Apple on Friday cut the price on its USB-C adapters in the online store. The company also said that third-party USB-C peripherals in the store would be reduced in price.
“We are extremely excited about the new MacBook Pro, which is the best pro notebook we’ve ever made,” Apple said in a statement provided to The Loop. “It has the fastest CPU, graphics, memory, storage and I/O, best display, the innovative Touch Bar and more. MacBook Pro uses the most advanced industry-standard connector, USB-C with Thunderbolt 3, to provide maximum performance, expandability and compatibility.
“We recognize that many users, especially pros, rely on legacy connectors to get work done today and they face a transition. We want to help them move to the latest technology and peripherals, as well as accelerate the growth of this new ecosystem. Through the end of the year, we are reducing prices on all USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 peripherals we sell, as well as the prices on Apple’s USB-C adapters and cables.”
It’s obvious that pros looking to move to the new MacBook Pro will have to buy adapters to continue using the same gear. I’m in this position myself if I want to use my pro music gear, so having steep discounts on adapters will save me quite a bit of money.
In looking at Apple’s decision to reduce the price of the adapters, I immediately thought of Phil Schiller’s comment in an interview earlier this week.
“We care about what they love and what they are worried about. And it’s our job to help people through these changes. We know we made good decisions about what to build into the new MacBook Pro and that the result is the best notebook ever made, but it might not be right for everyone on day one. That’s okay, some people felt that way about the first iMac and that turned out pretty good.”
Schiller, and Apple, are taking the transition responsibility seriously. They know there are costs associated with moving to the new MacBook Pro and they are trying to ease that transition.
It’s also important to note that new MacBook Pro sales are not suffering, as Schiller pointed out in that interview.
“And we are proud to tell you that so far our online store has had more orders for the new MacBook Pro than any other pro notebook before,” said Schiller. “So there certainly are a lot of people as excited as we are about it.”
Adapters included in the price reduction include:
USB-C to USB Adapter (from $19 to $9);
Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter (from $49 to $29);
USB-C to Lightning Cable (1m) (from $25 to $19);
USB-C to Lightning Cable (2m) (from $35 to $29);
USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter (from $69 to $49);
USB-C VGA Multiport Adapter (from $69 to $49).
The cost of the SanDisk Extreme Pro SD UHS-II Card USB-C Reader will be reduced from $49 to $29, and all other third party USB-C peripherals will also be discounted.
Great move on Apple’s part to ease the transition. I’ve been using the 13-inch MacBook Pro for just over a week and love it.
The first step to taking timed screenshots on the Mac is to launch the Grab program. To do so, open your Applications folder, and then find the subfolder labeled “Utilities.” Inside the utilities folder is the Mac’s built-in screenshot application called Grab.app.
Double-click on Grab.app to open it, and you’ll see its menus appear across the top of your screen in the Menu Bar. The Grab app allows you to take standard screenshots like the ones detailed in our previous article, but the real magic is its ability to take timed screenshots on a countdown delay. You’ll find this option in Capture > Timed Screen.
I’m sure a lot of you already knew this but I didn’t even know there was a Grab app on my Mac.
If you’ve heard me talk about music creation in the past, you know I love Universal Audio—in fact, they are my favorite pro music company. They care about their users and the products they release. The latest update, version 9.0, not only adds compatibility with macOS Sierra, but they’ve also released some new plug-ins, including:
Get ready for a serious photo history lesson. Starting November 17th, TIME Magazine will begin what they’re calling “an unprecedented exploration” of the 100 most influential images of all time. From Tank Man, to Babe Ruth, to the JFK Assassination.
For all intents and purposes, this looks like it’ll be a photo nerd’s dream series—not just a basic countdown from 100 to 1, but a deep dive that “goes behind each spectacular image to reveal how and why it changed the course of history” to mark 175 years of photography and the birth of photojournalism.
The photo geek in me not only bookmarked this page but set a calendar reminder to go back to it on November 17th.
My thanks to Hullo for sponsoring The Loop this week. If you haven’t checked them out yet, you should read the reviews. A buckwheat pillow iis kind of like a beanbag for your head. The hull fill provides unique support that’s superior to soft traditional pillow types. Hullo’s features include:
Quality construction & organic materials.
Breathable fill that provides cool comfort all night long. No more flipping to the cool side in the middle of the night!
