This weeks featured Mac setup is the office of Creative Director and UX designer Stewart A., who not only has a stellar workstation with a lot of great hardware, but he also shares some excellent backup tips that could help out everyone. Let’s jump right in and learn more about this great setup!
Apple will unveil updates to the iPad line at an event scheduled for Thursday, October 16, according to the well-sourced Re/Code. Additionally, the report says that Apple has picked the same day to launch the much anticipated iMac with a Retina display, and OS X Yosemite.
Notification Center on the iPhone and iPad has long included items like Stocks, Reminders, Calendar, a Today summary, and a Tomorrow summary, and now new versions of iOS allow for third party widgets to be added as well. But since not every widget and notification panel applies to everyone, you may want to adjust what appears in your Notifications panel and remove what you don’t use. Perhaps you just want to rearrange the items, so that Sports scores appear above Stocks or so that your Calendar is on top of everything else. This level of customization is possible in iOS 8 and newer, and it’s really easy to do.
iOS 8 looks mostly similar to iOS 7, but there are enough interface changes to make it different, and there are actually many more subtle adjustments than most users may initially recognize. The developers and designers out there do notice that kind of thing though, and this excellent vector-based GUI element kit from the talented folks at Mercury should make those jobs a lot easier. Virtually the entire iOS 8 interface has been recreated as vector elements, which make contending with the variety of iOS screen sizes much easier.
If you’re like many other iPhone and iPad users, when you go to share a picture from your iOS device, you’re probably going to send it through Messages or Mail, and you’re not trying to go about posting it to Twitter or Facebook. Nonetheless, those Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons sit there in every iOS Sharing interaction, whether you use them or not. Thankfully, for users who don’t really want to see the Facebook buttons in iOS sharing sheets, the newest versions of iOS bring the ability to turn off those unnecessary social sharing buttons with just a quick flip of a few switches.
If your Mac has multiple partitions running different operating systems, either for dual booting OS X or for Boot Camp, you may decide you want to share the exact same iTunes Library across those different operating systems. This allows you to have the same music library regardless of what OS you’re booted into, and it prevents you from having to carry duplicate songs and media on the same drive.
One of the best things about Find My iPhone is the ability to, well, find your iPhone if you happen to misplace it. It’s a feature that every iOS device owner (and Mac users too) should have enabled on their devices, but up until now there has been a problem; when a devices battery runs out, so goes the ability to track the lost iPhone. That’s exactly what this setting in iOS 8 aims to resolve, and much like Find My iPhone, every iOS device owner should take a moment to enable this.
Apple has released OS X Yosemite Golden Master Candidate 1.0 to those registered with the Mac Developer program, the build number is 14A379a. Separately, Apple released an update for Yosemite Public Beta users, versioned as OS X Yosemite Beta 4, carrying build 14A379b.
Hot off the heels of the iOS 8.0.2 update, Apple has released the first developer beta of iOS 8.1. The beta build is number 12B401 and presumably focuses on bug fixes and feature improvements to the mobile operating system.
iOS 8.1 beta 1 software is limited to those registered with the official Apple Developer Program. Registered developers can log into the iOS Dev Center and find the appropriate IPSW files to update their test devices with. iOS 8.1 beta will run on all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices that are capable of running iOS 8.
Apple has released an important security update for Mac users, labeled as OS X Bash Update 1.0. The update addresses a recently discovered critical security flaw known as “Shellshock” that impacts the bash shell, the default shell used by the Terminal app of OS X, and is recommended for all users to install even if they don’t use the Terminal app, bash, or command line on the Mac.
Subscript and superscript text formatting is commonly used in the math and science world when writing out chemicals, formulas, and expressions. Subscript appears slightly lower and smaller than the primary text, while superscript appears slightly higher and smaller than the primary text (like an exponent, 8^3).
If you need to type subscript or superscript characters on a Mac, you’ll find it’s just a matter of enabling the desired baseline shift in either the Pages or TextEdit apps within OS X. You can also adjust the baseline shifted text to be higher or lower to suit your needs.
If you have multiple devices running iOS 8 and using the same Apple ID, you’ve probably noticed that an incoming phone call rings on every one of the devices at the same time. In other words, an inbound phone call will ring not only your iPhone, but also any other iPad, iOS device, or Mac too if it’s running OS X Yosemite. While this feature can be convenient and make it much less likely that you’ll ever miss a phone call, it can also be a nuisance if you have a desk full of hardware that is all buzzing simultaneously.
Two consistently reliable sources of Apple rumors say the company will debut new iMac computers featuring Retina displays this year.
Abstract images make some of the best wallpapers because they’re gorgeous and, unlike scenery or text, they’re not distracting. This group of ten high-resolution bokeh pictures from hobbyist photographer Radoslav Holan are no exception, they’re absolutely beautiful to look at and make for perfect desktop backgrounds. He shot the pictures over the last two days out of his flat window, using natural light from the sun and water drops to capture the stunning photos, and the results speak for themselves.
We feature a wide range of Mac setups here, but this one is particularly stunning and may be one of the most amazing workstations we’ve covered yet. From top-of-the-line Apple hardware, an entire custom designed building and office, to the whopping 65′ x 16′ projection screen (yes, that is measured as FEET, not inches) displaying content from an Apple TV, this workstation absolutely must be seen.
You can click on any picture to see a larger version, and we’ve even got two videos that demonstrate the construction of the building, and another which shows off the enormous projection screen in action. Don’t miss this!
Much has been said about the iPhone 6 Plus already, and there are plenty of thorough reviews describing the hardware, the design, camera, and every other little improvement and detail of the device. After using one for a week, two things in particular really stand out to me which differentiate the iPhone 6 Plus over every other iPhone ever made, and for many users they could be the determining factor as to why you’d want to get an iPhone 6 Plus over another model. And no, this is not a geeky technical-based preference at all, this is based entirely on two significant usability factors.
Some iPhone and iPad users who went to update to the latest version of iOS using iTunes may have discovered an error message saying the following: “The iPhone Software Update Server Could Not Be Contacted. Make sure your network settings are correct and your network connection is active, or try again later.”
Apple has released iOS 8.0.2 for all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users running iOS 8. The update includes multiple bug fixes, including resolutions to problems introduced by the failed iOS 8.0.1 launch. Full release notes for iOS 8.0.2 are included below.
