Kibbles & Bytes Blog

Apple news, tech tips, and more…

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  • Watch This

    I am really surprised that I have taken to the Apple Watch so completely. It is not that I use it as a fitness device although I DO have goals…that I seldom meet. But, I wear it every day even though it was over 50 years since I regularly wore a watch.

    Q: So, what do I use it for?

    A: ApplePay, sports scores, texts, answering my iPhone Dick Tracy-style, weather and a lot of other stuff like checking the time. 🙂

    I was very interested in the latest version of *watchOS* that was introduced by Apple at WWDC; *watchOS 3* has some pretty dramatic changes in store for your *Apple Watch*. The first, and most noticeable for me, is that the little scribbles that you can send to your friends when you press the side button is gone. Okay, I used that like 4 times to send little drawings to Grace or my hearbeat but pretty useless for that important button. Now, pressing that button will give you a *Dock* which you can configure with your favorite apps, which I find a lot more convenient than trying to get my big fat finger on that tiny little icon.

    Something you will get used to pretty quickly, but is a huge improvement, is that it is easier and faster to perform common tasks including replying to a message, starting a workout, or skipping a track. Apps launch much faster. Swipe up from the bottom of the watch face to access your important settings in *Control Center*.

    Apple added new watch faces, too, including Minnie Mouse (I don’t get the fascination with Mickey and Minnie), Activity, or Numerals, and you can customize them with more complications like Music and Workout. Switch faces with just a swipe, so you can have the Activity face for the gym and the Modular face for work. And easily configure your faces in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. Configuring your watch faces on your iPhone is much easier than on the tiny watch face.

    There are some improvements to the *Activity app* including some for the more competitive folks. You can share and compete with activity sharing. Send and receive real-time progress updates when friends finish workouts or earn achievements, and reply with encouragement or smack talk. Activity rings are optimized for wheelchair users, there are two wheelchair-specific workouts, and there’s a new *Time to Roll* notification.

    There was a lot of time spent on the new *Breathe app* and while I like it and have tried it out a few times it is not as groundbreaking as Apple made it out to be. It must have been someone’s pet idea. The new Breathe app encourages you to take moments in your day to do short, deep-breathing sessions. The beautiful, calming visualization and haptic cues guide you through deep, full breaths in sessions lasting from one to five minutes. And when you’re done, you’ll receive a helpful heart-rate summary. I ended up turning of Breathe notifications after a few sessions.

    You know those squiggly drawings we talked about that were eliminated? Well, they were actually just moved where they belong: into *Messages*. Set off fireworks or stick a sticker. Share a secret with invisible ink or reply in your own handwriting. You can even draw letters on the display and Apple Watch turns it into text. All your options including larger emoji, sketches, taps, and your heartbeat are in the same place, so you can send and respond to messages faster than ever.

    The new *SOS* feature is a handy safety item to complement your *Medical ID* that we talked about a couple weeks ago. Quickly and easily call for help if you’re in a critical situation. Press and hold the side button and your Apple Watch will automatically initiate a call with 911 or other emergency services numbers in other countries. SOS can also send a message to the people you’ve chosen as your emergency contacts, so your family and friends are alerted as quickly as possible.

    The *Timer app* which I use all the time is revamped and makes it easier to start timing, but best of all is *Auto Unlock*. While it is not yet implemented in the current betas, Auto Unlock will unlock your Mac when you are wearing your watch. Very, very handy!

  • _Dear Friends_,

    Hey, guess what? I am a Cubs fan and I have been for my entire life. When I was a very young child my family lived in Wrigleyville near the Cubs stadium. My mom would take my brother and I to games, especially on “Ladies’ Day” and we would wander around the field and got to know many of the players. My favorite player at the time was Hank Sauer who won the NL MVP but Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks was there, too. I once won tickets to a Cubs play-off game with my statement that “my Mom used Wrigley Field as a daycare center”. Okay, so that is all a lead-in to say that this might actually be THE YEAR! Go Cubbies! Grace and I are going to take a little tour of the midwest this year for a motorcycle trip with, of course, a stop at Wrigley!

    I have my annual golf outing with old friends, Larz Barber, Melinda Moulton and Dave Sellers. Dave and I usually manage to squeak out a victory but who knows this year. Sometimes it is hard to hit the ball since we are laughing so hard.

