Upcoming South Burlington Events

Grace finally got home after dealing with a flat tire just outside of NYC, and it is good to have the house full of dogs and wife again. We got her motorcycle out of storage and will be heading over to Lake George to the Americade motorcycle touring rally on Saturday.

I’ll be able to check out some of the iOS 8 features as I mount my iPhone on the Indian and use Maps to find new ways to get over there.

Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes! We know it is YOU, our loyal customers, who ultimately pay our wages.

Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
_Don, Kali & Stephanie_

Huh? Well, really what we mean is that our “*Dads & Grads promos*”:http://www.smalldog.com/dadsandgrads/ are still happening (until *6/30*) and with our special in-store financing back in action, it’s easier than ever to get your grad or dad something special.

The best part? (You know, aside from no-interest payments for up to a year and a half…) Every product in the store is applicable (excluding services). There’s no minimum requirement for 6-month financing, and if you purchase an iPad or Mac, you may qualify for either 12- or 18-month financing, pending approval.

* *6* month offer: No minimum amount
* *12* month offer: Purchases of $499 – $998
* *18* month offer: Purchases of $999 and up (until 10/31)

*How to Apply*
Come in to any of our retail locations — “*Waitsfield*”:http://www.smalldog.com/waitsfield, “*S. Burlington*”:http://www.smalldog.com/burlington, “*Rutland*”:http://www.smalldog.com/rutland, VT, or “*Key West, FL*”:http://www.smalldog.com/keywest — and any of our helpful Specialists can assist you with the application. Or, you can fill out the application online beforehand (see link below) and bring it in to any store. It can take as little as five minutes to receive approval for financing!

Click here for more details: “**Smalldog.com/finance**”:http://www.smalldog.com/finance

In 2012, Apple introduced the Lightning connector, a small, digital 8-pin connector for iOS devices. Overnight, the consumer backlash seemed overwhelming because these new adaptors were incompatible with the thousands (upon thousands) of accessories out there that were made for the original 30-pin connection.

However, many cheered at the discontinuation of what was considered a ‘dinosaur’ in technology terms, and was long overdue for a change. Apple also released a “*Lightning to 30-Pin Adaptor,*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/81561/ which enabled users of the old cables to adapt without buying all-new Lightning cables. I, for one, jumped for joy at the possibilities of what the Lightning connector could do.

But alas, two years later, not much else has been done to further utilize this technology. It hadn’t yet brought anything new to the table; it was smaller, and I could plug it in on either side (something the 30-pin connector couldn’t do), but that’s about it. The accessories hadn’t changed (though the Apple Dock was initially dropped until the 5s brought it back) and it wasn’t any faster (despite the name). USB 3.0 was announced for laptops that same year, but no, Lightning didn’t have USB 3.0 capabilities, either.

You’ll have to excuse my rant — as a fanboy, I had expected more. I’m a cable freak, and the Lighting cable — like Thunderbolt — had much more potential than they were using. So, as my co-workers can attest to, when I read that Apple introduced Lightning Cable MFi Specs for headphones, I lost it! This is the first time we’ll see Lightning reach greater potential.

With the Lightning connection, we can now increase to a higher frequency of digital music, and power our noise-canceling headphones from our phone, or vice versa (power our phones from the backup battery in our headphones). It means that apps like VLC, Plex and of course, iTunes can begin to work with 5.1 surround output on video. App developers will have access to this for who knows what else — can you hear my excitement?

The speculation is endless…did this development come from the Beats acquisition? Personally, I think yes; Beats Music claimed to have higher bit rate than Spotify, but who cares if you’re plugging in via a headphone jack. It’s like having a built-in DAC (digital to analog converter) on your iPhone.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, active noise canceling headphones have always required power, and Beats has two headphones in their lineup that require power for noise canceling. These now can theoretically use a Lightning connection to lighten the load of an onboard battery.

Lastly, Don, took the speculation a step further and wondered, “when do you think they’ll introduce Lightning ports on computers?” Boom, mind blown. I can’t wait to see where this leads, and as always, I’d love to hear what our readers think.

