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  • Beau’s Number 1 App Reveiw: Love Balls

    Beau’s Number 1 App Reveiw: Love Balls

    Beau’s App series. Each week, I install whatever is the No. 1 bestselling app on the iOS or Android store and review it, to save you the effort in case it’s total waste of life. This week a game called Love Balls, calm down. Its a game that has you drawing lines to make balls touch and fall in love. Ok that sounds worse when i read it back. Love Balls is in the top spot and Im taking it on. How did it get to No. 1? Because it’s free, because it just came out for phones, and because they advertise this game on all social media networks and all you sheep just download it because you don’t want to be the only ones that didn’t in case its the next Pokemon go or candy crush.

    Hows it Rated

    Very Poorly, its a cheap, mind numbingly simple game that helps you time travel through monotonous parts of your day. The game is simple, use your brain and find a way to bump the balls. draw lines or shapes to bump the balls, use minimum amounts of  wisdom and imagination. Yes I played it, 3 and half days dissapeared from my life and I missed the premier of super troopers 2. Not really I was done with this app and review in 20 mins.

     

    But The Ads

    The biggest reason why this game is a waste of life is the ads. Like all free and cheaply designed app games to distract the masses are its packed with 30 seconds of ads for every 15 seconds of game play. They design  the ads to insist on finishing with no option to exit out, and if you leave the game they just pause that ads untile your patients level returns and you open the game again.

     

    The Final Thought

    Just pass, next week app will be better I hope. Also as a side note if you google love balls make sure you also add the word app, just trust me.

     

  • Update to the iPhone SE line Could Be Coming

    Update to the iPhone SE line Could Be Coming

    A new hint has surfaced to support the rumor that Apple will release an iPhone SE 2 in the near future, but it’s a roundabout one, so bear with us. I promise, this will all make sense. Apple recently registered several unreleased iPhone model numbers with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), a Russian-language regulatory organization.

    The filing by the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), which authorizes devices for a number of countries including Russia and Armenia, shows it has given the all-clear for a number of iPhones to go on sale. The information in the filing does not specify model names, but rumors and the timing of the filing strongly point to another iPhone SE launch.

    Found by Consomac, the devices are identified with the model numbers A1920, A1921, A1984, A2097, A2098, A2099, A2101, A2103, A2014, A2015, and A2016. None of the iPhones Apple has previously launched use these model numbers, indicating them to be brand new devices.

    Few other bits of useful information are offered in the filing, but it is noted the listed iPhones will ship running iOS 11. It is likely this is shorthand to refer to iOS’ main generational release, and the iPhones themselves will ship with a more recent version, such as iOS 11.3.

    But before you start celebrating the thought of 11 new iPhones, keep in mind that Apple sometimes uses different model numbers for the same type of iPhone.  However, there is a chance that at least a few of those model numbers could belong to the rumored iPhone SE 2, which is overdue for a refresh. As iPhones become larger and quite possibly more expensive, the smaller, scaled-back iPhone SE is Apple’s one phone that can compete with an army of cheaper Androids.

     

    Apple released the original iPhone SE in March 2016, then released it again with more storage a year later. But besides that, there haven’t been any major upgrades to the iPhone SE line. The iPhone SE is unlike other iPhones because of its small 4-inch size and its lower price tag. Rumors about an “iPhone SE 2” started cranking up in November, with allegations that it would ship in the first half of 2018 and be manufactured by Wistron in India. More recently, reports suggested that the device would have a glass back, to facilitate Qi charging, like the iPhone 8 family and iPhone X.

     

    The Fin

    al Thought

    Why be surprised, why even bother looking forward to a SE release. Its definitely time to update the se, which is essentially an iPhone 5. The update will in all likenesses be a cheap version of the 6. Its cheap but at least its an iPhone is what my father would say..

  • Goodbye 32-Bit Apps: How to Check Your Mac Apps for 64-Bit Compatibility

    Goodbye 32-Bit Apps: How to Check Your Mac Apps for 64-Bit Compatibility

    Apple has announced that an upcoming update to MacOS will end support for 32-bit applications. This could leave users and developers in the lurch, trying to determine how to either upgrade or replace needed software.

    Luckily, there are some simple ways to check your most commonly used apps to determine if they will still work after the transition.