    Emily is going to talk about tvOS this week and I’ll be reviewing watchOS 3. I am using the beta of watchOS but haven’t taken the leap yet with my Apple TV. I’d hate to see that it was not compatible with MLB Team Pass.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes Exclusive features an Apple Factory Refurbished MacBook that hasn’t even landed yet. We have a few of the “*gold MacBook*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002271/gold-macbook-with-applecare-for-only-1089-99? with 1.1 GHz processor 8GB Ram and 256GB drive coming in next week. These are refurbished by Apple and carry the same 1-year Apple warranty as new Macs. This week we are bundling this MacBook with AppleCare which extends that warranty from 1 year to 3 years and extends Apple’s toll-free technical support from 90 days to 3 years. This is a great opportunity to snag a MacBook for the lowest price we can find. Gold MacBook with AppleCare for only “**$1089.99!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002271/gold-macbook-with-applecare-for-only-1089-99?

  • I am heading over to Laconia, NH to check out bike week and with excellent weather in store, I think we may just have to do a little exploring on motorcycles. Strawberries are about to come in season with pick your own places crawling with stooped over folks picking the delicious early summer berries.

    I’ve been driving the little Austin Healey Sprite to work since it is not raining this week. It is so fun to drive the little British sports car but I know I have some preventive maintenance to do soon as it is not much more than a glorified go-cart. At least I am not collecting golf carts like Emily!

    Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes and Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes team,

    Don, Emily, Hadley & Amy

  • iOS 10

    Earlier this week at WWDC Apple announced the latest edition of iOS for iPhone and iPad. As is typical with these announcements, the changes to iOS are one of the more exciting software announcements to many users. iPads and iPhones are often the sole device for many users. Some improvements to iOS 10 greatly improve productivity and others give us another excuse to do less. There is a huge list of improvements to iOS 10 and here are some highlights of what’s to come.

    Messages got more expressive and makes it even easier to use less words in your text messages. When sending a text in iOS 10 you will now find suggestions for autofilling emojis rather than words. That’s right, autofill for emojis! If you’re never exactly sure what that emoji is, don’t fret, emojis can be sent bigger as well as your text messages with bubbles. Do you feel that emojis just aren’t your thing and prefer a more personal approach to messages? The ability to handwrite a message has now been added to iOS 10, and offers a really cool way to add a personal touch to any message! I guess I’ll forgive Apple for making it easier to send messages without words with the added handwriting feature and lastly celebrations. Celebrations? That’s right, you’ll be able to celebrate a special moment even from afar by sending a full screen affect like balloons or fireworks, pretty cool!

    Maps received some pretty cool upgrades this time around. Now when you’re traveling around and utilizing maps you can quickly find and book a cab or even a reservation at a nearby restaurant all without leaving the Maps app. One other slightly hidden feature is the ability to instantly mark where you parked your car. Maps can automatically recognize that you have gotten off the highway and parked your car. It will automatically drop a pin for you in Maps ensuring you will never again forget where you parked your car!

    QuickType is getting some pretty incredible upgrades in iOS 10. Using Siri intelligence, your phone or iPad can predict what you might want to say to someone, suggest adding an event to your calendar or change the language with which you respond. Now if you’re having a conversation with someone about dinner reservations, QuickType will pick up on patterns found in your conversation. Easily add a dinner reservation or location right from your conversation.

    The Phone feature of your iPhone also is getting some pretty significant improvements which even include the ability to recognize a potential spam call. No longer will you have to be interrupted by a call from a number you don’t recognize only to find out it was a spam call. Your phone will now tell you if it thinks an incoming call is spam. Your phone will now also be able to better work with third-party VoIP calls such as Skype reducing the number of missed calls through apps on your phone.

    At WWDC only a small portion of the total improvements to iOS 10 can be talked about, and even this article is missing some, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about some of the improvements they didn’t highlight. In iOS 10 you will now be able to remove stock apps, yes it finally happened! Tired of seeing the Apple Watch app because you still don’t have the watch, just delete it and any other apps that come standard on the phone that have been in your way all this time. If you’re someone who says you wish and need to get on a better sleeping pattern but find each night you once again sat up too late? A bedtime tab can now be found in the alarm App, it can help you to get on a regular sleeping schedule by alerting you it’s time to go to sleep. For those who find that space is an issue on their phone with large music libraries you can now optimize your storage. Your phone can be set to hold an ideal amount of songs and will help you keep your storage in check by automatically removing songs you listen to least often. Lastly one of my favorite finds is that there is now a magnifier built into the accessibility features. It sounds silly, but it’s just made finding that tiny screw or lost pin on the floor easier!

    iOS 10 is set to be released sometime in the fall. Unfortunately this means most users still have several months until they can try it out. However, thanks to beta testers already using iOS 10 and the public beta testers in July, you should feel confident that when iOS 10 comes out for public download in the fall it should have only minimal, if any, problems.

