The 2013 Mac Pro has been a disaster. After 1,056 days since its last update, Apple has proven they are no longer interested in making a computer for the high-end professional.

While the iMac has always been the computer for the rest of us, the Mac Pro has always been the computer for the professional. Free from self-imposed restrictions on size, weight, and power, the Mac Pro allowed the rest of Apple’s products to appeal to the masses while specializing in the needs of professionals who value performance first.

Introduced under the battle-cry “can’t innovate anymore my ass,” the revolutionary 2013 Mac Pro upset the balance. Innovating in a new direction few professionals wanted to go.

Marco Arment explains why:

The 2013 Mac Pro was introduced with a substantial price increase, far less internal expansion, fewer and more expensive processor options, and a forced dual-workstation-GPU configuration even for buyers who would’ve been fine with a single GPU. Then it was abandoned for three years, during which 5K displays finally came to market, but without a good option for Mac Pro buyers.

The 2013 Mac Pro was a victim of limited configuration options in a market that values versatility and edge-case handling, poor timing behind the 5K transition, and years-long neglect. A 2017 Mac Pro need not suffer from the same issues, and could sell far better.

He’s hoping Apple gives the Mac Pro a second-chance. I think it is too late.

The 2013 Mac Pro, is the Power Mac G4 Cube of its age. An expensive concept computer with an appealing aesthetic, but limited market appeal. The difference is unlike the Cube, that got put on ice mere months after its initial release, the Mac Pro wastes away in silence.

Stephen Hackett:

Apple should give their pro users an olive branch here. If the Mac Pro is going to stick around, then the company should have an answer to Marco’s complaints. If there is something in the pipeline, the company should tip its hand a little. I can’t imagine sales of the Mac Pro are good anymore, so I don’t this would be a big hit on the bottom line.

A word on a future product would be more than a nice gesture, though. It would bring professional nerds — the Mac’s biggest fans — back away from the ledge a little bit.

Apple could say something, but even if they did is it worth waiting for the next generation of Xeon processors and Thunderbolt 3? Is updated IO and the opportunity to buy a third-party 5K display enough to sell us on a future Mac Pro?

Apple is not going back to the cheese grater design from 2003. And after three years without an update, it is hard to believe Apple still has their heart in a new Mac Pro at all. Tim Cook is running the Mac Pro product line until it fails to make a profit. Then it is time to shut it down.

If you can wear Apple Earpods, you can wear Amazon Premium Headphones. If you think Apple Earpods sound good, Amazon Premium Headphones sound the same. If you take calls or pause the music on your Apple EarPods, Amazon Premium Headphones won’t let you down. And if you replace your Apple Earpods every few months due to loss or damage, don’t expect Amazon Premium Headphones to hold up any better. They are made out of the same materials, but Amazon Premium Headphones are half the price. Amazon Premium Headphones are not a superior product; they are a more convenient product. And that’s the only reason why you will find Amazon Premium Headphones in my ears.

The Good

Amazon Premium Headphones are tangle free. Their flat spaghetti cord resists being tied in knots. On the end of each earbud is a magnet, and when the earbuds are not in use they attract. The back of the left earbud connects with the back of the right earbud. This bond prevents the two earbuds from being tangled together. Sure, you could tie Amazon Premium Headphones in a bow if you really wanted to, but why would you do that? Amazon Premium Headphones come with a familiar remote control for taking taking calls and playing music. The remote control is in the fork of the headphones instead of on the cord leading to the right earbud. You can still find the right and left earbuds by feel, and use the built-in microphone even if you only have the left earbud in your ear. Call quality is the same as Apple Earpods; even if the microphone is further from your mouth. Just don’t try adjusting your iPhone’s volume with Amazon’s built-in remote control. The volume buttons don’t work with Apple products. Amazon Premium Headphones are black. They match the clothes I wear. They might match your clothes too. After wearing white earbuds for over a decade, it is nice to no longer be starring in my own Apple commercial. Amazon Premium Headphones are available on Prime; with same-day shipping in some areas. I lose or break my headphones a few times each year. Having a replacement pair in my hands the next day is the primary reason I buy Amazon Premium Headphones.

The Bad

The remote on Amazon Premium Headphones work with plenty of Android phones and tablets. But as I said before the volume buttons don’t work on Apple devices. I don’t know what Apple does differently, but not being able to quiet your calls on the cord may be a deal breaker for fans of iOS. After owning three pairs of Amazon Premium Headphones I have found the remote fails more often than Apple EarPods. The plastic splits along the middle, exposing the circuitry inside; a weakness in Amazon’s design. A little electrical tape puts everything back together, but I expect more from headphones with “Premium” in the name.

The Ugly

You will lose your Amazon Premium Headphone; we all do. And if you don’t lose them they will break before their first birthday. Amazon Premium headphones are made to be replaced. But they sound good while they last, work as expected, and replacing them is easier than waiting in an Apple Store line. That is why I buy Amazon Premium Headphones.

I skipped the first Apple Watch. I missed the benefits of customizable watch faces, the importance of complications, and the appeal of swappable bands. I read how Apple Watch was slow, the screen was dim, but battery life was OK. I learned you could get Apple Watch wet even if you shouldn’t take it for a swim. And I listened to nerds worry about meeting fitness goals for the first time. The first Apple Watch never made it onto my wrist because it couldn’t replace the watches I was already wearing.

• My mechanical watch that lasts all day
• My diving watch that goes for a swim
• My GPS watch that tracks marathons

In order to wear Apple Watch it needed to last into the night, survive a mile swim, and record a three hour marathon. Apple Watch Series 2 promises to do all three.

Day Zero: Setup

My first day with Apple Watch was September 19th, 2016. I bought the last Series 2 for sale in my State; Space Gray Aluminum Case with Black Woven Nylon Strap. Even if I had a choice, space gray with a nylon strap looks good on me. I got the 38 mm case. It may not get the same battery life as the 42 mm case, but it fits my wrist better. I am left handed. I wear Apple Watch on my right wrist, with the Digital Crown on the right side. After bringing Apple Watch home, I paired it to my phone and left it to charge overnight. Configuring Apple Watch through the built-in app on the iPhone is elegant, but I wish I could configure it though the Web instead. Apple please free the watch from the phone the same way you freed the phone from the Mac. At least I didn’t have to launch iTunes.

Day One: Run

On the second day I took my Apple Watch for a seven mile run. I left my iPhone at home. GPS tracking began the minute I started my Outdoor Workout. No need to wait for my watch to find a satellite. Apple Watch relies on the iPhone for location services. It knows where my iPhone is, and my iPhone knows where I am with the help of GPS, WiFi, and cellular triangulation. If I leave my iPhone at home, Apple Watch uses built-in GPS to pick up my location from where my iPhone left off. If I take my iPhone with me, Apple Watch uses my iPhone’s built-in GPS to conserve battery life. I don’t want to wait for my watch, but I don’t want to run with my iPhone; with Apple Watch Series 2 I don’t have to. Apple Watch waits for me. My workout pauses when I do. If I am running and I stop for a traffic, Apple Watch pauses my workout until I begin again. No more feeling around for the pause button at every intersection. Auto Pause may not be as precise as pushing a button, but it makes recording my workout easier. At the end of a workout Apple Watch shows me my total distance, total time, activetotal calories, and average pace. Depending on the workout Apple Watch also records my average heart rate, mapped route, and the weather. Viewing this information on the watch is useful, but the real value comes from dissecting my splits and mapped route on the iPhone’s Activity app. I wish Apple made this information available on the web, with a better filter for comparing similar workouts. I run with my Apple Watch almost every day.