    The Pop-Up Alert

    If you’ve upgraded to 10.13.4, then you may have already seen a one-time pop up upon starting a 32-bit app. The pop-up box reports that your app “is not optimized for your Mac.” And goes on to say that it will need to be updated by the developer to improve compatibility.

    There’s no mention that the app will stop working in the future, but that is exactly what will happen.

    System Report

    The system report feature will also list all of your apps and give you an easy way to check everything for compatibility going forward.

    From the Apple menu, click About This Mac and then scroll to the System Report button. Under Software, choose Applications. When you choose an individual application, all you need to do is check the ’64-bit (Intel)’ field to see if it’s marked ‘yes.’

    If so, you’re good to go and your app will continue to work after the transition. If it’s marked ‘no,’ then it’s time to check with the developer to see if there is an updated version. Otherwise you will need to find an alternative application and make a permanent switch.

    Or, of course, you could simply avoid updating MacOS, but with all of the security fixes and features that are added, that’s not a path that we recommend.

  • Laptop Lookout: MacBook Pro 15

    Laptop Lookout: MacBook Pro 15

    It’s razor thin, feather light, and even faster and more powerful than before. It has the brightest, most colorful Mac notebook display ever. And it features the Touch Bar — a Multi-Touch enabled strip of glass built into the keyboard for instant access to the tools you want, right when you want them. MacBook Pro is built on groundbreaking ideas.

     

    The Great

    • Stronger processor
    • Faster RAM
    • Same excellent design

    The Not

    • Subpar battery life
    • Keyboard learning curve
    • Awfully pricey for the parts

    The Conclusion

    It is the standard for which all great laptops are measured and found wanting.

     

    The Pro status of Apple’s 15-inch MacBook depends on what sort of ‘pro’ you are. Traditionally creative pros would have turned to the Mac for their needs, be it design work, editing photos, working with video and animation, or other jobs that require decent graphic capabilities.

     

    The Design

    Weighing 4 pounds and measuring 0.61 inches thick, the 2017 15-inch MacBook Pro is lighter and thinner than my personal 2012 model (which is 4.46 pounds and 0.71 inches), but I noticed the thinness a lot more than I noticed the weight, as my bag would feel just as heavy no matter which machine I was lugging.

    Touch Bar Really Useful for Only One Thing

    The biggest innovation in the 2016 MacBook Pro (as well as this 2017 model) is Apple’s sliver of an OLED touch screen, which the company calls the Touch Bar My reaction? I’m sorry, but I want (most of) my effin Fn keys back.

     

    In my whole month with this MacBook Pro, I found that the Touch Bar was mostly an accident waiting to happen. The majority of my interactions with it happened unintentionally; while typing, I would activate the digital Esc key while trying to hit the ` or 1 keys.

    On the upside, the far right end of the Touch Bar contains a Touch ID sensor, which is my favorite part of the MacBook Pro’s outer body. The convenience it offers, allowing me to unlock my login IDs and passwords from the 1Password utility, is electric, especially when the alternative is typing out my complex, 23-character pass code.

    Though, having Siri as a button for easy, constant access is a major plus, given the wide control it has over macOS in comparison to other digital assistants.

     

    The Graphics Upgrade

    The 2017 Pro also gets an updated set of graphics hardware options. The integrated graphics chip goes from the Intel HD 530 to the HD 630 (part of that jump to the Kaby Lake platform), and the discrete graphics go from AMD Radeon Pro 450 and 455 parts to — you guessed it — Radeon Pro 555 and 560 options. Every 15-inch MacBook Pro laptop includes an AMD GPU, while the 13-inch models make do with Intel’s built-in graphics.

    If that’s the good news, then the bad news may be that if one or more of the features of the new MacBook Pro design kept you away, (the super-flat keyboard, the Touch Bar, USB-C ports, etc.) then this set of 2017 revisions isn’t going to do anything much to change your mind.

     

     

    Quick Spec Look

    • 15.4-inch LED-backlit display with IPS technology, 2880-by-1800 native resolution at 220 pixels per inch
      2.6GHz quad-core sixth-gen Intel Core i7 processor
      AMD Radeon Pro 450 graphics based on the 14-nanometer Polaris architecture
      16GB RAM
      256GB SSD
      4 x Thunderbolt port
      Touch Bar with Touch ID
      Price: $2,399 (up from $1,999 for the previous entry model)
      A fully kitted-out 15-inch MacBook Pro (featuring 2.9GHz quad-core i7, 2TB SSD, and Radeon Pro 460 with 4GB of memory) costs $4,299

     

    The Final Thought

    The updated 15-inch MacBook Pro gets faster processing and graphics options. It’s still the biggest and most powerful laptop Apple makes. The giant touchpad is easy to use and battery life is excellent. If you are in need of a new laptop look not further you will not find a better example of excellence.

