I’ve been working in information technologies for nearly three decades. Finding competent people has always been a challenge. Keeping them too. But, in recent years, the situation has become simply critical, to the point where businesses are deeply impacted: delayed projects, abandoned initiatives, high pressures on other people, stress, etc. Businesses’ bottom line if at stake here.

The news of the departure of one of the directors behind Apple’s transition from Intel to Apple’s own silicon, Mr. Jeff Wilcox, for its Mac product line is sad but probably just the tip of the iceberg. I wouldn’t read too much into this. I can imagine a team of many hundred engineers working on this program. People come, people go. Apple must cope with this. One could argue that when there are empty seats to fill, it becomes an opportunity for others to move in and try to be their best.

There are an infinite number of reasons why people leave a company. For Apple, the challenge is probably to stay attractive in a sea of opportunities for engineers. Apple cannot please everyone, all the time. I guess salaries is one of many other factors that come into play here. Apple is a legendary company where countless people would like to work there, me included. Pressure most be high in many key positions. Yet, the reward must be satisfying. I guess Mr. Wilcox has done what he thought could be done and succeeded. It’s often the good time to move on, and try something else while being at the top of their game.

Kuo has also said that the iPhone 14 Max, or whatever it ultimately ends up being called, will be priced at under $900. For comparison’s sake, the current iPhone lineup’s “Max” only includes the 6.7-inch iPhone 13 Pro Max, which is priced at $1,099.

I highly doubt that Apple will reduce the price of the top-of-the-line model of their iPhone line-up. Why would they do that? This would put pressure on lower-end models to go down in price too. Non sense.

Remember when people claimed Java would replace all computer languages? Maybe you remember when tech pundits told us that network computers would replace Windows PC? Or what about those who said that netbooks would replace laptops? Why some people consider the tech world to be a place where technologies always get replaced with another one? I tend to view the tech world as a space where several waves hitting the shores. Not everything disappears with each wave, and most of the time, technologies keep adding up.

What will replace the iPhone, you might ask? For me, nothing will replace the iPhone. But, according to Kelly Evans, the iPhone is going away. I don’t think her article will age well. Is she really thinking that a vast majority of people will wear goggles and stop buying smartphones? Really? Is she serious, or am I missing something in her writing?

As much as I despise articles who pretend to predict a product failure on day one, I hate articles who predict success of an unannounced product like Apple’s AR headset.

I should create a Craft document where I store those articles with a date attached to them, like five years from now, and get back to them to see how well the prediction came to be.

What if I documented all Apple computers I ever actively used or owned? For each of them, there is a story worth remembering and to write (like this one from 1986), the general context of its use, what software did I use on it at the time, how I bought it, how long did I own it and which new computer replaced it? There is even a ten-years pause where I left the Apple bandwagon to switch to the other side. What happened? Why?

Using the excellent and must-have utility, MacTracker, which I should have included in my post “The Perfect Apple Enthusiast — Find Out Where You Stand”, I started to process of going back in times. It won’t be easy to go back forty years back, but it’s worth it. I want this article to be as complete as possible and fun to read, full of high-quality pictures. Be patient, it will be a long journey.

I want to chime in on a series of posts by Matt Birchler (on his YouTube channel) and Andy Nicolaides (on his The Dent website) regarding the iPad. The question is clear: is the iPad still exciting?

It all depends on the use case. I came to realize in 2021 that the iPad (even in its Pro incarnation) cannot be as powerful and effective in my workflow as the MacBook Air. Besides creating content, is the iPad Pro still relevant? You bet! There is nothing beating the feeling of tearing the iPad from its Magic Keyboard and sitting on the couch for reading or browsing the web. Every single time, I enjoy the experience in all its glory, if such a thing can be said. The other use case that I came to appreciate is Sidecar. The iPad Pro, even in its 11” size, proves to be a superb and useful second screen to my Mac mini. And using the iPad with its Magic Keyboard, when I’m on the go, is still a superb experience, as long as I set my expectations accordingly.

With iPadOS 15, Apple did address a few more low-hanging fruits from a software perspective. There is still a lot to accomplish, but more than ever I feel Apple is giving the iPad the attention it deserves.

In summary, the iPad can be super exciting, it all comes down to its use case. For me, it still is, when I use it.

I remember working on “A Guide for Preparing to Leave Your Numeric Legacy”, one of the cited challenges was to get access to the deceased person’s online data. I provided ways and a methodology to get ready for their numeric legacy. With iOS 15’s Legacy Contacts, Apple is making it much easier. The setup process takes less than 2 minutes to complete. An access key and a death certificate are required to ask Apple to let the legacy contacts to gain access to the online data. At long last, big tech companies now consider important to let people surviving people to keep access to deceased people in a simple and secure way. I can see countless headaches being prevented with this feature, first promised at WWDC last June. Bravo to Apple.

The previous screenshots show the release notes, as seen on an iPhone. I just can’t believe Apple cannot fix the font size. It’s been like this life forever. It’s all in the details, Apple, in the details. Gosh.

The most interesting thing for me is the App Privacy Report, which I love. As an IT guy in my professional life, I like to see what’s going on in my devices. App Privacy Report is a great way to show this to me.

Notifications Summary has a refined design. The summary goes edge-to-edge with the screen. It’s a bit weird. I don’t know if this is a bug or a feature. Yet, I like to see more information in the summary as each notification offers expanded content.

As a side note, apparently, Apple won’t release Universal Control this year. I couldn’t care less because I don’t see this as useful in my current workflow. Maybe there is something to Universal Control that I don’t get.

Wallpaper by Basic Apple Guy.

Readdle software released an update to PDF Expert with support for Apple’s SharePlay. Using FaceTime, up to 32 people can share and annotate a PDF. According to the documented workflow on The MacObserver website, while in a FaceTime call, opening a PDF file with PDF Expert enables the SharePlay feature.

I tried the SharePlay experience using Music and screen sharing to see how easy the SharePlay workflow is to master. Each of my test with Apple Music ended up with a popup saying the selected content couldn’t be shared (probably controlled by the owner of the music track-not surprising at all). With screen sharing, I had more success and the feature worked as expected.

I think this is all cool and SharePlay brings Apple’s ecosystem closer to what is possible within Zoom or Teams.

What I’d like to see is more application support for SharePlay. Apple’s Keynote would be another winner where people could watch the same presentation together. I find it surprising that’s not already the case. Maybe an upcoming update to iWork will fix that.

l’ll definitively play with this more in the coming days because I think SharePlay has a lot o potential, especially in the business space.

A story by MacRumors reports Tim Cook’s answer about not being able to sideload applications on the iPhone is not restricting customers choice. Here’s the beginning of Tim Cook’s answer:

“I think that people have that choice today, Andrew, if you want to sideload, you can buy an Android phone.”

Tim Cook’s answer reminds me of another one. Steve Jobs once said that if you want porn on a phone, just buy an Android phone. Apple’s stance is fascinating. You want shit? There’s Android for that.

Photo credits: Dainis Graveris on Unsplash

This seemingly insignificant box used to be sold by Apple and contained ten single-sided floppy disks. Those were meant to be used in a Macintosh computer. I had a bunch of them but somehow managed to keep an empty box. It was a great time.

Each floppy contained a whopping 400 KB of storage for a single-sided version. At one point we could get them for 70$ a piece. It was expansive compared to 5 1/4 inches flexible floppy disks that contained either 160 KB or 360 KB that were typically used in IBM PCs. From a design perspective, Apple’s floppy disks were rigid, smaller, sturdier and dust proof, hence a higher asking price.