“*Email me your thoughts!*”:mailto:will@smalldog.com

_Dear Friends,_

Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference was this week, and as usual, the focus was on the software. The glue that holds Apple together is the tight integration of their innovative hardware, vanguard, groundbreaking software and access to content. WWDC is the showcase for the software part of this 3-legged stool. And Apple did not disappoint! Tim Cook and his team showed a preview of Mac OS X 10.10, called Yosemite and iOS 8 (I wonder why we do not have cute names for iOS versions…?).

Perhaps the most significant announcement for the gathered developers was that Apple introduced Swift, a new programming language that has been 4 years in the making at Apple and should make writing apps for OS X and iOS 8 faster and easier.

As a developer, I have access to the beta versions of this software and I am the official Small Dog guinea pig. I will be able to report over the next several weeks on my experiences. If you sign up at Apple’s website, you could be a part of the public beta program that will be coming this summer. Suffice it to say, at this point, the first releases of the software are very buggy and Apple has work to do. On the other hand, the new features that I have have been checking out are very cool.

It is this software and Apple’s ecosystem that will continue to make the Mac and iPhone/iPad the hardware platforms of choice and continue to have Samsung, Google and Microsoft scrambling to try to keep up with Apple as they sprint to the future.

I was hoping to go back to the improved OS X Mail client (something I moved away from in Mavericks) but that is not quite ready. Fortunately, my latest favorite third party email client, “*Airmail,*”:http://airmailapp.com seems to work great with Yosemite.

Kali and Stephanie will go into details on some of the new technologies you will see in the fall, but I want to call out a couple that I think are significant. The first is that Apple has opened up their Touch ID fingerprint sensor to developers. While your fingerprint data remains extremely secure in the Apple A7 chip in what Apple calls the “secure enclave,” Apple will allow app developers to use Touch ID for verification. This is a vital part of Apple’s continued entry into the electronic payment space. It is huge.

The other two areas are the Smart Home initiative which will establish standards for home automation hardware that your iPhone or iPad can control, and the HealthKit. With Smart Home’s location sensitivity, your iPhone knows you are home, so with the right gear, it can turn on the lights, turn up the heat, open the door and even turn on the TV for you just by walking in the room. Very sci-fi!

The HealthKit is cool and will be the portal for other smart hardware and sensors. The Health App is installed with iOS 8 and has a bunch of categories ready to use such as Basal Calories, Blood Alcohol, Blood Sugar, Blood Pressure, Body Mass, etc. and some that need more explanation like “number of times fallen,” Body Heat Flux, Sleep Analysis, etc. I am sure we will be hearing more about this!

Dads & Grads continues for a little bit, so this week’s Kibbles & Bytes special is a new MacBook Pro 13-inch Retina with 2.4GHz i5 processor 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage. Our Dads & Grads special takes $100 off with AppleCare so AppleCare is included and that qualifies you for the free Hammerhead carrying case, too.

But Kibbles & Bytes readers are special, so I am going to sweeten the pot a bit here by including a 1TB Seagate Backup Plus hard drive (because we want you to always have backups and plenty of storage), an Apple external SuperDrive, and a large ViewSonic 27-inch display.

So — you get the new MacBook Pro, AppleCare, Hammerhead case, Seagate 1TB drive, Apple SuperDrive, and ViewSonic display all for only $1859.99! And, we will ship it to you for only $4.99 (and don’t forget the free small dogs with each order)!

“*Grab this exclusive Kibbles & Bytes bundle here.*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001457

So WWDC happened on Monday.

With WWDC comes the opening keynote that most Apple nerds (and even non-Apple nerds) get all excited about because this is when they announce their new software and hardware. The two-hour keynote today consisted mostly of software announcements: Yosemite and iOS 8, baby!

While Kali will cover all the juicy details of Yosemite below, I’m here to give you a quick coverage of highlights from iOS 8. While it’s keeping the same flat design of iOS 7, it has been updated with features that will make your experience [even] easier.

iOS 8’s tagline reads, “Huge for Developers. Massive for everyone else.” Apple provided developers with deeper access and more tools. Such things like keyboard options and more ways to share content are just some of the things they can get their hands on.

Here are some of the other improvements we’ll see when iOS 8 is released this fall:

* *Photos:* Now every photo you take and edit will live in your iCloud Photo Library.

