At the August meeting (held on Friday the 9th) Mike Wuerthele (@Mike_Wuerthele) and William Gallagher (@WGallagher) of the long-running Apple news/blog site AppleInsider joined us for a great discussion on all kinds of Apple topics.
AppleInsider
Mike and William joined us via FaceTime for a wide-ranging discussion with questions being asked back and forth. The topics covered included:
- Their roles at AppleInsider and what running the site involves.
- Thoughts on Apple’s approach to its products in the future.
Based on a question from a member, we discussed using an iPad as a replacement for a older MacBook Pro currently used with FinalCut and Logic. For the particular circumstances of our member William and Mike recommended that a new 13” MacBook Pro might be a better fit (here’s AI’s recent review). However they did make some recommendations of apps and accessories for using an iPad for these tasks:
- A powered USB-C hub.
- The iRig MIDI 2 interface.
- Apple’s GarageBand for sound recording and editing.
- Luma Fusion for video editing.
Graphics apps and alternatives to Photoshop were mentioned and Mike pointed out this recent feature article: Best alternatives to Adobe Photoshop for iOS and Mac
William also talked about some of his favourite apps with a particular focus on organisation and automation of repetitive tasks including:
Our thanks to Mike and William for making this a really interesting evening.
Q&A
After the discussion had finished there was time for a few more quick questions including:
A member who had recently started using a Time Capsule as an external drive had problems with its contents not showing up in Spotlight searches. Having done some checks and followed the Apple recommendation of adding and then removing the drive from the Spotlight Privacy list he is still having no joy. We suggested investigating the mdutil terminal command which can give more information about whether a drive is being indexed for Spotlight.
Tip
Robert gave us a useful reminder of the option in Finder to rename multiple files. If you have multiple files with nondescript names (such as images from a digital camera), select them all in the Finder and then select the “Rename nn items…” option from the File menu. This will then allow you to rename all the files to something more memorable. Mac Tips & Tricks have a useful article explaining the rename options.