What You Missed - June 24, 2020
We met on Zoom again tonight. Members were asked to identify themselves on their Zoom screen name to make sure they get entered in the virtual raffle. Pete Lozzi is speaking tonight on the happenings at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) that was held last week. As the meeting started, we had 73 participants. Our newest member, Carma Okerburg, joined us tonight. Pete was in a log cabin at LakeTahoe taking a small break from his vacation. Ken Spencer was our host tonight, helping everyone get set up and ready to go and getting the meeting recording started for posting on YouTube. (I feel my job security slipping away.) The Saturday workshop will be on the 2nd Saturday of the month as the 1st Saturday is July 4th. Tonight’s virtual raffle has four $25 and two $100 Amazon gift cards as prizes. Every logged in members got one ticket, with no opportunity to “buy” more.
In Q&A tonight, we had a question about Zoom video only working about half the time. Ken suggested rebooting or checking to see if the camera is working in other programs. Ken suggested rebooting your devices about every two weeks if you keep them on all the time). This includes your iPhone/iPad and Apple watch ( https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/force-restart-iphone-iph8903c3ee6/ios and it helps correct problems that may have built up over time. A member has just gotten a Rachio sprinkler timer and wanted to know if they could use it with their iPad as their iPhone was old and didn’t have much room in it. SMUD Energy store has the Rachio (https://www.rachio.com// ) timer with rebates from Sacramento City water that really reduce the price. The timer can get a local weather forecast to make sure the sprinklers don’t run when it rains. Version 3 of the timer works with Home Kit so even Siri can control it.
The news and rumors portion of the meeting was mostly postponed for Pete’s presentation, but Al Trivett, who posts links to the MacNexus Facebook page, gave a quick overview. macOS will be moving to Version 11 (It is now at 10.15.1.) and Apple will be changing the type of processor used in Macs from Intel to ARM chips Apple will design. iOS 14 is coming as are updates to iPadOS, and watchOS. Ken warned about installing the upcoming beta versions of the software on machines that are mission critical. Apple TV has released a trailer for an upcoming series based on the Foundation series of books by Issac Asimov. You can use the link on the MacNexus website to get to the MacNexus Facebook page or search for it on Facebook.
We had a quick break so Pete would have plenty of time to give his presentation. He was taking a break from his vacation to be with us tonight. He said we were one of his favorite groups to talk to as we are involved and ask good questions. WWDC is a conference where Apple gets together with third party developers in person to discuss what Apple is planning to do in software and hardware. This year it was a virtual meeting with many of the presentations available online. WWDC is the high point of the year for developers and avid tech fans who want to learn all the great things Apple has planned. It is not really for consumers but many new items for consumers are announced. Pete suggested that watching the whole Keynote was the best way to get the full picture, You can find it at https://www.apple.com/apple-events/june-2020/. If you don’t have almost two hours, a Google search will reveal many summary articles “What Apple announced at WWDC in XX minutes.” Apple talked about iOS, iPad OS, watchOS, tvOS and macOS at the conference. Ken made the observation that, a few years ago, the iPhone division of Apple became larger than Microsoft. Quite the change from the years when Apple was the underdog.
In iOS, there are enhancements. Home Screen lets you change the look of the home screen on your iPhone. You will have widgets which allow apps to have different sizes (small, medium and large) on your screen. The icons will show information like current weather from the app without having to open the app itself. There will be a widget for Photos so you can always have a current photo or one you pick displayed on your screen. Memojis will have a greater variety of options to apply including adding face masks if you want. Messages gets improvements; you can pin up to nine people that you send messages to a lot; when they text you, little text bubbles will show up on their picture. Memoji stickers will be available when you don’t want to use a live Memoji. There are “fixes” to group chats; you will be able to reply directly to a person in the chat rather than to everyone. iOS will have a translate app from Apple. It will be able to determine what languages are being used. Siri can do translation now. App clips (best seen in the Keynote), lets you use part of an app without opening the app. Guides have been added to Maps adding route guidance. You can set routes that avoid steps as another example.
iOS will have Car keys which will allow you to open your car by just bringing your phone near the car door or to start it remotely. BMW has indicated they will be using the technology in coming models. You will be able to do temporary keys that have time limits or limits on how fast the car can go when the temporary key is in use. App library is an easy way to find your apps (Ken at one time had over 1200 apps on his iPhone). Maps will allow you to say you have an electric vehicle and give you EV routes. On device dictation will be available. With a new feature named Scribble, you can make notes in handwriting and they will be translated into text you can copy and paste.
iPadOS will have a compact window for Siri rather than taking over your entire screen. Shape recognition with the pencil will snap to shapes as you sketch them. Data detectors will recognize dates you note and add them to the calendar. Search gets improvements and compact all UI will make sure that calls don’t take over your screen. iPadOS and macOS are getting more similar with this update.
watchOS will be adding sleep monitoring, on device dictation, multiple complications and will let you share watch faces that you develop. Pete has developed two watch faces, one for home and the other for travel that he would like to share. The sleep app lets you wear your watch as you sleep and records how well you sleep, how much you move around, etc. watchOS will have a hand washing timer which will determine when you are washing your hands and display a timer so you wash them the suggested 30 seconds. New workouts have been added. Wind Down will work with the watch and your phone to start winding down about 1/2 hour before the time you set and will have the watch and phone on do not disturb by the time the 1/2 hour is up. Pete thinks we will see new Apple Watch hardware in the near future.
Home app: Pete is a home automation enthusiast, going so far as to purchase light switch covers so you can’t turn lights on and off by manually throwing the switch. There will be control center enhancements. You will be able to see who is at your front door as you watch a show on your Apple TV. If that person is identified in Photos, the screen will identify the person for you. Right now the Logitech Circle camera is one of the best for working with Home KIt. Pete and Ken are resources if you want to explore home automation.
macOS: Big Sur, will have a customizable start page, will offer guides in Maps and a streamlined app design. Apple will be transitioning from Intel chips in Macs to ARM chips that Apple will design. They design the ARM chips used in the iPhone and iPad now. The Apple designed chip in the iPad Pro is faster and more powerful than the Intel chip in the MacBook Air. Apple expects the transition to take two years and said they would have one product using ARM chips this year. They will be providing the necessary software for older programs to run on the new chips. The change will mean that iPhone/iPad apps could run on Macs.
We had 75 members in the raffle tonight and Ken once again used Siri to pick random numbers that were matched up with members to award the 6 prizes tonight. All went well and the prizes were to be emailed out by Thursday. I hope to see you at the next meeting in person or virtual and invite someone to check us out. I can be reached at donob.macnexus@gmail.com.