Day Six: Swim

On the sixth day I took my Apple Watch for a mile swim. Apple Watch Series 2 is water resistant down to fifty meters. Back and forth across the pond; Apple Watch recorded every stroke. Every time Apple Watch leaves the surface of the water the built-in GPS finds my location and updates my position. Strokes that keep Apple Watch submerged prevent the GPS from working. Apple Watch continues to estimate my position until the next time it breaks the surface of the water. In the open water, where the pool length is unknown , I let Apple Watch see the sky at the end of each turn. Apple Watch drys off easy; even the nylon strap. At the end of a water workout Apple Watch prompts you to “turn Digital Crown to unlock and eject water.” The sound of the vibrating speaker ejects water trapped inside the speaker hole. You can lock the screen to prevent accidental taps and eject water at any time. Something I try to remember when I take Apple Watch in the shower. I never want to take my Apple Watch off.

Day Thirteen: Marathon

On the thirteenth day I put Apple Watch to the test. Would the battery in the 38 mm model hold up recording a three hour marathon? Apple Watch is on my wrist by 6:00 a.m. every morning. After a one hour run and being strapped to my wrist all day, Apple Watch has about 20% battery life left when I come home at 6:00 p.m. each night. In my mind it should be able to survive a three hour marathon, but I put it in Power Saving Mode disabling the built-in heart rate sensor just in case. Three hours, six minutes, and forty-five seconds later Apple Watch helped me cross the finish line with 22% battery life to space. Apple Watch did a great job displaying my current time, distance, and average pace throughout the race.. More accurate that my old GPS watch, Apple Watch helped me maintain the pace I needed to finish strong. After returning to my car, Apple Watch automatically synced my marathon stats back to my iPhone’s Activity app. No other watch makes it so easy to analyze my splits and trace my route, after the race. I wish Apple Watch recorded the elevation along every mile, and offered a better way to share workout data with friends. But Apple Watch is still in its infancy. With each baby step I am becoming an Apple Watch believer.

Day Thirty: Conclusion

Apple Watch Series 2 has replaced my mechanical watch, my diving watch, and my GPS watch; it lasts all day, goes swimming, and tracks marathons. Helping me track my life is all I really want my watch to do. But Apple Watch is so much more than just a timepiece: – Stylish customizable watch faces, and swappable straps

• Intelligent voice dictation
• Real-time notifications and apps

Apple Watch is more than a watch, it is my first wearable computer. A digital companion that goes everywhere I go; keeping track of me.

Last April I was worried the $10,000+ Apple Watch Edition would alienate Apple’s core customers. Separating technology enthusiasts and everyday people from a company that once prided itself upon making “the computer for the rest of us.”

I wasn’t alone.

Estimates “Apple Watch revenue will be dominated by the gold Edition units” were overly optimistic. Just 10 months after its release, Apple began removing mention of the Apple Watch Edition from its retail stores and website.

At a time when Apple has just launched its cheapest ever iPhone, and when Phil Schiller caused a few raised eyebrows over what some interpreted as an elitist remark, Apple seems to be aiming for a more egalitarian image where the Apple Watch is concerned.

Apple has quietly revamped the Apple Watch section of its website, rendering the Edition almost invisible unless you specifically go looking for it. In addition, we’re hearing reports that Apple’s most expensive Watch is also being removed from some retail store displays …

It doesn’t look like 18K gold has a bright future at Apple. That is why I was surprised to hear of a new Apple Watch Edition announced at Apple’s September 7th Special Event.

John Gruber tells us more:

Gold is out. Taking its place as the Series 2 Apple Watch Edition is a white ceramic model. In person it is gorgeous, and feels great. The price is a non-ludicrous $12491299 (3842 mm). It seems pretty clear that everyone who looked at the original Edition prices ($10,000–20,000) and said “No one is going to buy those” was proven correct. This $1,000–1,500 range feels about right for the high-end Apple Watches.

Even though I was never an Apple Watch Edition customer, I am glad to hear gold is out and the price has returned to pre-ludicrous levels. As a flagship product, the new Apple Watch Edition in ceramic feels much more like an forward-facing Apple product than the anachronous 18K gold models that proceeded it. With four times the hardness of stainless steel and virtually scratch proof, ceramic is the kind of fashion statement I hope makes its way into future Apple products.

I also agree with John. The “Apple Watch Edition could just as well be called Apple Watch Jony Ive Edition.”

Ive is famously fascinated with using new materials. The original Edition lineup may well have existed not so much because Apple believed they would sell in significant numbers but because Jony Ive wanted to work with gold, and the watch is the only Apple device to date where gold made even a lick of sense. This white ceramic has Jony Ive written all over it.

If Apple Watch Edition gives us a glimpse into the future of Apple’s product and keeps Jony Ive happy that is alright by me.

I have been waiting all Summer for the introduction of the iPhone 7. Not because I plan on buying an iPhone 7, but because I wanted to hear Apple’s reason for removing the headphone jack from their flagship phone.

Here’s what Phil Schiller had to say about the subject during the September 7th Apple Special Event:

Now some people have asked why we would remove the analog headphone jack from the iPhone. […] The reason to move on — I’m going to give you three of them, but it really comes down to one word: courage. The courage to move on, do something new, that betters all of us. And our team has tremendous courage.

Many of the people I interact with on Twitter found Phil’s explanation of ‘courage’ to be a little obtuse and a tad bit arrogant. Heck even I used Phil’s explanation to poke fun at Apple’s expense. But if there is anything worth waiting for after an Apple event, besides the new products, it is John Gruber’s analysis of the show.

This time around John, with the help of 9To5Mac, reminds us of another time Apple used ‘courage’ to support their decision to leave something out.

We’re trying to make great products for people, and we have at least the courage of our convictions to say we don’t think this is part of what makes a great product, we’re going to leave it out. Some people are going to not like that, they’re going to call us names […] but we’re going to take the heat [and] instead focus our energy on these technologies which we think are in their ascendancy and we think are going to be the right technologies for customers.

I like John’s comparison of Apple removing Flash, better than I like John’s comparison of Apple removing the floppy drive. But in either case Apple was right “to push the industry toward something much better.” Especially if the next best thing is an open standard like HTML5 video instead of proprietary Flash; but even if the next best thing is a licensed technology like rewritable CDs instead of the outdated floppy.

What concerns me is the real incentive behind Apple’s new found courage. Is it about pushing the status quo to accept open standards like Bluetooth or selling proprietary technologies like Lightning headphones and the W1 wireless chip in Apple Airpods? You might say these things are only half measures until Bluetooth catches up. But I don’t see Apple licensing Lightning ports on other phones or W1 chips on other headphones anytime soon. In fact as Apple has grown larger, I would argue the incentive behind more of their courageous decisions is less about promoting open standards and more about securing technological lock-in.

Don’t believe me? Just look as far as FaceTime, Messages, and iCloud. Who wins, Apple or its customers, when the headphones customers buy and the social networks customers adopt only work on Apple devices?