American-made craftsmanship.
Free shipping.
60-night money-back guarantee.
Try it for 60 nights. If it’s not your favorite pillow, send it back for a refund.
Outsmart Brands does the research for you and shows more affordable versions of popular consumer products. The site shows you the best you can get on a budget. They just launched, and while they still have more items coming, they have a pretty decent selection of stuff to start with. You can’t yet search for specific items, but you can browse their categories and get a pretty good idea of what to find.
I have been lusting after a decent stand mixer for a while and Outsmart recommended one that cost more than $100 less than the comparable KitchenAid one. If you’re on a budget and looking for inexpensive alternatives, check the site out.
Close to the center of Shenzhen is a massive market called Huaqiangbei, which is dedicated to selling electronic parts; it’s where you can purchase wifi devices, sensors, a circuit board, or 100,000 circuit boards. The city is full of incubators and consultants who specialize in hardware production. This cluster of manufacturing expertise is one reason the Economist declared Shenzhen the best place in the world for a hardware innovator to be.
Apple decided that the first iPhone would be manufactured in Shenzhen by a Taiwanese company called Foxconn just like in many other international projects like https://tacna.net/immex-program/. Shenzhen is now totally dominant in mobile production, turning out not just iPhones but also Android devices for the whole world. And the spillover effects of these innovations have made it a lot easier to develop new products. Electronic components that used to cost tens of thousands of dollars (if they could be bought at all) may now only cost a few dollars, allowing more inventors to prototype and produce.
When you outsource your manufacturing, you’re not just reducing the cost of labor on the floor. You’re also minimizing HR resources, training, management time, overtime pay, sick and holiday pay, and other labor costs. Seamlessly scale up or down – Production demands can be unpredictable.
I first heard of Shenzhen when I was working with Griffin Technology in Nashville many years ago. Even then, the guys at Griffin knew it was going to be a big deal eventually.
The Mac Pro and Mac mini have languished for several years with nary an update. And MacBook Pro users were hungry for a new model—and fueled by constant rumors all year of brand-new laptops that were just over the horizon.
Then we finally got the new MacBook Pro, and it’s loaded with a lot of cool stuff, but…the reaction wasn’t quite what Apple might have expected from the hungry crowd of Mac users.
And:
Apple’s Phil Schiller told the Independent that he was surprised by the negative reaction to the announcements. Maybe Schiller wasn’t aware of the undercurrent of concern and anger among Mac users who feel that Apple has deprioritized the Mac, and that the lack of updates to the Mac Pro becomes more frustrating with every passing day.
And:
Some of that concern and anger is reasonable, and some of it isn’t. But even the less reasonable reactions are Apple’s fault for letting it get to this point. The longer you go without Mac updates, the more time customers have to combine their anger and frustration with wishcasting about the product that will solve all their problems and make everything better.
First, this is a great read. Definitely resonated with me, felt like Jason really captured the feeling of the community as a whole.
Second, at the heart of this is managing expectations. No matter your reaction to the new MacBook Pro or your particular need for a Mac Pro, Apple let this pot simmer way too long. I do think Apple has ignored the needs of developers by not keeping up with the Mac Pro. I’m curious what their in-house developers are using to build iOS, macOS, Xcode, Swift, and all the other tools used to create the Apple ecosystem. Are they living with the Mac Pro of yesteryear? Are they using MacBook Pros? Some skunkworks machine?
The MacBook Pro that ships to the public is one thing. But the tools that create the rest of the tools are fundamental to Apple’s success. I’ve never understood Apple not keeping developers in the fastest gear possible.
Fire up Messages, Notes, Twitter, pretty much any place where you can bring up the iOS keyboard, and type:
My number is
When you hit a space after the “is”, predictive text will supply your phone number as a single tappable option. In my case, I got two options, one for home and one for work.
UPDATE: Also works with your contacts. Try “Kelley’s phone number is”, “Daniel’s address is”, “Ryan’s email is”. When you hit the space, you’ll have single tap predictive text to fill in the blank. [H/T Nevan King]
How did they do it? Volume! (where’s that rimshot emoji?)
OK, not really. Here’s why:
BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Long estimates that Apple accounted for 103.6% of smartphone industry operating profits in the third quarter. Its share is over 100% because other vendors lost money in the business, resulting in Apple having more smartphone profit than the industry netted overall.
