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_Dear Friends,_
Maybe this will be my year for apples. My three apple trees at home and the one outside my office were covered with blossoms this spring and now are growing little apples. Who knows…my 40-year struggle to grow apples might finally end! We had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and caught three parades starting with the one over the hill in Williamstown, VT on Saturday. I hope your holiday weekend was awesome too and that you are ready for the summertime!
There are lots of rumors coming out over the upcoming World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) starting on June 8th with the confirmed keynote set for 10 AM Pacific time. We don’t do rumors here in Kibbles & Bytes but we are excited to get a glimpse of the future as Apple talks about their plans and gets developers stoked to create for them.
This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the Apple Certified Refurbished 13-inch MacBook Air with the ultimate protection plan! You get the MacBook Air with 1.3GHz i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD drive. This carries Apple’s 1-year warranty just like the new machines. We are adding AppleCare protection to this MacBook Air, which will not only extend that hardware warranty from 1 to 3 years but also extends the 90 days of free technical support to 3 years. Because we know you will be carrying this laptop around a lot we also adding Safeware protection, too. Safeware provides 3 years of accidental damage coverage, subject to a $250 deductible.
That should make for a pretty good deal but in honor of the upcoming summer we are going to add in a free pair of Chill Pill speakers and this purchase qualifies for our Dads and Grads promotion so you would also get a $50 Small Dog Gift card! The regular price for this bundle is $1319 but exclusively for Kibbles & Bytes readers this week (while supplies last) you can snag this bundle for only $1165! “*Click Here*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001864 to order yours.
Dock Tips!
After my short article last week on the Dock I got some great feedback from Kibbles & Bytes readers and I thought I would share some here. Jerry King is the President of the Naples MacFriends User Group and has volunteered to write up a story on using Stacks in the Dock. I cleaned up my Dock considerably by dragging my Utilities folder the the right side of the dock and whenever I need a utility, I just mouse over it and can access Keychain Access or Activity Monitor, etc. Look for Jerry’s article in the next couple weeks…
Jim Blohm reminded me that you can press *Option + Command + D* to hide and show the Dock. Another reader pointed out that if you have just downloaded a document from the web or email and you do not know what application will open it you can drag that document along the dock and applications that will access and open the item will highlight with the name of the application as you move over each one.
I look forward to Jerry’s article and we will pass along any other Dock tips as we get ‘em.
Looks like another beautiful Vermont weekend coming up. It will be a battle between gardening and fighting black flies versus motorcycling in the Green Mountains. Maybe I can get a little of both.
Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!
Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
_Don, Dean, Bronson & Mike_
Apple Watch: Don’s First Impressions
Okay, I have been wearing my new Apple Watch for about a week and I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical that I would like wearing a watch after 50-years of not wearing a watch. I do pride myself on being able to figure out the time without a timepiece. Well, so far I am really enjoying learning about the Apple Watch and seeing how it integrates into my lifestyle.
Apple is doing something pretty cool with the Apple Watch. They are offering free set-up sessions with one of their “specialists” to go over the features and functions of the watch. I have my appointment set for Sunday morning but Grace had hers already and thought it was very valuable. They are taking customer satisfaction to a new level with these sessions.
Okay, so onto some first impressions:
*Battery life:*
Double okay! Not only does the Apple Watch battery easily last all day with frequent usage but it also has an impact upon the battery life of my iPhone. That is because the “glances” I would take on my iPhone all through the day are now easily done with a flip of my wrist, so I am not taking my iPhone out of my pocket much.
*Cool Things it Does:*
* Let’s see, paying for my Starbucks drink on the road to Maine was cool; I just launched Passport on the Apple Watch and held it up the the Starbucks terminal and my Venti Iced Black Eye was paid for to the amazement of the people in line.
* Using the Remote App to control my Apple TV is also very cool. No more searching for that remote; I can put it in the drawer.
* Smarter texting was something I discovered yesterday. I have gotten texts before on the Apple Watch and there were some canned responses that you can customize or you can reply via dictation and send the reply as an audio or text file. ll that was not too surprising but when my health care provider texted me a question on a medication dosage – i.e. “1.5mg or 0.75mg?” I was surprised to see that my Apple Watch realized I was being given a choice and the canned responses now included 1.5mg and 0.75mg as clickable responses.
*Watch Apps:*
I am liking the Score app which gives me updates on the Cubs games. While the Activity app is a little annoying when it taps my wrist and tells me to stand up, I am finding that I am motivated to meet my daily goals for standing, moving, and exercising. I used the Maps app and soon got used to the taps to alert me to turns. I don’t think I will use that on my motorcycle but I can clearly see the use while navigating on foot in a city. Grace and I tried out the camera remote function while on our trip but never could quite get the iPhone in a stable place so helpful people always offered to take our picture.
I think I’m gonna keep it!