Apple may “make decisions that they know will provoke outrage just because they think it’s the right thing to do.” And most companies will do anything to avoid controversy. But what company wouldn’t provoke a little outrage or controversy if they thought they could get away with it? Especially if getting away with it meant maintaining a status quo with them in control?

By removing the headphone jack Apple is not only showing us they have the courage to push the human race forward, but that they are brave enough to profit from the proprietary post headphone jack future they are asking the world to create.

I do not own a wireless keyboard. I do not own a wireless mouse. Because when it comes to wireless, wired is always faster, cheaper, and without batteries to charge or replace. But starting this Summer I began to get tired of running my earbuds up under my shirt to avoid tangles. I watched horrified as three pairs of Amazon premium earbuds get yanked out of my ears and smashed to the ground. So after two decades of earbud use, first on my MiniDisc, then iPod, then smartphone, it was time for a change.

I did a little research. Didn’t find anything I liked. And purchased a pair of Photive HF1 Bluetooth headphones on Amazon for $49.95. For podcasts, audiobooks, and light listening on the go they sound fine. Certainly not any worse than the AppleAmazon earbuds I have become accustomed to. What I was worried about most is how they would feel on my ears, how they would look on my head, and how they would hold up to every day use.

Feel

Feel is important to me. I wear my headphones all day — every day. When they are not on my ears, they are wrapped around my neck. My wife thinks I am anti-social. I can’t hear her. The Photive HF1 headphones rest on your ears. They feel great even after hours of use. The protein leather is soft. The ear pads are nice and squishy. The headband never feels too tight. If I have a problem with the Photive HF1s, it is that they feel too loose. Walking along busy city streets is a big part of my every day commute. After two months with the Photive HF1s I am worried they are going to fall off. The problem is the headband. It is not rigid enough, and cannot be adjusted. The length of the headband can be adjusted, The angle of the speakers can be adjusted. But not how much the headband grips the side of my head. I have a medium sized head, and the headband is as short as I can make it. A relaxed fit might add to the comfort of the headphones, but I would never take them running. I need to be careful just walking around town.

Look

When selecting wireless headphones, I wanted something that looks light, and doesn’t draw attention. Basically the opposite of Beats. The Photive HF1s fit the bill. The thin arms connecting the headphones to the headband are my favorite design feature. The arms and the headphone backs are made of zinc alloy. The rest is protein leather. The only visible branding is under the headband. I got the black model, and wear them around my neck in the office. They are big enough for my coworkers to notice them, but small enough no one cares. When I wear them on my ears it doesn’t look like half my skull is encased in plastic. I am still approachable unlike the cyborgs you see with a blue light in one ear. Do the Photive HF1s have a flashing blue light? Sure, but it is small, and on the back. You can’t see it if you are facing me. I could cover it up with tape and use the headphones with audio cues alone. But I already forget the light is even there.

Use

The Photive HF1s are my first pair of Bluetooth headphones. When I bought them I was concerned about wireless reception and battery life. Both hold up great. I get about 12 hours of playback. As long as I charge them every other night, I don’t run out of juice. My iPhone tells me approximately how much charge is remaining, and the headphones beep when the batteries are about to run out. They charge using micro USB. Reception is dependent more upon your phone. When I leave my iPhone sitting on my desk I can walk 30 feet down the hall before before the sound cuts out. When I leave my Amazon Fire Phone in my left pants pocket the signal sometimes has a hard time reaching the headphones. The Photive HF1’s Bluetooth 4.1 receiver is on the right headphone. If you are using these headphones to listen to music in a small room you shouldn’t have a problem. Volume controls are on the right. There is a center button for pausing the music, or taking a phone call. All of the controls are easy to find by feel alone. Holding the center button down for a few seconds turns on the headphones. Holding it for a few seconds more puts them in pairing mode. When you hear a beep you know they are connected. I have never had a problem pairing the Photive HF1 headphones. There is a microphone on the headphones I never use. It is there to makes hands free calls or talk to Siri. There is also a line-in jack if your PC doesn’t have Bluetooth.

End

For $39.95 the Photive HF1 Bluetooth headphones are a good choice for first time Bluetooth buyers, or anyone looking to ditch their earbuds. They work with the iPhone 7 that doesn’t have a headphone jack, and devices that don’t have Bluetooth. Discrete enough for the office, versatile enough you can take them anywhere. They lie flat when folded and the 12 hour battery life is good enough for most long trips. Not meant for sports, be careful when you wear them in a crowd; they might fall off your head. But if I lost mine, I would still buy a second pair.

October Update

It appears my pair of Photive HF1s may have gotten loose over time because they were broken. I can now feel a break in the headband above the left headphone where the adjustment well ends. I believe this to be a weak spot in the design on both sides. Both headphones still produce sound, but I am doubtful they will remain on my head during normal use. I am disappointed the headband is not made out of a more resilient material, but Photive was quick to replace my headphones with a brand new pair. I continue to recommend the Photive HF1s Lightweight Wireless Headphones.

Ii his article ‘New Apple,’ Stephen Hackett tells us what makes the Apple of today different from the Apple he discovered in the early 2000’s.

Apple of today is different. It’s not only one of the world’s largest companies, it’s been that way for some time. Employee head count has swelled and the company is pushing into services more than ever before, all while juggling more products than ever.

As a fan of early 2000’s Apple, I often reminisce of a time when Apple was the underdog. When its low marketshare and outspoken CEO taught us to ‘Think Different.’ When choosing a computer meant picking between Home or Pro — laptop or desktop. iOS had not been invented yet.

Today’s Apple doesn’t face the same challenges. It doesn’t need to shout in shades of brightly colored plastic to be heard. Today’s Apple is a market leader, with products reaching every price point. Whose actions speak louder than words, with or without a keynote address.

Increased marketshare and a larger audience aren’t the only things that make ‘New Apple’ feel different. Tim Cook has lead Apple in a new direction. Apple is no longer just the sum of its products or the strengh of its people. Under Tim’s leadership today’s Apple is a voice for diversity, fitness, and envionmental awareness. Apple would not have the same voice if Steve Jobs was still in charge.

Like Stephen and myself, you might celebrate Apple’s new voice while still identifying with the old Apple.

I may personally identify more with a smaller company with more fight in it, it’s impossible to deny that New Apple is a greater force for good in the world. We have Tim Cook to thank for that. His unwillingness to conform to Jobs’ image has proven to be his greatest strength, and one that I think Steve himself saw and appreciated.

Here’s to another five years of Tim Cook.
nLong live New Apple.

The Apple en.wikipedia.orgwikiLightning_(connector text: Lightning connector) was introduced on September 12, 2012 to replace the 30-pin dock connector on the iPhone 5. It went on to replace the 30-pin dock connector on all new Apple products including popular accessories like the Apple Pencil, Magic Keyboard, and Siri Remote.

More compact than the 30-pin dock connector, the Lightning connector can be inserted with either side facing up. But as far as Apple’s customers are concerned, that is where Lightning’s advantages end.

The 30-pin dock connector introduced new capabilities by extending the existing 30-pin layout and utilizing dedicated hardware on the device. The Lightning connector emulates these capabilities across Lightning’s 8-pins by way of the device’s on board CPU. Often this emulation requires including expensive integrated circuits inside the Lightning adapter itself. This is one reason why Lightning adapters often cost more than their 30-pin counterparts.