  • macOS Sierra

    I used to live in the foothills of the Sierras in a little town called Challenge. We rented what was an old stage coach stop right in the hills that were part of the gold rush of the nineteenth century. Did you know that the nickname for Californians – the 49ers – came from the huge influx of gold miners in 1849?

    Apple hopes that macOS Sierra will bring in a rush to the Mac, too. First off, we should note that the name has changed (to protect the innocent?) from OS X 10.12 to macOS Sierra. I like the name change but it certainly pales next to the improvements in the operating system for Mac.

    If you have a Mac that is older than 2009 you might want to turn out, or better yet come in for an upgrade because macOS Sierra will only run on late 2009 Macs or newer. It will be free when it comes out this fall and there will be a public beta program in July that you can sign up for at beta.apple.com.

    Hello Siri!

    What’s new? Let’s start with Siri. Siri finally comes to the Mac! Ask Siri to send messages, search the web, find files, adjust settings, and more. You can also drag and drop, copy, or pin Siri results. Siri will even turn down your Mac’s fan when activated to minimize microphone interference. I have just started to play with Siri on the Mac but it is a little weird talking to my Mac in the middle of our open office. I feel a little bit like Scotty in Star Trek talking to the mouse of a Mac Plus.

    Universal Clipboard

    Have you ever found an interesting article or picture on your iPad and wanted to include it in something you are working on your Mac? Well, that just got a lot easier with Universal Clipboard. Copy and paste now works across your devices when they’re near each other. There are no special instructions, just copy images, video, or text from an app on one device. Then paste into another app on a different device.

    Optimized Storage

    Are you reaching the limits of your storage? With all the rich media, apps, pictures and music this is a pretty common issue. We recommend that you leave 10-20% of your storage space clear but finding what to delete is always a challenge. Apple has now addressed that with Optimized Storage. Optimized Storage helps you make more room on your Mac. When space is low, it automatically stores old files, photos, movies, and email attachments in the cloud and makes them available on demand. Files you recently created and optimized photos stay on your Mac so they’re there when you need them. You can also easily find and remove files or apps. I am running the beta of macOS Sierra and my free space went up from about 25GB to over 150GB once my storage was optimized

    Auto Unlock

    How many times have you found yourself logging into your Mac and accidentally had the caps lock on and had to re-enter your password? Well, if you have an Apple Watch you will never have THAT problem again. When you walk up to your Mac while wearing your Apple Watch, you’ll be automatically logged in to your desktop. Because you authenticate your Apple Watch when you put it on, there’s no need to type in a password if you’re nearby.

    Shop with Apple Pay

    Apple Pay gives you an easier and more secure way to pay when shopping online in Safari. When you see the Apple Pay button on participating websites, simply click it at checkout on your Mac, then securely complete your purchase using your iPhone or Apple Watch.

    Keep Tabs

    I know that not everyone uses tabs in Safari or Chrome but most of you do. It is a great way to have multiple web sites open at once without cluttering your desktop. macOS Sierra brings tabs to other apps now. It works in Pages and a few other apps now but should be pretty universal by the time macOS Sierra comes out in the fall. I was a bit baffled at how to access it but then I noticed a new command under the “Window” menu item – Merge All Windows.

    Picture-in-Picture

    This time of the year I like to watch the Cubs day games while I am working. That’s the thing about watching baseball, you don’t have to pay too close attention. At any rate, with macOS Sierra I can now have a floating PIP window with the game while I work on spreadsheets or in our K9 database. You can float a video window from Safari or iTunes over your desktop or a full-screen app. Play the video in any corner of your desktop, and resize the window to see more or less of what’s behind it. It currently only works with some video sources (and unfortunately not with MLB Team Pass) but more will certainly be added.

    iCloud Drive

    Ever been in a meeting and needed that document from your Mac but you just have your iPad with you? With the new enhancements to iCloud Drive in macOS Sierra it will be no problem. Now you can store your Documents folder and Desktop in iCloud Drive and access all your files from your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or PC and on iCloud.com. So you can save files where you normally do and they’re automatically uploaded, with no need to drag them into iCloud Drive first.

    And MORE!

    Photos has been upgraded with new organization and search capabilities, iTunes has been upgraded including lyrics in the mini player, new Emojis and fun stuff in Messages and much more that we will talk about in Kibbles as we discover more of the features.

  • Dear Friends,

    Our hearts and souls mourn with the families of the victims of the senseless tragedy at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. Hate crimes always make me concerned about the future of the human race. Whether it is madmen slaughtering innocents with assault rifles, the genocide of the Yizidis at the hands of ISIL, or the endless wars fought in the name of religion or resources it is hard to call ourselves a civilization when there is so much uncivilized violence.

