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Native Display Controls on macOS

MacOS supports controlling the brightness of attached displays via they keyboard. The user can even control monitors separately, simply selecting the controlled monitor via the mouse. I use that all the time.

Unfortunately, macOS and Mac monitors communicate through an arcane, apple-specific protocol instead of the standard DDC/CI protocol. This means that only some monitors that are explicitly made with macOS in mind work with the native macOS brightness controls.

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Why can’t calls on iOS just be muted?

So many zoom calls

Simultaneous speaking

Why no speaker mute?

Tiffany McBride

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Blog

Why Apple’s ARM Transition is Going to Work

Today it happened. Apple did announce that they are, in fact, transitioning to custom-built ARM processors for Macs. Although they didn’t explicitly say “ARM” during the keynote today, I’m assuming their new CPUs will be based on the ARM architecture as the devkit they announced today is running their A12 ARM processor and it seems natural to consolidate the ecosystem.

Let me start by saying that this not just about the tech. The switch to using ARM is an obvious move that Microsoft has also made, as seen with the newly released Surface Book X. I’m sure it’s a great product, but Microsoft also has traditional Intel-based Laptops in their portfolio. If ARM is the future (greater power efficiency etc.), why isn’t Microsoft fully transitioning to ARM now? And what is Apple going to do better to make ARM Macs more popular than Windows PCs with ARM processors?

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iOS Needs User Accounts

Apple just added mouse/trackpad support to iOS and launched a line of keyboards for and trackpads for the iPad. The iPad is being marketed as a portable computer that you can replace your… well… computer with. But unfortunately, it’s not. Not without user accounts.

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CarPlay and cellular infrastructure

CarPlay is a great concept, increasing the lifespan of vehicles by potentially running their infotainment apps through connected smartphones with ever evolving software. It’s been around for a while now and it’s installed in millions of vehicles from different manufacturers. But it’s still a gimmicky feature, because a major point has been left out in the design of the Apps: offline functionality.

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What Apple Arcade is Really About

The Short Answer: Quality of User Experience.

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Thunderbolt Target Boot Mode

Macs still have this incredibly useful, not very well-known feature: target disk and target boot mode. In combination, they allow you to boot one Mac using the boot partition of another Mac. Why is that useful? Well, here’s the number one use-case: If you have a MacBook – a portable work computer – but need more processing power (or a quieter workspace), you can hook up your MacBook to an faster desktop Mac and work with all the data and preferences just as if you’d be working on your MacBook. This is also useful for working with sensitive data that shouldn’t be copied to another drive as your Data essentially remains on the other boot computer’s drive.

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Electronics Reviews

Logitech K811 “Easy-Switch” Review

Often, reviewers writing for tech sites only get access to a product for a couple of days . In this short time, it”s impossible to find out about all the little quirks tech products like this keyboard have. I’ve been using the Easy-Switch for almost a year now and here’s a review that covers all the pros and cons […]