The other reason is the Apple MFi Program. The MFi Program is a licensing program that third-party manufacturers must join in order to produce Lightning compatible accessories. Failure to pay the MFi Program tax could prevent a manufacturer’s Lightning accessories from working with Apple devices. The program is enforced by the use of DRM. But even after the DRM was hacked, Lightning accessories that do much more than USB are still complicated to produce.

Apple created Lightning to retain control of its products They did so from a position of power. Designing the next interface for the world’s most popular phone, tablet, and digital music player. Unlike the iMac’s early adoption of USB, no suitable alternative was available at the time. Standards driven USB 3.1 and the reversible Type-C connection were still over two years away. Apple needed a smaller, convenient, future-proof connector in time for the introduction of the new thinner iPhone. What better way to ensure that Apple’s products have the features they need and at a schedule of Apple’s choosing, than to design a extensible connector and control the delivery of its capabilities. Lightning is that connector.

I am not surprised Apple is removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 and replacing it with the existing Lightning connector. But I don’t think the removal of the floppy drive from the iMac is a comparable analogy.

The headphone jack’s popularity isn’t in decline. It has not been superseded by technologies like the ZIP drive, magnetic optical, and rewritable CD. Nor is it a legacy port, kept on for compatibility. If anything its popularity has increased in recent years with the surge of mobile devices and the digital music revolution. If anything its capabilities have grown with the introduction of an on board microphone, and remote control.

Apple has two reasons to get rid of the headphone jack. One is to ensure even greater control over its platform by getting more third-party accessory manufactures to join the MFi Program. The other is to announce a new feature of the upcoming iPhone 7 that would not be possible if the headphone jack is included.

Either way the Lightning connector is here to stay.

I repair people’s Macs for a living. Often the task requires reinstalling the operating system, and installing updates. Before I return a computer to its owner I always remove the temporary user account I created, and reset the machine back to the Setup Assistant. By following these commands, the owner has the chance to connect to wifi, create a new user account, and sign into iCloud the next time they turn on their computer.

1. Boot into Single-User Mode by pressing ⌘-S at startup.
2. Once the command-line prompt appears type the following commands.
3. mount -uw
4. rm -R /Library/Preferences/
5. rm -R /Users/username
6. cd /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Defaultusers
7. Type ls to list the contents of the directory.
8. Delete the active user account, by typing rm username.plist where username is the name of the active account.
9. rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
10. reboot
11. Mac OS X will restart, and the Setup Assistant will launch automatically.

If you are preparing the Mac for a new owner, press ⌘-Q and click Shutdown. The Setup Assistant run again the next time the Mac is restarted.

For Macs running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and earlier, follow these steps.

1. Boot into Single-User Mode by pressing ⌘-S at startup.
2. Once the command-line prompt appears type the following commands.
3. mount -uw
4. rm -R /Library/Preferences/
5. rm -R /Users/username
6. rm /var/db/netinfolocal.db
7. rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
8. reboot
9. Mac OS X will restart, and the Setup Assistant will launch automatically.

For the past month I have been the owner of an Amazon Fire Phone. The mythical device whose name is adhered upon many an Amazon shipping container, but whose visage is rarely seen in public.nFor the past month I have grappled with a decision.nShould I accept the Fire Phone as my primary digital companion, or send it back to Amazon in the cardboard box that bears its name? As an instrument of suspense, I will leave my ultimate decision until the end of this review. In the meantime here are some of the factors that led me to my decision.

Price

At $199 the Fire Phone is a steal. That is the price I paid on Black Friday, when the 32 GB Unlocked Fire Phone went on sale.nHad the price been $249, $449, or $649, I would not have bought it. Even at $199 the price is deceptively high. A Fire Phone at any price comes with one year of Amazon Prime, a $100 dollar value.nAs a regular Amazon Prime subscriber you could say my 32 GB Fire Phone cost me the same as a 16 GB storage upgrade on a iPhone 5s.

Unboxing

Unboxing the Fire Phone was a real treat. Straight out of Apples playbook, each fold of the box concealed a new joy. From the carbon fiber texture of the packing materials, to the way the micro USB cable, charger, and earbuds came tucked away in their own separate compartments. Everything felt luxurious.

Even setting up the Fire Phone was a delightful experience. Upon pressing the power button, I was greeted by my name. My Fire Phone had been preregistered with my Amazon Prime account, Amazon Music, and Amazon Cloud Drive. Imagine if your next iPhone came preregistered with your iCloud account, apps, and the latest software updates. Amazon gets a head start over its competitors by having Fire Phone come preregistered out of the box.

Hardware

The phone itself resembles a super-sized iPhone 4; Gorilla Glass front and back, except this time the bare metal sides have been wrapped in soft touch rubber. Thicker than the iPhone 6, the Fire Phone really feels good in the hand. There is a weight to it that I associate with high-end electronics. Some people might say the style, thickness, and heft of the Fire Phone make it appear out of date. But I would rather hold a comfortable phone in my hand, than watch a slippery slice of aluminum and glass shatter on the floor.

Fire Phone is adorn with the usual ports and buttons. A power button and headphone jack on the top, micro USB port on the button, volume rocker, dedicated camera button, and nano SIM card slot along the left side.nBecause the low volume and camera button feel similar, I find myself sometimes taking a picture of the inside of my pocket by mistake. Fire Phone has paired speaker grills along its top and bottom; giving it Dolby stereo sound when held in the portrait orientation.nThe volume of the speakers is better than most phones. As a nice touch, the Amazon logo and regulatory information have been etched into the glass back. A noise canceling microphone, 13 megapixel camera, and LED flash bring up the rear. Photos are on par with an iPhone 5 or 5s, but not an iPhone 6.nIt is not until we get to the front of the phone that things start to become interesting.

All the better to see you with

On the face of most phones there is at least one camera staring back at you.nFire Phone has five. In addition to the usual proximity and ambient light sensors, Fire Phone tracks your eye movement and viewing angle with the use of four low power cameras. (A 2.1 megapixel front facing webcam is available for selfies.) Amazon calls this feature Dynamic Perspective, and it gives the user interface a third dimension not usually associated mobile phone displays.

Think of Dynamic Perspective like the gyroscope-driven parallax effects in iOS 7, only turned up a notch. You might call it a gimmick, and I would not say you are wrong.nJust like the gyroscope in the original iPhone, Dynamic Perspective doesn’t have much value until developers take advantage of it. The only problem is that unlike the gyroscope in almost every modern smartphone, the Fire Phone is the only phone with Dynamic Perspective, and from the looks of Fire Phone sales it will probably stay that way forever. I quickly learned to turn off Dynamic Perspective to save battery life.

A 720 x 1280 pixel, 4.7 inch (~312 ppi pixel density), IPS touchscreen display dominates the face of the phone. The screen is super bright.nSo bright in fact, that I have its brightness set to one of the lowest settings, and it still outshines most other phones.nWith this settings, and Dynamic Perspective turned off, Fire Phone’s battery gets me through the average day with plenty of charge to spare. Below the screen is a raised rectangular Home button.nIt appreciate the extra grip it gives you when pulling Fire Phone from your pocket.