    I see so much of what is happening now being depicted in science fiction of the past, whether it is the Bezerkers of Fred Saberhagen or terrorism as normalcy in the movie Brazil the dark side of the future sometimes overshadows what could be a world free of violence, bigotry and war.

    Apple is committed to making products and software that enriches our lives and while I sometimes get frustrated with Apple as a huge company, I believe Tim Cook and Apple’s commitment. This week at WWDC they introduced improvements to their four operating systems, macOS Sierra, iOS 10, WatchOS 3 and tvOS. Improvements included the Breathe app on the Watch and hidden new accessibility features such as Magnifier in iOS 10 which turns your iPhone into a magnifying glass. In addition to the new wheelchair optimizations for Apple Watch — “time to stand” settings become “time to roll”, two wheelchair-specific workouts, and optimized activity rings for wheelchair pushes — users can now discretely check time with a voiceover feature that uses haptic feedback to tell you the time. Apple continues to enhance the Health app and their ResearchKit, too.

    Emily and I will talk about macOS Sierra and iOS 10 this week and follow up next week with a discussion of tvOS. This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the Apple Airport Express Base Station. This is an Apple Factory Reconditioned unit with the same 1-year warranty as new. This is a great way to set up your wireless network or extend an existing network. Normally, this is $99 new but this week for Kibbles & Bytes Readers you can buy the Apple Refurbished Airport Express for only $59!

  • Quibbles & Bytes

    Storage capacity is one of the more confusing topics in the technology world. I have had many frustrated people ask me why their new 500-gigabyte external hard drive is actually only stores 465 gigabytes. It can be confusing, but there are actually different definitions of digital storage units depending on who you are asking. There also other factors, such as firmware and operating system data, that serve to obfuscate digital storage terminology.

    The smallest unit of digital storage is called a bit. A bit is a single 0 or 1, represented usually as a stored magnetic or electric charge, depending on the storage medium. There are 8 bits in one byte. It is after this point that the numbers start to change depending on whether the terminology is used with its decimal definition or its binary definition.

    The prefixes for large quantities of bytes are assigned by the International System of Units. In the decimal definitions, a kilobyte is made up of 1,000 bytes, a megabyte of 1,000 kilobytes, a gigabyte of 1,000 megabytes, and so on. The decimal definition is commonly used by storage device manufacturers to measure capacity, along with data throughput and various other performance specifications. Since computer software uses the base-2 numeral system, each level of the binary definition is made up of 1,024 of the previous level. This is because 1,024 is the closest power of 2 to 1,000. Computer software expects one gigabyte to be made up of 1,073,741,824 bytes, instead of 1,000,000,000. This is why computers will usually display the storage of a device as less than was advertised for the device, even though the advertised storage was technically correct according to the decimal definition.

    If an operating system is stored on a device, the usable capacity will be further limited. For instance, on a 128-gigabyte MacBook, after binary conversions and system software, about 120 gigabytes is typically available for the user. For these reasons, it is always a good idea to budget a little more storage than you think you will use.

  • Are You Being Throttled?

    Whether you watch Netflix on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, or *gasp* a Windows PC, the quality of the video, how long it takes to load, and whether it stutters or skips is primarily determined by the bandwidth of your Internet connection. Netflix recommends 25 megabits per second (Mbps) of download speed for Ultra HD quality, 5 Mbps for HD, and 3 Mbps for SD. Netflix says that 1.5 Mbps is the lowest recommendation for a broadband connection, and notes that 0.5 Mbps is the minimum required, though I have generally found that it doesn’t really work on anything less than 1 Mbps.

    So how do you tell what your real-world download speed is? Up to now, I would have recommended “*speedtest.net*”:http://www.speedtest.net and for general testing of your speed, this is still a good option. It does require Flash, so please make sure that your player is up-to-date by checking *System Preferences > Flash Player > Updates > Check Now* or by going to “*adobe.com*”:https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ for a first time install on your Mac. If you are checking from a mobile device, you can get the “*SpeedTest.net app here.*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/speedtest.net-speed-test/id300704847?mt=8&at=11lb7k

    The problem is that allegedly certain ISPs, despite the supposed protections of net neutrality, throttle Netflix traffic because it is the number one user of the internet in the US. In 2015, Netflix accounted for 37% of all internet traffic. If you want to find out if your ISP is throttling, check Netflix’s new “*fast.com*”:https://fast.com Web site, which is a quick and easy way to determine how much bandwidth you get. This test uses Netflix servers as it source, so if your ISP is throttling Netflix, it will show up here. And if what you see doesn’t match with what you think you’re paying your Internet service provider for, call the ISP and make sure your connection is working properly. In my test, I got 8.1 Mbps at fast.com and 13.99 Mbps at speedtest.net, so there is a possibility that my Netflix is being throttled. I will be running additional tests and contacting my ISP if the speeds continue to diverge this much.