  • Passwords Are Soon Going the Way of the Blockbuster

    Passwords Are Soon Going the Way of the Blockbuster

    Passwords, I cant remember, I try to develop a system to keep track. I have tried to use the same one for everything, then a variation, I tried to use the same word and change the last number. I spend half of my life resetting passwords. Well good news everybody, the password may soon be a thing of the past, yesterdays problem, and something ill write a tech throwback about in 15 years. A welcomed goodbye and welcome to biometric ID.

     

    Announced in a press release today (April 10) by the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the new Web Authentication (WebAuthn) standard will let users move to biometric logins or verification via a USB security key.

    The new standard aims to lure users away from current password-based systems, which leave users open to phishing attacks and other ways of abusing stolen login credentials.

    The press release notes that “Google, Microsoft and Mozilla have committed to supporting the WebAuthn standard in their flagship browsers and have started implementation for Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS and Android platforms.”A development status page for WebAuthn in Chrome shows that it is slated to be enabled by default in version 67, two major releases from the current version 65. The standard is already supported by Firefox, and Edge will be gaining support in the coming months.

    Login via USB security keys is already widely supported for products such as the Yubikey by major websites such as Facebook, Google and Bank of America

    Face ID and Apple

    Apple has already embraced this and has been implementing it slowly for several years, it started with the finger print sensor in the iPhone 5s. Now the iPhone X and FaceId are taking it to the next level. I havent entered a password on my iPhone X since I got it in November. It even remembers passwords from years ago before I started using the fingerprint reader for my password Chain.

    Face ID is enabled through a TrueDepth front-facing camera on the iPhone X, which has multiple components. A Dot Projector projects more than 30,000 invisible dots onto your face to map its structure.

    The dot map is then read by an infrared camera and the structure of your face is relayed to the A11 Bionic chip in the iPhone X and transformed into a mathematical model. The A11 chip then compares your facial structure to the facial scan stored in the iPhone X during the setup process.

     

    The Final Thought

    Biometric Identification is the path to the future, we have seen it in every future set movie we have ever watched. The time is coming and we are making great progress to it. Apple alone has this nearly set with FaceID, adopt it in to multiple devices in a year or two and its set. Im glad to see all the big tech establishments embracing this and setting a standard for biometric ID. See you in the funny papers, Passwords.

  • You Can Preorder a Red iPhone 8 or 8 Plus Today!

    You Can Preorder a Red iPhone 8 or 8 Plus Today!

    Apple announced a new color option for the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. Working with HIV/AIDS charity Product (RED), Apple has released stunning deep red versions of the iPhone for the same price as existing models.

    Product (RED) Models

    Now positioned alongside of the existing space gray, silver and gold models of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus is the Product (RED).

    This is just the latest collaboration between Apple and Product (RED). Since 2006, Apple has donated more than $160 million to Global Fund.

    Last year, Apple released red versions of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models. They were only available for purchase for about half a year. The new 8 models may follow the same pattern, so don’t wait too long if you are hoping to get one.

    Preorders Open

    Preorders open up on Tuesday, so head over to the Apple store and see if you are lucky enough to snag one. They will begin showing up in stores on Friday.

    The red 8 and 8 Plus start at $699 and $799 for the 64 GB model. For 256 GB of storage, the prices are $849 and $949 for the 8 and 8 Plus models.

    A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Global Fund HIV/AIDS grants to provide testing, counseling, treatment and prevention programs. There is a special focus on eliminating the transmission of HIV/AIDS from mothers to their babies.

    What About the iPhone X?

    While there isn’t a special edition of the iPhone X available in red, Apple is selling a red leather folio for the phone. You can order it for $99 with proceeds going to the same charity.

  • Is the New Apple iPad Worth It?

    Is the New Apple iPad Worth It?

    Whether the newly released Apple iPad is a worthy purchase depends on a few factors, but there is no denying that the 2018 iPad is the best tablet you can buy for under $500.

    Education Push

    It’s clear that Apple wants iPads in every classroom. After establishing a foothold years ago, Google swept in with its Chromebook computers and has come to dominate school systems around the country.