Gestures

Because Fire Phone doesn’t have any other hardware buttons, the Android-powered user interface is navigated with gestures.nThey aren’t as complicated as gestures on the BlackBerry Z10 I tried a couple months ago. Just the usual swipe left, swipe right, and swipe up, but they can be confusing for new users. Amazon provides a tutorial to get you started, but even I found it confusing that many Amazon apps stick to the prescribed swipe left and right to reveal hidden menus, while most Android apps from the Amazon App Store do not.nAt least you can always rely on a swipe up from the bottom of the screen to bring you back, and if all else fails the Home button returns you to the Home screen’s grid of familiar icons.

Since the interface on every Android phone is a little different I can’t say the Fire Phone is unique. The large Coverflow inspired carousel of recently used apps works for finding your last launched applications. Below that a dedicated dock of four icons keeps your favorite apps close at hand. While swiping up from the bottom reveals a grid of icons, familiar to any iPhone user. The combination of all four user interface elements means I can always find the app I am looking for. Some apps even show additional real-time information below their enlarged carousel icon, but often Amazon just uses this space to try to sell you something from their store.

Lack of Apps

Just like on Google’s Android, double tapping the Home button brings up the multitasking switcher, holding it down brings up voice command. Unlike Google’s Android, the voice commands are not powered by Google Now, and there is no Google Maps, Play Store, or Gmail to be found in Fire Phone’s App Store. Apps can be side-loaded of course, but if you are looking for the Google experience on Fire Phone, look somewhere else.

As a frequent Windows Phone user I know what limited app selection is like. I did find most of the apps I wanted from Amazon’s App Store, and the built-in Android apps took care of my Exchange email, contacts and calendars. I might be satisfied by Amazon’s offering, and the option to side-load Android apps, but I feel most iPhone user’s will be disappointed.

Keeping it

I am keeping my Amazon Fire Phone. As I said before, it is a steal at $199; even without the one year subscription for Amazon Prime. The hardware is top notch and the software, although limited, does everything I want a smartphone to do.

Fire Phone may not be right for you. If you base your choice of phone on carrier subsidies, or are heavily invested in an existing phone ecosystem, Fire Phone should not be you first choice. But Fire Phone makes a pretty good unlocked spare GSM phone, even if you don’t plan on shopping with Amazon.

Before Spotlight there was Sherlock.nAnd before Sherlock there was the Find.nWe have come a long way since the search in System 7.nContent awareness, deep indexes, and live results have made modern search powerful.nBut sometimes I wish I could return to a simpler search.nWhere the indexing every file isn’t required, and I can see the results from every folder on my hard drive.nEasyFind is powerful search made easy.

EasyFind’s Best Three Features:

• Its fast results and Quick Look integration
• The ability to search invisible files, and the contents of application bundles
• The option to search anywhere, including my Library and System folders

Fast

EasyFind’s results are so fast on my MacBook Air, I often question the need for Spotlight to keep an index of my hard drive.nMaybe its because I rarely search my files by content.nOr maybe it is because of my MacBook Air’s super-fast SSD.nNo matter the reason, EasyFind’s search results often start appearing in less than a second.

Browsing

Browsing EasyFind’s results is simple too.nQuick Look long replaced Preview as my preferred way of previewing files,nand Quick Look is built into every EasyFind search.nSimply highlight the first result, tap the Spacebar, and navigate down the list using the arrow keys.nA full-screen preview appears with every key stroke.

Finding Your Mac’s Hidden Secrets

We all know our Macs have hidden files.nWe just have to know where to look.nSpotlight refuses to reveal the hidden files invisible to the Finder,nor tucked away inside application bundles.nEasyFind makes finding hidden files easy.nNo need to display invisible files in the Finder first,nor show the contents of application bundles or packages.

As a power user, one of my chief frustrations with Spotlight is its inability to look inside my Library or System folders.nIf I am modifying a system resource or adjusting a local preference,nmy activities often take me outside the view of Spotlight’s search.nEasyFind does not suffer from such shortsightedness.nIts powerful search finds file and folders, by name, phrase, or content no matter where they are located.nIt even follows Unix-Wildcards, and can exclude known file types.

EasyFind is the little squirrel I keep in my dock for finding stuff on my Mac.nFree from the Mac App Store,nor the Devon Technologies website.

Have you ever tried to install OS X from a USB Flash Drive and received this error message?

This copy of the Install OS X Mavericks application can’t be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading.

The issue is not with your installation media, but rather with your Mac’s time and date. Follow these steps to set it right.

1. While booted from your OS X Install Media, launch the Terminal from the Utilities menu.
2. Enter the date command to report your Mac’s known time and date.
3. If the time and date are not correct, you can set it using the date command.
4. Follow this format date mmddHHMMccyy where mm equals month, dd equals day, HH equals hours, MM equals minutes, and ccyy equals year. (Example: Today’s date would be 120310002014.)
5. Press Return, and your Mac will confirm the current time and date before the prompt.
6. Type exit or press “Command + Q” to quit the Terminal and resume the installation process.

I first started seeing this error message in OS X 10.9 Mavericks, but date verification may be present in older versions of OS X. When ii doubt try setting your computer’s data to the year your version of OS X was released. For a complete listing of OS X release dates visit the Robservatory.

Apple’s trend of replacing user-upgradable parts with components soldered to the logic board has begun. The following is a list of the first Macs in a given form factor to have their upgradable memory and storage replaced with components that are not upgradable short of replacing the logic board.

Macs with Non-Upgradable Memory

The first Macs in a given form factor with non-upgradable memory. Every Mac since has had its RAM soldered to the logic board with the exception of the Mac Mini (2018 Macmini8,1).

• MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015, MacBook8,1)
• MacBook Air (Mid 2008, MacBookAir1.1)
• MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012, MacBookPro10.1)
• MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012, MacBookPro10.2)
• iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2014, iMac14.4)¹
• Mac mini (Late 2014, Macmini7.1)

Macs with Upgradable Memory

• Mac Mini (2018 Macmini8,1)
• iMac (21.5-inch All Models)
• iMac (27-inch All Models)
• iMac Pro
• Mac Pro (All Models)

Macs with Non-Upgradable Storage

The first Macs in a given form factor with non-upgradable storage. Every Mac since has had its SSD soldered to the logic board.

• Mac Mini (2018 Macmini8,1)
• MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015, MacBook8,1)
• MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018, MacBookAir8,1)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports, MacBookPro13,2)²
• MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2016, MacBookPro13,3)

Macs with Upgradable Storage

• iMac (21.5-inch All models)³
• iMac (27-inch All models)⁴
• Mac Pro (All models)

To anyone who thinks Apple’s move to integrated components is a fad soon to be reversed, think again. The days of the Macintosh II, and “user-upgradable everything” are over. If you see your computer as more than a sealed appliance, you are no longer Apple’s customer.

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1. The iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2014, iMac14,4), and iMac (21.5-inch Late 2015, iMac 16,1 or iMac16,2) feature LPDDR3 soldered to the logic board.
2. The MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports, MacBookPro13,1) and MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports, MacBookPro14,1) have a PCIe-based SSD on a proprietary daughter-card.
3. Conventional 2.5 inch hard drives and 2.5 inch SSDs can only be used to replace a factory installed 2.5-inch hard drive, otherwise mounting cables and brackets are absent.
4. Conventional 3.5 inch hard drives and 2.5 inch SSDs can only be used to replace a factory installed 3.5-inch hard drive, otherwise mounting cables and brackets are absent.

