Automators 63: Home Automation Wizardry and Nerd Out

On this episode of Automators, Rosemary and I dive back into the wonderful world of home automation and look at Rosemary’s new setup. From “You’ve Got Mail” to picking accessories, we go beyond the normal, and possibly the insane.

This episode of Automators is sponsored by:

Command Line Heroes: Epic true tales of people revolutionizing the technology landscape. Season 6 out now.
Sync Up, a OneDrive podcast: Takes you behind the scenes of OneDrive.
FastScripts: Powerful script management utility. Instant access to your scripts, by keyboard shortcut or menubar. Get 20% off for a limited time only.
Setapp: More than 200 powerful apps for your Mac. Try it free for a week.

Fantastical 3.3

With both Big Sur and Apple Silicon shipping in the last week, I’m behind on some of the software updates. Fantastical released version 3.3 with a new Big Sur design and support for adding Microsoft Teams meetings in an interface similar to their Zoom integration. The other big update here is the widgets. The Fantastical widgets (there are a lot of them) for iPhone, iPad, and even Mac put Apple’s calendar widget to shame. I’m using the large size month calendar and event list on my iPhone home screen.

It’s a nice update and already out. I continue to use Fantastical daily to manage my calendar appointment and block schedule.

Notes Following Three Hours with an M1 macBook Air

Hooray! It’s the release day for the M1 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini. There are a bunch of reviews by folks who spent a week with the new Macs. My two favorites were from Jason Snell and Dieter Bohn. I’ve only been using mine a few hours, but I already have some notes to share:

Small, with a Punch

Having used a MacBook Pro and a 12” MacBook a lot over the last year, this new MacBook Air is like their love child. Light, small, and wicked fast.
No Heat
I’ve been primarily just setting things up but I have rendered a few videos and otherwise tried to push the M1 around a bit. So far, no noticeable heat or throttling. I already feel like my choice of the MacBook Air was the right one.
Still a Mac
Thus far I’ve worked in OmniFocus, Microsoft Word, Keyboard Maestro, Fantastical, 1Password, and Obsidian. Everything seems to be working as if it was Intel inside, but faster.
Battery Life
It’s too early to tell, but in the three hours that I’ve been installing downloading, setting up, and working on this Mac, I’ve used 20% of the available battery life. That’s nuts.

Even though it’s only been a few hours, I’m already using this Mac to do work and the word that just keeps jumping to my mind is “snappy”. I’ve never had a Mac that jumped to my command like this. The way apps load and leap onto the screen are reminiscent, not surprisingly, of iPad OS more than traditional macOS. I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts as I use it more, but so far I’m impressed.

The Imminent M1

It took me a few hours to figure out what new MacBook I actually wanted and my initial ship date wasn’t until next week. Now it’s jumped up tomorrow and I’m tickled. It’s been a long time since I was so eager to get my hands on some new Apple hardware. I expect if units are shipping to folks tomorrow, we may also get the review drop, which should give us a lot more data about the differences between the various M1 Macs and further details. This week should be fun.

Mac Power Users 562: The First Apple Silicon Macs

Stephen and I are joined by Kurt Knight, Senior Director, Platform Product Marketing at Apple to talk about the M1 chip and macOS Big Sur on this week’s episode of Mac Power Users. After that, we talk about this first wave of new Macs.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.
Indeed: Get a free $75 credit to boost your job post.
Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
Woven: The calendar with the most powerful scheduling tools. Try it free for 21 days.

Some Thoughts on Big Sur

This week Apple launched the latest Mac operating system, macOS Big Sur, representing the most significant visual change to macOS arguably since the inception of Mac OS X. I’ve been using the beta for months and have a few thoughts, tips, compliments, and complaints:

Space is nice.
There is a lot of controversy among the nerd class about the additional whit space in menu bar and menu bar items. It’s a significant difference. I wasn’t sure what I thought about it until I found myself going back to Catalina for some production work. Everything on Catalina now looks scrunched together to me. I like the extra space.
Space does not equal touch screens, yet.
I’d hoped that all this space meant we were also imminently going to get touch screen Macs. I didn’t expect them to make drastic changes to macOS but instead treat the touch interface as something in addition to the standard mouse/trackpad interface, just as pencil support on iPad is in addition to touch support. No luck so far. Craig Federighi poured cold water on the idea this week, but I haven’t given up hope yet. The Apple Silicon transition is still early.
Rounded corners, everywhere.
I’m ambivalent to all the Big Sur rounded corners. They definitely make sense with the new look, but I can’t get excited about them.
Square Icons.
I don’t care for them. I think I understand what Apple was going for but I prefer the anarchy of the prior system.
Notification / Widget Slide Over
I like the new notification system a lot better than the prior one. Notifications are grouped better. Both notifications and widgets are on the same screen. Widgets also feel more intentional with the new iOS influenced widget system. This has been a win, and I’m using Notification Center now more than ever.
Control Center
Here’s another win. I set up a menu bar to control my Mac exactly how I wanted before, but for a non-power user, the prior system was too complicated. This puts everything under one click. Moreover, it gives users a very similar interface across iPhone / iPad / and Mac.
Proxy Icon Madness
My biggest gripe with Big Sur is the way it renders proxy icons in the Finder. Those are those icons at the top of a Finder window that lets you save, rename, and copy a file right from the icon. The proxy icon is not displayed unless you park the mouse in exactly the right spot (to the left of the file name). Most people will think the feature just went away. For those of us that realize it is still there, we must look at our Macs and wait a few seconds every time we want the proxy icon to appear. This regression frustrates me daily.