    Apple wants their new classroom software to be the magic bullet in retaking the classroom, but time will tell. The new iPad, $329 for retail and $299 with an educational discount, is still pricier than many Chromebook models.

    Apple Pencil

    One great feature the new iPad has going for it is the ability to use the Apple Pencil. It uses the same touch sensor that the first iPad Pro used, which should be a very satisfying user experience. Since the Apple Pencil will set users back another hundred bucks, the adaptation rate for a budget-friendly tablet remains to be seen.

    Hardware

    The design can probably now be called “classic” as the new iPad looks identical to last year’s model and can trace its lineage back to 2013. It’s 7.5mm thick and weighs just over a pound.

    As far as processors go, the new iPad uses Apple’s A10 Fusion chipsets – the same kind that the iPhone 7 and 7 plus used.

    Pros and Cons

    For the price, the new iPad is a great value and you’ll have access to an incredible number of curated apps. The Apple Pencil support is also a fantastic feature if you can swing the extra hundred bucks.

    However, the classic design is pretty long in the tooth and the new iPad is thicker than some of the other iPads. The 8 megapixel camera on the back is decent for snapshots, but not much for creativity. And finally, although the price-to-value ratio is solid, $299 may still be too expensive for many schools looking to put a device in all of their students’ hands.

  • Apple Promises a New Mac Pro for 2019

    Apple Promises a New Mac Pro for 2019

    The last major redesign for the Mac Pro series of computers was debuted in 2013 and hasn’t really changed since. But now, Apple is finally promising a new Mac Pro model to be released in 2019.

    Creative Professional Criticisms

    The last Mac Pro was released with much fanfare and is an amazing piece of engineering. But it was met with a healthy dose of criticism. The most common complaint is the inability to easily upgrade the system. As time has gone on, the lack of hardware upgrades has been a sticking point as well.

    For creative professionals who need all the power Apple can throw at them, this is a bad thing.

    Backed into a Corner

    Techcrunch reported that last year, Apple admitted that it had “painted itself into an architecture corner by being aggressively original on the design” of the 2013 MacPro. There was nothing left to do than start over with a new design.

    The lack of a modular design and depending on thunderbolt as the only real path for expansion was met with groans for the most part.

    New Model Dropping in 2019

    Techcrunch reported that back in 2017, no promises were given on the delivery date for a newly redesigned Mac Pro. 2018 was not a guarantee, and now it has been confirmed there will be no new Mac Pro this year. However, Apple confirmed that a newly designed version of the pro computer would be in the 2019 lineup.

    “We want to be transparent and communicate openly with our pro community, so we want them to know that the Mac Pro is a 2019 product. It’s not something for this year,” said Tom Boger, vice president of hardware engineering. “In addition to transparency for pro customers on an individual basis, there’s also a larger fiscal reasoning behind it.

    “We know that there’s a lot of customers today that are making purchase decisions on the iMac Pro and whether or not they should wait for the Mac Pro,” Boger continued.

    Pro Workflow Team

    One thing that Apple really wants to drive home to its pro customers is that they are focusing on workflow. They have heard the complaints and are listening. To that effect, Apple has been sitting with pro users to learn about their workflows and try to address any related problems.

    They realize that modular systems are still important to some users and so they have confirmed that the new Mac Pro would be a modular system. Furthermore, Apple is working on a display for a modular system.

    Whether creative professionals will return to the Apple fold remains to be seen. It may be too late for some who have already migrated to Windows computers. Apple is clearly wooing the professional community, however, and seem to want to fix their past mistakes.

  • Tech Throwback: The Newton

    Tech Throwback: The Newton

    I like to take a look at where I’ve been to evaluate where Im going. Technology is cyclical after all… wait no its not. That said I still like all the feels that come rushing back like a flood of nostalgia every time I get my hand on the tech I grew up with. Im going to go back periodically and take a looking at the stuff that used to blow our hair back and get our minds rolling. Some of these device blew up and changed the world, some where ahead of their time and some just fell flat and became colossal failures. Today I’m powering up the old Apple Newton..