I met Bryan Clark and Jesse Herlitz during last year’s WWDC. Under the cover of darkness, in the backroom of a bar, they showed me the beginning of a brand new client for App.net . By combining slick animations, colorful transparencies, and intuitive natural gestures, they created an app the looked at home on Apple’s new iOS 7; introduced just days earlier. Today, after a year of refinement, Blixt has finally made it to the App Store.

Instead of re-envisioning how an iOS application should look, Blixt has reinvented how an iOS application should behave. Users are no longer content navigating their apps the same way they browse their address books. Being pulled along a string of endless lists tied together by the Back button. Instead Blixt takes a new approach. Giving users full screen content in stacks they can shuffle using just their fingertips.

Think of Blixt as a stack of playing cards. Want to get more information on a particular post? Tap the entry and a new card comes to the top of the stack. The post you just tapped travels with you to the new card using a simple sliding animation. Swiping from the left returns the top card back to the stack and repeats the sliding animation in reverse. By using simple animations like these Blixt reminds users of their position within the stack.

Each new card is its own full screen view of a conversation, profile, or reply. There are separate stacks of cards for your timeline and mentions. Accounts and settings can be accessed by swiping from the left. The iOS title bar shows unread counts, and status updates. A search field can by revealed by pulling down on a timeline or conversation card. The only visible control on each card is a large circular post/reply button in the lower left. The rest of the screen is dedicated to content. It is easy to forget Blixt is an application, and not just a series of colorful cards painted on your iPhone’s screen.

Unlike other applications that offer a choice of font or theme, Blixt lets the people you follow control the experience. The background of each card is colored with a blurred reproduction of the conversation owner’s cover image. By following more people there is an even greater chance to make the next card look different than the last, and for Blixt to become a whole new experience every time you launch it.

Blixt doesn’t do private messages, and Like Ben Brooks I found a pretty bad bug when you tap on a post with a link it. Normally missing features and bugs on a version 1.0 wouldn’t mean much, but by being built on the App.net, Blixt may have a short time to live .

From the icon to the scroll, Blixt is one of the best iOS experiences I have had in some time. At this point it isn’t optimized for iPad, but with the upcoming features coming to iOS 8 I expect it to eventually work on an iOS device of any size. It is a shame Blixt’s life may be cut short by the loss of App.net, but I advise anyone with or without an account to try Blixt out today.

Lightning, the Epitome of Apple is one of the best things John Gruber has written all year.

The Lightning adapter epitomizes what makes Apple Apple. To the company’s fans, it provides elegance and convenience — it’s just so much nicer than micro-USB. To the company’s detractors, it exists to sell $29 proprietary adapters and to further enable Apple’s fetish for device thinness. Neither side is wrong.

Of course Apple wasn’t always this way.

In 1986 Apple needed a low-cost bus for connecting devices like keyboards and mice to its computers. The large headphone-style jack for the Lisa keyboard was too unreliable, and the phone-style jack used for the Macintosh 128K was too fragile. Apple needed a system that was rated for hundreds of insertions that could allow devices to be daisy-chained together without the need for hubs or complicated routing. It took Steve Wozniak one month on his own to come up with the answer, the Apple Desktop Bus.

In keeping with Apple’s 1980’s philosophy of industrial design, ADB was intended to be as simple to use as possible, while still being inexpensive to implement. Instead of inventing a new port and cable, a suitable connector was found in the form of the 4 pin mini-DIN connector, which was already being used by S-Video.

The connectors were small, widely available, and can only be inserted the “correct way”. They do not lock into position, but even with a friction fit they are firm enough for light duties like those intended for ADB.

ADB could be implemented for less than a penny because Apple sold the decoding transceiver ASIC at a loss to encourage peripheral development and their own economy of scale. Can you imagine today’s Apple selling the Lightening adapter at a loss?

ADB’s protocol required only a single pin for data, labeledADB. Two of the other pins were used for +5 V power supply and ground. The +5 V pin guaranteed at least 500 mA, and required devices to use only 100 mA each. ADB also included the PSW pin which was attached directly to the power supply of the host computer. This was included to allow a key on the keyboard to start up the machine without needing the ADB software to interpret the signal.

The ability to turn on the computer from the keyboard without the need of extra wires was one of the classier advancements Apple made to the personal computing industry. This capability was carried forth into the introduction of USB, but was lost around the same time theiMac G4 was introduced. Despite advances made in the new Mac Pro, it is a pain you still have to reach around the back of the machine to turn it on.

Most serial digital interfaces use a separate clock pin to signal the arrival of individual bits of data. However, Wozniak decided that a separate wire for a clock signal was not necessary; and as ADB was designed to be low-cost, it made economical sense to leave it out. Like modems, the system locked onto the signal rise and fall times to recreate a clock signal.

Data rates on the bus were theoretically as high as 125 kbits. However, the actual speed was at best half that due to there being only one pin being shared between the computer and devices, and in practice throughput was even less as the entire system was driven by how fast the computer polled the bus. The Mac OS was not particularly well suited to this task, and the bus often got bogged down at about 10 kbits.

This slow data transfer rate limited ADB to the kind of devices it was originally intended; mice, keyboards, graphics tablets, joysticks, and software protection dongles.

Another problem with ADB was that despite having all of the basic capabilities needed for hot-swapping, you should never plug or unplug a ADB device once the system was on. Doing so could cause the opening of a soldered-in fuse on the motherboard, and a costly out-of-warranty repair.

In addition the ADB mini-DIN connector was only rated for 400 insertions and it was easy to bend a pin if not inserted with care. Sockets could become loose over time resulting in intermittent function, and while ADB cannot be plugged in the “wrong way,” it is possible to have trouble finding the right way without looking inside the circular connector’s shroud.

The first system to use ADB was the Apple IIGS in 1986. It was subsequently used on all Apple Macintosh machines starting with the Macintosh II and Macintosh SE. ADB was also used on a number of other 680×0-based microcomputers including later models of NeXT computers.

The first Macintosh to move away from ADB was the iMac in 1998, which featured USB in its place. The last Apple computer to have an ADB port was the Power Macintosh Blue & White in 1999. No machines being built today use ADB, but up until February 2005, PowerBooks and iBooks still used the ADB protocol as the internal interface for the built-in keyboard and touchpad.

ADB epitomizes the Woz-era Apple of the 1970s and 80s, “intended to be as simple to use as possible, while still being inexpensive to implement.” ADB may not be considered elegant when compared to modern connections like Lightening or USB, but it was designed to meet the customer’s basic needs at a lower cost. Different goals than Apple has today.

On November 5th, 2010 Apple killed the Xserve.

At the time I thought killing the Xserve was a mistake. Like so many thousand Macintosh IT Professionals I thought Apple’s future in the Enterprise was tied to the existence of a shiny 1U rack-mountable Macintosh server. Without it how would the PC System Administrators ever take us seriously?

And what about all of the core Mac OS X technologies the Xserve was supposed to bring us? Features like a new filesystem to protect us against data corruption, and improved parallel computing to allow our applications to work smarter? Every new release of Windows reaps the rewards of features first developed for the Microsoft line of server operating systems. Without a similar strategy how was Apple supposed to keep up in key areas like endpoint management, and virtualization where Microsoft already holds a clear advantage? I feared without a flagship server, Apple would fall behind on the essential technologies needed to keep Mac OS X competitive. After all there is only so much you can steal from the open source community.