* *Messages:* You can now add your voice to your messages, share your location and send multiple photos and videos at once.

* *Keyboard:* Now suggests contextually appropriate words to complete the sentence you’re typing

* *Family Sharing:* Share data from your phone among six people in your family.

* *iCloud Drive:* Work on your files anywhere, anytime.

* *Health:* A new iApp (the ones you can’t ever delete from your phone or iPad) provides you with all sorts of health information.

* *iPhone, iPad and Mac are now all connected:* Now all of those devices are connected in such a way that if you start an email on your iPhone, you can finish it on your Mac at a later time.

* *Spotlight:* It will give you suggestions from Wikipedia, trending news and offers you answers that are in the context of where you’re located.

We’re sad we have to wait until Fall to check this out (well, at least I do, since I’m not a Developer). And if there’s any trend we are seeing from Apple these days it’s that they are making it easier than ever to own multiple Apple products.

??To read a more expansive version of this article, “*head on over to our blog*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/just-announcedios-8/ and check it out!??

Also, check out what other people around the web have to say about the coolest, best and most important features of iOS 8!

“*Tech Crunch’s Article: The Coolest iOS 8 Features Apple Didn’t Talk About*”:http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/02/the-coolest-ios-8-features-apple-didnt-talk-about-today/
“*MacLife’s Article: iOS 8: The 8 Best New Features*”:http://www.maclife.com/article/gallery/ios-8-best-new-features#slide-0
“*Mashable’s Article: The 18 Most Important Features in iOS 8*”:http://mashable.com/2014/06/04/ios-8-features/

It seems funny to type that — 10.10 — but Apple’s newest OS incarnation is just that: the 11th version of the OS X operating system (pardon the redundancy). In his keynote, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, talked about the “future of OS X: “Yosemite.”

My first thought: How can the successor to Mavericks top itself? I’ve loved the cleaner, more iOS-like interface of Mavericks, and especially loved the changes to Finder and couldn’t make the switch fast enough, especially since it was free-of-charge to Snow Leopard, Lion or Mountain Lion users. However, along with the beneficial features and the fact that it kicked off a new OS naming scheme dedicated to notable California locales, it also had a few hiccups (“*most notably with Mail*”:http://9to5mac.com/2014/02/26/even-after-os-x-10-9-2-mavericks-update-users-still-complaining-about-mail-issues/) that could stand to be improved upon.

*From the looks of Yosemite, it delivers and then some.*

So, what will users see in the latest Mac OS? For starters, Yosemite also includes a user interface redesign, further adding iOS 7 (and iOS 8!)-like visuals to your desktop. Yosemite boasts a more seamless integration between all of your devices as well as major new features focusing on seamless integration between Mac and iOS devices, a storage system called iCloud Drive, which is essentially iDisk coming back but with enhanced cloud features, and phone and text features added to your desktop.

* *New Interface and Notification Center*
* *Continuity*
* *Spotlight*
* *iCloud Drive*
* *Safari*
* *Mail*

There was a ton of information included in the keynote, so we figured it might be better to expand more on it on the blog. “*Head on over to our blog, Barkings!*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/wwdc-news-apple-announces-os-1010-yosemite/ for all the details and to check out some screenshots of the new software.??

Both Yosemite and iOS will be available for free to the public this Fall.

I’m really excited to get this on my (personal) iMac, since we’ll be restricted from using Yosemite until IT clears it — likely beyond the official Fall release date. I plan to renew my Developer account, so we’ll see. In the meantime, since Don has already installed it on his personal machine, we’ll be pestering him for details that we’ll make sure to share in future issues of Kibbles & Bytes.

In the meantime, check out what other users with Developer access to the beta have been saying about Yosemite so far:

“*Mashable’s Article: With OS X Yosemite, the Mac Comes of Age*”:http://mashable.com/2014/06/05/os-x-yosemite-preivew/
“*Apple Insider’s Article:OS X Yosemite first look: Spotlight search*”:http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/06/05/os-x-yosemite-first-look-spotlight-search
“*MacLife’s Article: OS X Yosemite: The 8 Best New Features*”:http://www.maclife.com/article/gallery/os-x-yosemite-8-best-new-features