Thursday Morning News

beats-pill-plus-0777.0After Apple brought 5K to the 27-inch iMac, it was only a matter of time before the upgraded the 21-inch iMac with an insane number of pixels, and rumour has it they’ll be doing just that next week. The new 4K 21-inch iMacs will likely come with price adjustments for the Australian dollar (which I can’t believe is a thing we have to consider now), so if you’ve wanted a non-Retina iMac, now would be the time.

Disney artists have gone hands-on with the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, providing yet more confirmation of the iPad Pro’s excellent palm-rejection features. It’s also really cool to see Australian-developed Procreate being shown off around the world, as one of the apps being used to demo the iPad Pro’s creative capabilities as reported by MacRumors.

The Beats Pill+ is the company’s first wireless speaker since being acquired by Apple, and Apple’s influence is definitely here in the form of a Lightning connector for charging. The Verge went hands-on and they came back somewhat impressed.

Apple has seeded the third beta of OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 to developers and members of its public beta testing program, and I think this is the first time developers and public beta testers have had simultaneous releases.

Ars Technica says that Apple’s overseas cash hoard is actually working out pretty well. They point out research from a tax advocay group, who ran the numbers and say that if Apple didn’t hold $181 billion overseas, it would owe $59 billion in US taxes.

A new Apple patent suggests future desktops could use dual cameras and 3D projectors for virtual keyboards.

Fantastical’s 2.5 update for iOS and watchOS 2 is here, bringing complications to your wrist and split view multitasking to the iPad. MacStories tells you all about the update.

Sometimes I’m not sure whether some apps should have companion Apple Watch apps, and this time, with Synology’s Apple Watch app, is one of those times.

Macworld checks out a number of third-party leather bands for the Apple Watch.

Over at Six Colors, Dan Moren tells you how to take your device off the beta track and return back to the land of stability. New features might be fun and all, but if you need your Mac or iOS device to be as stable as possible, then the current shipping version is the way to go.


Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2015/10/thursday-morning-news081015/

4K on a 21" screen seems like overkill to me, but whatever, I am no longer an iMac fan, haven’t been since they made it difficult to do even a RAM upgrade.

This is how I feel about Apple’s entire lineup and it’s had me looking at Windows machines and hackintoshes. The ability to fully upgrade the hard drive and RAM in my 2011 MBP means I’ll get at least another 3 years out of it. Not having the option to upgrade over time by myself is a real negative.

Can only say “ditto” My Macbook (2010) is upgradable even more than I already did, though I think it would be overcapitalising, if I took it further. My late 2012 Mini can have its drive upgraded. I doubt that will go anywhere any time soon. With regard to Hackint0shes, I regularly hackint0shed my Netbook whilst I still owned it, but I found the 10" screen far too restrictive. I will be doing research at the usual places before I would buy another Windows machine, to be sure of compatibility.

I have no real interest in acquiring any more Apple gear, except iPhones and iPads which I am still content with, they serve exactly the purpose I bought them for, but the costs are getting ridiculous. Roll on, improved exchange rates!!

I’m more likely to go Ubuntu (or derivative) than Windows, but Windows 10 is certainly on my “take another look” list.

Performance is so massively improved on the Fantastical glance - it’s amazing. Finally usable.

I was really happy with the 21.5" iMac and the 20" before it, but had to throw extra $$$ last time round to get the 27" just saw I could have the amount of RAM I wanted without paying Apple double for it. Really would be happy to go back to 21.5" but not while RAM increases are not possible. 4K does nothing for me except increase the price for no real reason.

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