The problem is I never saw the Xserve for what it was. A Power Mac jammed inside a 1U aluminum case. The Xserve was never competitive. It was never the flagship I and the rest of Mac Nerdom wanted it to be.

No one ever heard the battlecries of the Xserve breaching the Enterprise Datacenter; unleashing a horde of Macs on every corporate desktop. It never happened. The Xserve was just a shiny piece of Apple kit that sat in the corner of Mac shops. A showpiece to impress clients. A server just easy enough to use, the tech guy could figure it out and no one needed to hire a dedicated system administrator.

Sure there are examples of Xserves being used in numbers. The Virginia System X supercomputer comes to mind. But even it started out its life composed of Power Mac G5s. And who says System X wasn’t as much a public relations stunt for Apple, as it was a serious attempt at supercomputing?

The Xserve wasn’t even competitive with the Power Macs of the day. When it was released in June 2002 you could get a faster PowerPC G4 processor in your Power Mac than you could in your Xserve. And during the Xserve G5’s entire lifetime it was never able to meet the clock speed or the number of cores as the top of the line Power Mac G5. Apple never took the Xserve seriously. That is why it came as no surprise that in November 2006 the Xserve was the last Mac to make the transition to Intel. The Xserve was slower, ran hotter, and cost more than other any other Mac during its short life. And outside of specially optimized tasks for Mac OS X, it was never able to compete with similarly priced PC servers. Do you honestly think Apple ran its enterprise on Xserves?

But what about all of those flagship features the Xserve was supposed to trickle down to consumer versions of Mac OS X? Unfortunately they never came to be. One reason is because Mac OS X doesn’t work that way. When a core feature is added to Mac OS X, it is available on both the client and server versions of the operating system simultaneously. Unlike Microsoft, Apple’s server OS has never been about leading the way towards technological innovations that would some day be available on the desktop. No, quite the opposite. Apple’s server OS has always been an extension of the client operating system that makes accessing features already installed in Mac OS X easier. Sorry Siracusa, but there was never any hope of the Xserve delivering a better filesystem.

Instead of supporting the Xserve, Apple decided to double-down on the products and technologies that would really matter, and leave the cut-throat market of server hardware to competitors who really had their skin in the game. Looking back it is easy to see that Apple made the right choice. By killing the Xserve we have better Macs, phones, tables, and Apple TVs today. Mac OS X is stronger without the Xserve. Because instead of getting trickle down technologies from its server OS, Mac OS X got better battery life, and millions of new users from its phone operating system. Take that Microsoft.

It is funny to think that because of the death of the Xserve, and not the Xserve itself, Apple now has more Macs in the enterprise than ever before. PC System Administrators eat your hearts out.

Ben Brooks brought this post by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes to my attention.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is a long-time Windows power user who now prefers OS X, iOS, and Android for their simplicity and reliability.

My primary work system is a MacBook Pro, and in the ten months I’ve had it it’s flawlessly done everything I’ve asked of it, from run Microsoft Word to render 4K video. I’ve lost count of the number of notebooks I’ve owned over the years, but this MacBook Pro is, by far, the most reliable system I’ve owned, and I put part of that down to the fact that it doesn’t run Windows.

And, on tablets:

My experience of Windows on tablets closely resembles that of my ZDNet colleague James Kendrick. Bottom line, they let me down too much to want to bother with them. Why would I trade a reliable iPad or Android tablet for an unreliable Windows 8.1 tablet? Why trade a tablet that just works for one that regularly sends me on quests, roaming the Internet looking for the right elixir to fix the system?

My question for Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is “WHY IS THIS NEWS TO YOU?” Despite your claims to have had some “rock solid” Windows NT 3.5/4.0/2000 systems in the past, you also say say “of all the desktop operating systems that I’ve used, the modern Windows operating system is by far the most fragile.”

You place the blame on Microsoft “for not putting enough effort into hardening the system, reducing the effect that fault – in particular software faults – have on the system, and providing better information when things go wrong.”

And you place the blame on “the vast ecosystem of hardware and software [Windows] has to support, and partly it is down to the years of legacy that each version drags behind it.”

I hate to tell you Adrian but WINDOWS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY!

When you plunk down your $199.99 for the latest Windows 8.1 Pro, Business, Core, or whatever Microsoft is calling it these days, WINDOWS IS WHAT YOU ARE PAYING FOR! You are paying for the hardware compatibility, the vendor ecosystem, and the legacy software support you want. But you are also paying for the troubleshooting, the frustration, the malware, the terrible battery life, and the ambiguous error messages that send you circling all over the internet. The only reason you are aware of it now, is because you have recently tried a closed systems like OS X and iOS where the software and the hardware are developed together to work for you.

I always laugh at Windows users who have problems with their computers. After all THIS IS WHAT THEY PAID FOR! If you are are not up for the challenge of tweaking the Registry, diagnosing bad drivers, removing spyware, or rebuilding your system to avoid bit rot then you bought the wrong operating system. After all there are less time-consuming options out there like OS X, and iOS with free in-person training, and free support.

I feel bad for Adrian, that after spending 10,000+ hours mastering Windows he finally found a platform that works for him. But at least he got what he paid for.

Readers ask me when is a good time to Repair Disk Permissions?

My answer, “when is the last time you booted into Mac OS 9?”

Many things you install in Mac OS X are installed from package files (whose filename extension is “.pkg”). Each time something is installed from a package file, a “Bill of Materials” file (whose filename extension is “.bom”) is stored in the package’s receipt file, which is kept in LibraryReceipts in Mac OS X v10.5 and earlier. These files don’t take up much disk space and you shouldn’t put them in the Trash. Each of those “.bom” files contains a list of the files installed by that package, and the proper permissions for each file.

In Mac OS X v10.5 or earlier, when you repair disk permissions Disk Utility reviews each of the .bom files in LibraryReceipts and compares its list to the actual permissions on each file listed. If the permissions differ, Disk Utility reports the difference and corrects them.

Prior to 10.6 you could use any version of Disk Utility on any version of Mac OS X to Repair Disk Permissions. It didn’t matter because the disk permissions being inspected were always compared to the defaults stored in the local LibraryReceipts directory.

Starting Mac OS X v10.6 and later, Disk Utility doesn’t even look in the LibraryReceipts directory when you Repair Disk Permissions. All it does is reset the Base Systems disk permissions back to the default as specified by version of Disk Utility you are using.¹

• Disk Utility can not repair permissions on any drive that does not have Mac OS X installed.
• Disk Utility can not repair permissions on any third-party software.
• Disk Utility can not repair permissions on any Apple software outside of the Base System.
• Disk Utility can not repair permissions on any files in your Home Folder.²

Given all of these limitations what is Repair Disk Permissions good for?

Back in the days when Macs were capable of dual-booting into Mac OS 9 disk permissions were a big problem. Mac OS 9 didn’t respect disk permissions. It treated every file as if you were root.

If you booted into Mac OS 9 and ran some common applications, compressed and decompressed files, moved or renamed files, or (worse) ran a disk utility like Norton, they could completely destroy the permissions for many files that OS X needed to boot or run correctly.