Glenn Fleishman, writing for TidBITS, does an excellent job walking through the various standards that ultimately connect to the new MacBook Pro via USB-C. Bookmark the link, pass it along.
One point worth highlighting:
This may all seem confusing initially, but it should pass quickly because everything on the market for USB and DisplayPort over USB-C today should work with Thunderbolt 3. The main group that will be disappointed are those who buy Thunderbolt 3 peripherals and expect them to work with a 12-inch MacBook, which doesn’t extend USB-C support to Thunderbolt. We can hope that Apple makes Thunderbolt 3 standard across the entire Mac line.
In addition, there appears to be a compatibility issue with support for older Thunderbolt 3 peripherals. Read about it in this post.
The version of OS X on the new MacBook Pros (late 2016) will not work with existing Certified Thunderbolt 3 docks and adapters (released prior to November 2016). These existing devices use Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 chipset (Alpine Ridge) in combination with the first generation of TI USB-C chipset (TPS65982). Apple requires the 2nd generation TPS65983 chipset for peripherals to be compatible.
It’s not clear to me if this impacts all older docks/adapters, but before I made a purchase, I would verify that the dock or adapter in question is compatible with the new MacBook Pros. Even if you don’t have a 2016 MacBook Pro on order, you might order one at some point. Consider it an effort at future-proofing.
When Jon Stewart arrived at The Daily Show in 1999, he inherited a modest cable success—and a staff that wanted him to leave it alone. In an adaptation from The Daily Show (The Book), Chris Smith gets Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell, and others to talk about the battles of that first year, and how the show found its radical voice.
I still watch it for its moments of brilliance but the new Daily Show isn’t nearly as good now in my opinion. It serves to highlight the lightning in a bottle Stewart captured.
The Pixar imaginative group examined the inventive procedure in creating Piper, the main character who is an infant sandpiper taking in the ropes out on the shoreline in her journey to discover nourishment.
First-time chief Alan Barillaro highlights the charming shoreline flying creature and her mom in a story of unheralded grit — little Piper leaving the home for a world loaded with deceptive sea waves. “This is an anecdote about vanquishing and beating your own fears — for this situation, the water,” Barillaro says. “This is a story of how to experience childhood in a world that appears to be so extensive and scaring with the strength to move beyond those fears.”
Need a burst of happy today? The folks at Pixar have you covered.
UPDATE: Looks like the previous link is broken or has been taken down. Check it out on Digg while it lasts.
Before you watch the video below, take a minute to watch the setup interview, where Phil Collins talks about the song and you can see Roots drummer Questlove getting a bit nervous taking on an incredibly well known drum moment.
Bottom line, Questlove does a fine job and Phil Collins and the band do this classic justice.
Horace Dediu, on some remarkable business achievements of the Mac over time:
The product is in its 32nd year of market presence. A longevity that in unmatched by any other PC maker.
Apple reached a top five position in the ranking of PC vendors. This was achieved for the first time only this year, far along in the evolution of the market.
With about $23 billion in revenues per year, Apple places among the top four PC vendors in terms of revenue.
With an estimated $5.5 billion in operating margin Apple is the most profitable PC vendor, capturing over 60% of the available PC hardware profits.
The product has retained an average selling price of over $1200 for at least a decade. At the same time the average pricing of Personal Computers has more than halved.
Then, following some charts to lay out his thesis, Dediu gets to the heart of the matter:
Mobile has been foreseeable as a disruption to computing a decade ago–at least to some of us.
And so what do you with the Mac?
To answer this we have to ask what exactly is the purpose of the Mac in the age of the Mobile device?
And:
The same way keyboard shortcuts are hard to learn but pay off with productivity, touchbar interactions are fiddly but will pay off with a two-handed interaction model. They are not something you “get” right away. They require practice and persistence for a delayed payoff. But, again, that effort is what professionals are accustomed to investing.
This is a leap forward and a big deal. For 32 years the UX model of the Mac has been two-handed typing with one handed gesturing. Now we have the option of two-handed indirect manipulation: one hand on the touchbar and one hand on the touchpad. Imagine you’ve been playing guitar with one hand for years and then someone lets you use your left hand. Holy cow.
