support and attention from the company. This week’s episode of Mac Power Users has Stephen and I talking about some of these apps and which ones could use some love from the folks in Cupertino.

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My Comms Board

I’m giving a webinar today about how I journal. (There still may be time to sign up.) One of the slides shares what I lovingly call my “Comms Board,” and I thought it worth sharing here.

This is the array of apps I keep on a separate space to the left of my working screen. It’s a collection of my communication apps. The idea of this is to keep communications separate from my working screen and require me to intentionally switch screens to go into that mode. On good days, I only visit the Comms Board a few times. You could set this up with Keyboard Maestro, Moom, or any window manager of choice.

The Apple Headset Possibilities

The smoke signals around the Apple VR/AR goggles are getting thicker. This week Mark Gurman weighed in, as reported by 9to5 Mac, explaining the new goggles may have 8K displays inside driven by MacBook Pro caliber Apple silicon and will cost above $2,000.

I’ve got the first generation Oculus Quest. I’ve done some gaming on it and even tried to work with it a few times. One of my favorite things to do with the Oculus is visiting virtual Machu Picchu or my virtual cabin in the Alps. It does feel pretty remarkable even with obviously underpowered hardware.

And that is the problem with my now-obsolete Oculus. The display is too pixelated, and the processor is too small. The now-shipping $300 Oculus 2 features a resolution of 1832 x 1920. (My Oculus Quest 1 resolution is 1440 x 1600.)

So, getting back to that 8K display and $2,000+ price point. That could be true, or it could be more smoke. You may recall that before the iPad release, there were “credible” rumors it would start at $1,000. When it turned out to start at $499, everybody lost their minds over what a good deal that was. If I were a betting man, I’d guess that the rumors are correct, and these things are going to be capital “E” Expensive.

So what if Apple were to take their engineering prowess to make something that is genuinely multiples better than everything else on the market? I think that product would be interesting. It could expand the possibilities of what you could pull off with AR/VR. In this weird time where it seems like we are all just one more variant away from getting stuck at home again, wouldn’t it be nice to get away to a much more believable digital Machu Picchu?

Regardless, these rumors and leaks will only increase in frequency as we move forward through 2022. The hype machine around this product feels much bigger than the hubbub that preceded the Apple Watch. This one has much more of an iPad-level hype. Buckle up gang.