Since this was a relatively common occurrence and a huge support issue, Apple introduced the Repair Privileges Utility. Starting with Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar the Repair Privileges Utility was combined with Disk Utility. Repair Disk Permissions offered early dual-booting Mac users a quick way to fix their systems and get Mac OS X working again. But now that Macs can’t boot into Mac OS 9, why do we need to repair disk permissions?

The only time you need to run Repair Disk Permissions is if you changed a system-level permission you shouldn’t have. Apple tries to educate users on changing permissions in knowledge base articles like this one, but warns incorrect commands may result in data loss andor unusable system software, reduced system security andor exposure of private data. It is best to leave system-level permissions alone. Sure the freak power outage, cosmic ray, or a runaway installer might mangle some permissions here or there, but those are rare occurrences.³

Leave Repair Disk Permissions for the people who need it most. Gullible people who don’t know what they are doing, and still insist on Zapping their Mac’s PRAM every third Sunday.

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1. Therefore you need a 10.6 version of Disk Utility to repair permissions on a volume with 10.6 installed, and you need a 10.7 version of Disk Utility to repair permissions on a volume with 10.7 installed.
2. In Mac OS X 10.5 and later, while started up (“booted”) from the Mac OS X 10.5 installation disc, a user’s home directory permissions can be reset using the Reset Password utility.
3. You don’t need to run repair permissions before installing the latest Software Updates, because the Installer runs as Root and ignores disk permissions anyway.

Apple has a long history of including Java in its desktop operating systems. The Macintosh Runtime for Java included a JIT compiler developed by Symantec, the standard Java class library from Sun, additional classes providing Macintosh-specific functionality, and the Apple Applet Runner for running Java Applets on the Classic Mac OS without the overhead of a browser.

Macintosh Runtime for Java 1.5 works on computers with 68030, 68040 or PowerPC microprocessors. You also need System 7.5 or later, a minimum of 8 MB of RAM (16 MB is strongly recommended) and at least 7 MB of free disk space. Computers with 68030 or 68040 microprocessors must have 32-bit addressing turned on.

This is what Apple had to say about Java in 1999.

“Our customers want better Java performance in Mac OS and we’re committed to giving it to them,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s Interim CEO. “We are working hard to make our Java implementation second in speed to none other in th world.”

With the JIT compiler Apple expects to significantly boost the performance of Java software running on Mac OS. Industry standard benchmarks on preliminary versions of MRJ combined with the JIT compiler show a 300 percent performance improvement over the current version of MRJ. This is competitive with results seen with Java VMs provided with web browsers for Windows-based computers.

In addition to multiple press releases Apple also started publishing Java development resources on its website, and even went so far as to port a version of QuickTime for Java.

QuickTime for Java brings together Java and QuickTime, allowing developers to create Java software that takes advantage of the power of QuickTime on both Macintosh and Windows. QuickTime for Java harnesses the native power of QuickTime via Java creating an excellent Java multimedia framework.

When the web looked like it would soon be controlled by proprietary frameworks like Java, Steve Jobs didn’t want the Mac to be left out in the cold.

In 2001 during the release of Mac OS X, Apple went as far as to include Java as one of the Mac’s primary Application frameworks right Alongside Classic, Carbon, and Cocoa.

Mac OS X is the only mass-market operating system that comes complete with a fully configured and ready-to-use Java Development Kit. Professional Java developers are increasingly turning to the feature-rich Mac OS X as the operating system of choice for cross-platform Java development projects on the Macintosh and other platforms.

But by 2004 the hype surrounding Java started to settle, and by 2006 is was clear that Java was no longer the pillar of Mac OS X development it had once claimed to be. Java was always a gamble on the Mac. A safe bet for getting the Development Community and Enterprise IT interested in Mac OS X, but a long-shot at making a difference in Mac OS X development. By October 2010 it was clear Objective-C would be the Mac’s programing language of choice. With the budding popularity of the iPhone and iPad Apple didn’t need Java anymore to attract attention.

As of the release of Java for OS X v10.6 Update 3, the Java runtime ported by Apple and that ships with OS X is deprecated. Developers should not rely on the Apple-supplied Java runtime being present in future versions of OS X.

Steve Jobs had this to say about Apple’s decision to drop Java.

Sun (now Oracle) supplies Java for all other platforms. They have their own release schedules, which are almost always different than ours, so the Java we ship is always a version behind. This may not be the best way to do it.

10.7 Lion was the first release of Mac OS X with a Java Runtime Environment missing from the default install. Users could elect to install Java 6 as they needed using Apple’s Software Update service, or download Java 7 directly from Oracle. As of June 18th, 2013 Mac OS X continues to receive Java security updates, but all of that is about to change.

Starting with OS X Mavericks Apple will no longer be providing a version of the Java Runtime Environment. Users who need Java will be prompted to download a version of Java 7 from Oracle’s website. If you still need Java 6, you better stick with Mountain Lion.

A simple search for “Java Security” on the Web, reveals the real reason Apple is dropping Java. With a new versions of Java coming out every couple of weeks to fix severe security risks, it is no wonder Apple is taking a “coffee break.”

Fusion Drive, we barely knew you. Announced as part of an Apple event held on October 23rd, 2012, Fusion Drive combined the large capacity of a conventional hard drive with the speed of a 128 GB flash storage to create a single logical volume with the space of both drives combined. The operating system automatically managed the contents of the Fusion Drive so the most frequently accessed applications, documents, photos, and other data are stored on the faster flash storage, while infrequently used items moved or stayed on the hard drive. Users benefited from the affordable large-capacity data storage Fusion Drive provided, while still experiencing the quick boot times and fast application launch speeds of an SSD.

Unfortunately many of Apple’s most popular Macs could not accommodate Fusion Drive due to a lack of space. Fusion Drive required space for a conventional 2.5 inch hard drive as well separate flash storage, and only the 2013 iMac and Mac mini could include one as a build-to-order option. Even the Mac Pro, with its boxy design and removable hard drive modules, could not take advantage of Fusion Drive. In a time when Macs were getting thinner and lighter, Fusion Drive was pushed out of the nest before it could ever take flight.

There was also the problem of price. At $250 for 128 GBs of flash memory, Fusion Drive came at a premium compared to other third-party SSDs. The people most likely to take advantage of Fusion Drive’s simplicity were the ones least likely to pay for it. And shortly after Fusion Drive’s release, large capacity solid state drives dropped in price, giving power users other options.

Let’s not forget that most users no longer need the high-capacity storage the Fusion Drive provided. The Mac is no longer the digital hub is once was. As more and more content moves to the cloud, Flickr, Pandora, and Netflix have taken away the importance of having high-capacity hard drives on modern Macs. Users of today’s popular personal computer, the iPad, make due with storage capacities half the size of affordable SSDs. Why would they need eight times the storage a Fusion Drive provided? Fusion Drive tried to solve a problem most people really didn’t have.

Fusion Drive, no one needs your fragile combination of storage technologies anymore. If Apple had really believed in you, they would have made you the default storage system on a Mac, any Mac. Instead you were neglected to a build-to-order-option. Even the top-of-the-line 27 inch iMac never shipped with a Fusion Drive standard. Fusion Drive, we will always remember you for the fast plentiful storage you promised. A great idea whose time came too late.