This is a great read. Be sure to look at that third chart, the one that contrasts Mac, Windows, and iPhone sales.
Lawrence Levy, ex-Pixar CFO, in an excerpt from his new book To Pixar and Beyond:
It started with Pam Kerwin, a Pixar Vice-President who was general manager of various business operations within Pixar. She was a little older than me, in her early-forties, with striking red hair and a sweet demeanor that quickly made others feel at ease around her. Her office was just down the hallway from mine, and she was one of the few people who invited me to say hello and give me the lay of the land.
“I don’t envy you,” Pam jumped in after some pleasantries, “I don’t think you really get what you’re up against.”
“Up against?” I asked.
“You’re Steve’s guy.”
I must have given Pam a terribly puzzled look, because I wasn’t sure what she meant.
“Pixar and Steve have a long history,” she went on. “Not a good one. You don’t know it yet but Pixar lives in fear of Steve.”
This quote should give you a sense of the tone of the book. But if you can live with that, I found this excerpt riveting, a fascinating insight into the business side of both Pixar and Steve. Looking forward to reading the book.
Today we were surprised to find that Apple was granted their first patent covering a foldable and/or bendable future iPhone that was never published before as a patent application under Apple’s name. Apple must have kept it secret by filing it under their engineer’s names and not under Apple to avoid detection. As another example of this tactic, here’s an Apple engineer who filed a patent under his own name and Apple isn’t yet shown on the filing publicly. When filed like this, no one can do a search on Apple patents and find it. It stays ‘hidden’ on purpose until it’s granted because at that point Apple has to take possession of it. In this patent, Apple reveals the possible use of carbon nanotubes to facilitate their new smartphone form factor.
Internet usage by mobile and tablet devices exceeded desktop worldwide for the first time in October according to independent web analytics company StatCounter
Its research arm, StatCounter Global Stats finds that mobile and tablet devices accounted for 51.3% of internet usage worldwide in October compared to 48.7% by desktop.
Can’t help but think Apple was a big factor in this transition.
Also:
Despite the rapid growth of mobile devices, desktop is still the primary mode of internet usage in mature markets such as the US and UK.
However, Cullen warned, “Post-Brexit, UK businesses should be aware, as they look to increase trade outside the EU, that India for example has over 75% internet usage through mobile devices.”
Over the past decade the Mac has comprised an increasingly smaller portion of Apple’s bottom line, and it’s hard to not see last week’s Hello Again event as the beginning of the pro Mac’s retirement party. It won’t happen overnight, but the day when Apple is only selling a single Mac desktop and notebook line is within sight.
And:
If anything, the Touch Bar probably has more mass appeal than any prior MacBook Pro feature.
The article is an interesting read, but these two quotes stood out.
First, there’s the quote about Apple winnowing the Mac line to a single desktop and notebook. I wouldn’t go that far, but I would be a fan of a simpler product line, along the lines of Steve Jobs’ famous 2 x 2 matrix: A pro and entry level MacBook, and a pro and entry level desktop.
Then add in a configurable, upgradeable Mac Pro, a machine that can take max RAM, multiple drives, swappable motherboards as new CPUs/GPUs/etc become available, with an emphasis on power and a cabinet that is easy to open, with lots of ports. [Note to Apple: We know this machine will be expensive, so be sure to give it a long lifespan – That’s what the upgradeability is for.]
The second quote points out the huge appeal of the MacBook Pro Touch Bar. I totally agree.
My 2 cents: This is no gimmick. I see the Touch Bar being the common currency that crosses the chasm between macOS and iOS, the camel’s nose in the tent, as it were. Once developers adopt the Touch Bar and users start to see the awesome things they can do with it, I suspect that Touch Bar will be standard on every Mac.
And, eventually, that path will lead to a hybrid product, a full touch-screen Mac that can run iOS apps. Sound like the Surface? Perhaps. But that’s a road I see. And I think the universal Mac will prove easier to maintain and make it easier to shift workflows between computer and tablet, easier to build and maintain apps that run in both worlds.
The fourth title in the Metal Guitar Gods series presents 50 unique amp and cab settings modeled directly after the personal tones of four top metal players.
Wearable fitness device maker Fitbit Inc’s revenue forecast for the key-holiday shopping quarter fell well short of analysts estimates, hurt by stiff competition from rival device makers.