  • Other Space in OS X: Part 2

    Welcome to part 2 of last issue’s exploration of *Other space* from the *Storage tab* in *About This Mac*. If you followed all the directions from last time, and are still seeing lots and lots of Other space, there are a few more things you can do.

    One of the things I do on a semi-regular basis on my own Mac is to use a third party app called DaisyDisk. DaisyDisk is a very elegant-looking app that helps you explore the Hierarchical File System that OS X uses. It does cost $9.99, but if you end up using it a fair amount, it is totally worth it. There is also a free trial, so you can download it and try it out! “*Get DaisyDisk from the Mac App Store here.*”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/daisydisk/id411643860?mt=12&at=11lb7k

    Recently, on my Mac at home, I used DaisyDisk and found out that I had about 1.5GB of Mail data. After navigating to the location of said data, I was able to remove it and free up a decent amount of storage, all of which was in the Other section of the storage snapshot.

    Another really nice app, that also happens to be free, is called Disk Inventory X. This app is similar to Daisy Disk in that it lays out all of the data on your hard drive in a nice, easy to see format. Disk Inventory X gives you a colorful grid-like format, with data organized by type, instead of hierarchically like Daisy Disk. Another advantage to Disk Inventory X (as well as the cost) is that it will work on any Mac that has OS X 10.3 or later installed. If you have an older Mac with an older version of OS X, then this may be the better option. “*You can download Disk Inventory X here.*”:http://www.derlien.com

    Now for some final thoughts. My go-to app for eliminating Other space (and also just for cleaning up a full hard drive in general) is DaisyDisk. Really the only thing to worry about is that DaisyDisk will report any and all data on your disk, and so one needs to be careful on what they delete. If in doubt, leave it out! As in, don’t delete it from your Mac. It can be tempting to free up lots and lots of space using this app, but make sure you are not deleting any important system files or apps.

    As always, before you make any changes to your system, BACK UP!

  • _Hello Fellow Technophiles,_

    As expected, Apple unveiled their new operating systems at this week’s Apple World Wide Developer Conference. There were also rumors that we would see hardware announcements, but this was not the case. The biggest change is that Apple will no longer be referring to the OS on the Mac as OS X. It will now be called *macOS*. This makes it conform with the other operating systems in the Apple family: iOS, tvOS, and watchOS.

    The version of macOS that will be released in the the fall, 10.12, is nicknamed Sierra. The major change is that Siri, Apple’s voice activated assistant, is coming to the Mac for the first time. Siri will be able to find files, search the web, add items to your calendar and much more.

    The next most interesting feature to me is the ability for the OS to automatically optimize your storage by automatically moving rarely used files to your iCloud drive. You will also have the option of setting your Desktop and Documents folders to automatically sync with iCloud. Additionally, it will remind you to delete installer files once a program is installed and will automatically remove “duplicate downloads, caches, logs, and other unnecessary stuff.” If you do upgrade to Sierra when it is first released, be sure to make local backups often. I am worried that something on my machine that Sierra decides is “unnecessary” is actually something that I will need. We will see how this goes in the fall.

    “*See more details about all of the new features in Sierra here.*”:http://www.apple.com/macos/sierra-preview/

    Apple also announced iOS 10, as well as updates to watchOS and tvOS, which we will cover in more detail in this Friday’s “*Kibbles & Bytes.*”:http://www.smalldog.com/newsletters/subscribe-to-our-fun-informative-newsletters If you just can’t wait, you can see all of the details at “*apple.com.*”:http://www.apple.com

    Thanks for reading!

    Mike
    “*michaeld@smalldog.com*”:mailto:michaeld@smalldog.com

  • The weather for this weekend is sort of iffy but we plan to ride our motorcycles over to Lake George, NY to attend the annual Americade rally. What originally started out as a Honda Goldwing rally is now a motorcycle touring rally. All the major manufacturers offer test rides and the expo has some great vendors for everything from tires to custom paint jobs. As usual, for us it is not so much the event but the great ride through the Adirondacks to get there.

    The pressure is on Apple to show some great stuff at WWDC and we will be reporting on just what Tim Cook and his team reveals on Monday next week in Kibbles & Bytes.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    Don, Emily, Hadley & Amy