At our last meeting of the year we held the customary Apple quiz, took a first look at some of the Apple Intelligence features and talked about recent Apple news.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone at SEAL!
Quiz
Robert had prepared a quiz with questions covering Apple history, trivia and new features of recent products. Congratulations to DavidB for winning this year!
Some (potentially) interesting triva from the quiz:
- Apple’s original logo with Isaac Newton features a quote from the William Wordsworth poem “Residence at Cambridge”.
- A Mac Portable was used to send the first email from space in 1991. The email referenced a line from Terminator 2 and was sent via the pre-Internet AppleLink online service.
- The Apple tradition of using “John Appleseed” as a placeholder name in demos was started by early Apple executive Mike Markkula.
- Apple’s first scanner was called the Apple Scanner and could scan in only 16 levels of grey at 300 dots per inch.
- Apple’s 2024 Christmas promotion features Wallace and Gromit projected onto Battersea Power Station. Apple have a video showing how Aardman shot it on iPhone.
Apple Intelligence
DaveK gave us an improptu demo of some Apple Intelligence features that have just become available in the UK:
Apple News
We discussed recent Apple news including:
- The first expansion hub for the M4 Mac mini has been previewed.
- macOS 15.1 allows large apps from the App Store to be installed on an external drive.
- Apple releases an extension to integrate iCloud passwords in Firefox.
- Flexbar brings Touch Bar-like custom function buttons back to Mac keyboards. We also mentioned other similar products like the Elgato StreamDeck.
- Apple Music Replay 2024 is now available.
- iOS 18 causes iPhones to reboot after 3 days of inactivity to enhance security.
- Final Cut Pro version 11 is now available.
- The M4 Mac mini has modular but proprietary storage.
- The first 3rd party storage modules for the Mac Studio have been previewed.
Member Topics
- DavidB talked about his positive experience with the Notes audio transcription feature.
- DavidB mentioned that crime drama series Srike - The Ink Black Heart will begin airing on BBC One and iPlayer on Monday 16th December.
- Ben mentioned that he has an Apple logo seat cushion from the 1985 Super Bowl in his Apple collection.
- DaveK mentioned the band Public Service Broadcasting who featured in his Apple Music Replay.