Overall, I generally like the new look, and I’m already used to it. It doesn’t just look different to me but also looks modern. It seems to be working fine with my apps, but I’d not recommend installing it until you can confirm from other users that your critical apps are working. If you’d like to learn a lot more about Big Sur, Jason Snell and John Voorhees wrote in-depth reviews.

Initial M1 Benchmarks Impress

While the initial reviews haven’t dropped yet, there are some benchmarks in the wild that show the fanless MacBook Air outperforming the high end 16” MacBook Pro and in the territory of the entry-level Mac Pro. Can you imagine how fast Apple Silicon will be for more dedicated high-performance machines?

M1 MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro

Yesterday I purchased a new M1 MacBook. I want to have something running Apple Silicon to experiment with and cover here and on the podcasts. The question was, which one?

Both the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro feature the same M1 chip. But are they? Apple said nothing in the keynote to differentiate the chips themselves. There was no explanation of clock speeds or chip yields. Does the MacBook Pro only get the very best of the crop of new M1 chips so they can run them faster than those that make it in the MacBook Air? We don’t know. The only thing covered in the keynote was the inclusion of a fan in the MacBook Pro vs. the MacBook Air’s fanless design. With an active cooling system, I’m sure Apple will feel more comfortable pushing the M1 in the MacBook Pro harder. I expect that once we do get benchmarks, they’ll show that the MacBook Pro can do longer operations faster, like encoding video.

I wish Apple had done a better job of differentiating the two computers, but I suspect that when the benchmarks arrive, we’ll find that there isn’t that much difference between them. It is, after all, the same chip driving both machines.

Apple explained it would take two years to complete the transition to Apple Silicon Macs and what we got yesterday was only the first step. Even though it looks like the M1 will be a beast compared to other chips on the market, it will also be the lowest power M-series chip ever released. I can’t help but think that sometime next year, we’ll get a different Apple Silicon chip that will be even more powerful than the M1 for use in the 16 and 14(?) inch MacBooks Pro. Put simply, Apple is just getting started. I expect if you are looking for a pro workflow machine, the Apple Silicon Mac you are really going to want isn’t out yet.

So getting back to my decision as to which MacBook to buy, I was considering the pluses and minuses when my daughter came into the room to show me a video she made for a class using Final Cut on her very-much-not-top-of-the-line Intel MacBook Air. It was five minutes long and moved boxes of video contributed from seven different UCLA drama school students. There were visual and audio effects, and the non-M1 MacBook Air was doing it all without breaking a sweat. That was the moment where I realized all I need is a MacBook Air.

I have such fond memories of the first wedge-shaped MacBook Air from ten years ago. I used one for three years before giving it to my daughter, who used it for an additional five years. I do all of my production heavy lifting on an iMac Pro. The idea of a thin, light, fanless laptop that is wicked fast and can run iPad and iPhone apps sounds perfect. So I ordered a MacBook Air. (I did upgrade the RAM and storage. I am MacSparky after all.) I’ll have it in a week or two and report back once I receive it.

One additional point is Apple’s buyback program. I’m selling my existing laptop back to Apple as part of the purchase. I made some price comparisons with other reputable vendors, and Apple had the best price. I know I could make more selling the machine through eBay, but every time I try that, the buyer turns out to be a bozo. Selling it back to Apple is painless.

Focused 112: Productivity & Creativity

Mike and I consider the relationship of productivity and creativity and how it shapes the work that we do. On this episode of Focused, we’re diving into our personal knowledge management stacks and the tools we currently use, share some tips for tagging, and discuss where to draw the lines between tools for managing tasks and ideas.

This episode of Focused is sponsored by:

Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code FOCUSED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
Woven: The calendar with the most powerful scheduling tools. Try it free for 21 days.

Thoughts on the One More Thing Event

So today, Apple announced its first Apple Silicon Macs. I have a few thoughts:

Wow! I had high expectations, but overall, Apple delivered with the new M1.
The M1 performance looks like a crazy leap forward. Generally, we’ll get 3X performance increases and 5X graphics improvements. That is completely nuts.
On all of these devices, Apple suddenly had all of this additional low watt/hour power. In each case, they chose to use it by giving the devices both more power and more battery. That isn’t a surprise. What is a surprise, to me at least, is how much power and additional battery life they were able to get.
Battery improvements are nuts. They gave many numbers, but it sounds like at least 6 hours of additional battery on both laptops.
There are two chip options available: 7 core and 8 core. I suspect that is simply a result of chip binning. When they didn’t get a full yield on a chip, they make that one of the less expensive ones.
My initial impression is that the scales just got tipped even more toward the MacBook Air in the Air vs. Pro question. The MacBook Air is so much more powerful and now fanless. You’ll need to justify going up to the Pro.
The M1 Mac mini was not in any of the rumors I read but makes sense. The Mac mini is now a mighty little computer.
There were no demos of running iPhone and iPad apps on the M1 Macs. Didn’t that seem weird?
Speaking of iOS, we didn’t get several of the iOS features I’d liked to have seen, like FaceID, cellular radios, and Touchscreen. But it is still early. I expect that may change with future hardware.
Did anybody else catch the bit with Ken Case playing the harp at 20:59?
You can order the new Macs today. Big Sur ships in two days. Buckle up, gang.

Overall, this change just gave the Mac a jolt of electricity. I fully expect the Mac hardware to also evolve in unexpected directions. I cannot wait to see how this all plays out over the next few years.