At our May meeting, held on the 1st, we talked about Tim Cook stepping down as Apple CEO, some of the new features in OS versions 26.4 and recent Apple news. Members also raised several other topics.
Tim Cook Steps Down
We discussed Tim Cook stepping down as CEO of Apple and being succeeded by John Ternus. Cook will remain at Apple as Executive Chairman.
26.4 New Features
Robert covered some of the new features in the recently released 26.4 operating systems:
- See iOS personal hotspot data usage by device.
- Apple Music Playlist Playground.
- Adults in a family sharing group can now use separate payment methods.
- Podcasts adds video podcast support.
- Stolen device protection enabled by default.
- Ambient music widget.
Here are articles covering all the new feaures in iOS and macOS.
Copy Link With Highlight
Robert demonstrated a feature of most browsers that allows you to copy a link which highlights a particular phrase on the linked page. Just select text on the page, right/command click and choose “Copy link with hightlight” from the pop-up menu. Here is an example.
We had a good discussion about this including the Scroll to Text Fragments feature which underlies it.
Apple News
- YouTube making Picture in Picture free on iOS.
- Well known free PC text editor Notepad++ comes to Mac.
- Apple shows us a peek behind the scenes of the MacBook Neo intro video.
- The MacBook Neo is so successful Apple may run out of binned A18 Pro chips (these are iPhone 16 Pro chips with one faulty GPU core that is disabled when used in the MacBook Neo).
- A new book details Apple’s problems selling the Vision Pro in stores.
- Apple publishes a new Liquid Glass gallery highlighting third party apps.
- Mac OS X Cheetah ported to Nintendo Wii games console.
- “The Apple Museum” opens in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
- Apple offers developers a new App Store monthly subscription with 12 month commitment option.
- Mac mini and Mac Studio face shortages due to high demand and memory shortages.
Member Topics
- Ferrers pointed out retinadisplays.com, a website summarising the retina resolution monitors available from Apple and third parties.
- Ferrers noted that M5 chips are the first Mac chips to feature Memory Integrity Enforcement to enhance security.
- Ferrers mentioned Psion clamshell computers such as the Series 3.
- Ferrers warned of an Apple Support scam where the fraudster sets up a support case with Apple in your name. Apple have a helpful page on avoiding scams.
- Ben mentioned receiving a “Important network provider message” message that quickly disappeared. We found reports of this happening to others but no concrete details.
- Ben talked about using Apple Watch double tap and wrist flick gestures.
- DaveK demonstrated Voice Control and Voice Over assistive technologies and how he has been adding optimised support for them in one of his apps.