     

    Give Me The Back Story

    The Newton is a series of personal digital assistants, PDAs as i like to call them, But that term wasent used and adopted till years after the Newton. It was developed and marketed by Apple Computer, Inc. An early device in the PDA category – the Newton originated the term “personal digital assistant” – it was the first to feature handwriting recognition. Apple started developing the platform in 1987 and shipped the first devices in 1993. Production officially ended on February 27, 1998. Newton devices run on a proprietary operating system, Newton OS; examples include Apple’s MessagePad series and the eMate 300, and other companies also released devices running on Newton OS. Most Newton devices were based on the ARM 610 RISC processor and all featured handwriting-based input.

    The Newton was considered innovative at its debut, but it suffered from its high price and problems with the handwriting recognition element, its most anticipated feature. The handwriting software was barely ready by 1993 and its tendency to misread characters was widely derided in the media. I my hands on one the first time when I was 12, almost 35 years later im ready to dive back in.

     

    Powering this up, shocked it still works. picked this working newton off eBay, with the flash card and assured it would turn on for $150. Yes its abit much for the actual functionality but that is not why I bought it. The Nice this is it runs off of AAA batteries, got to change them pretty frequently and you lose all your data each time they die but I’m able to pick them up at any store so the device will never die completely.

    Its pretty bulky I cant fathom how at the time they thought this was compact enough to carry around. its is a little over an inch thick and 7 inchs tall. Meanwhile I complain my phablet is to big.

    What’s This One Do

    It literally does nothing and I can barley see the green screen, its only functions are a contacts applications and a notepad,  a calendar,  calculator, currency converter and a timezone map. All the things I use on a daily bases, would be completely useless with out, and take for granted on a daily bases.  I do remember being able to get software application for it on a 3.5 floppy disk though.

    You can get up to a 4mb flash memory card for storage to prevent the battery erasing issue, a 4 mb card would store about 200 note, 250 contacts, 500 calendar events.  I do have to note that the flash memory seriously slowed down the processing power. So about 3 weeks worth of info for me.

    As much as I’ m laughing at this technological failure, it truly was ground breaking and revolutionary. We would see viable tech like it for almost 10 years and even still they hadn’t made much advancement on it. It really was ahead of its time and paved the way for the iPhone that would be released 20 years later. It was the first affordable device to compute handwriting, the first pocket touch screen, we still weren’t seeing full sized touch screen and wouldn’t for many years.  I think the commercial failure of this device dragged technology back a decade and had it been a corporate success who know where we would be today.

     

    The Final Thought

    Its magically revolutionary and fantastically simple. Its is the true prototype of our world today, it set the table for us and we ignored it. If Apple could have just crammed in a beeper, we could have had a primitive text messaging device. Im keeping it and will put a back up of info on it just in case of a tech apocalypse.

     

  • Apple to Make Their Own Processors for All Products

    Apple to Make Their Own Processors for All Products

    Good news everybody, apple is planning to use its own chips in Mac computers beginning as early as 2020, replacing processors from Intel , according to people familiar with the plans.

    Code Name Kalamata

    The initiative, code named Kalamata, is still in the early developmental stages, but comes as part of a larger strategy to make all of Apple’s devices — including Macs, iPhones, and iPads — work more similarly and seamlessly together, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The project, which executives have approved, will likely result in a multi-step transition.

    The shift would be a blow to Intel, whose partnership helped revive Apple’s Mac success and linked the chipmaker to one of the leading brands in electronics. Apple provides Intel with about 5 percent of its annual revenue. That’s not an unnoticeable hit. Intel’s stock dropped sharply on Monday after Bloomberg reported that Apple would ditch Intel chips for an in-house model on Mac computers.

     

    “The market is over reacting to Apple’s announcement for using an internally developed CPU for its Mac systems as early as 2020,” analyst Kevin Cassidy wrote in a note to clients entitled “Potential Apple Move Not a Major Threat to Intel” on Monday. “According to IDC, Apple had 7.3% traditional PC unit market share in 4Q17.

     

     

     

    “We think that Apple is looking at ways to further integrate their hardware and software platforms, and they’ve clearly made some moves in this space, trying to integrate iOS and macOS,” said Shannon Cross an analyst at Cross Research. “It makes sense that they’re going in this direction. If you look at incremental R&D spend, it’s gone into ways to try to vertically integrate their components so they can add more functionality for competitive differentiation.”

     

     

     

    The Final Thought

    Many of us remember when Apple made their own chips previously. There G line chips where far superior to intel’s and created the Mac resurgence in the early part of the century. Apples A series chip far out perform anything snapdragon cant slap out, so this is a welcome hurrah.