After giving in and providing a clamshell design and a trackpad, leaving both the Esc key and a function row out seems obstinate. You will still be reaching (or swiping) up to the Control Center to manage essential functions all the time.
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It is an incredibly good, albeit expensive and heavy, way to use your iPad Pro like a laptop. If that’s what you want, this is a huge upgrade over what was available before, and you’ll love it. But what makes the iPad great is that it’s more than a laptop.
For all the other things I want to do with my iPad, the ergonomics of the Magic Keyboard are noticeably worse, which is why it’s nice that it’s so easy to remove the iPad and use it without a case at all. It makes the iPad a better iPad by its absence.
Apple erred on the side of making the hinges and magnets too strong, not too weak, and once you grok that it’s a folding stand, not a folding cover, it is obvious that this is the correct design.
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There are no F-keys (nor, obviously, a Touch Bar). I think this is partly philosophical, in that Apple intends iPad keyboards for typing only, not for controlling stuff in the system like display brightness or audio volume. But also this is practical — there’s really no room for a row of F-keys.
If you work seriously with the iPad and that work is based on typing, the Magic Keyboard is essentially mandatory. It’s the dream keyboard for all of us who found ourselves crossing the Rubicon into iPad as primary computer over the past couple of years. It’s not without its caveats, but it is a refreshingly straightforward and well executed accessory that makes even older iPads feel like better laptops than laptops.
Before I jump in, I want to start with a quote from an old colleague of mine - "Bug hunting is all about finding assumptions in software and violating those assumptions to see what happens." That is precisely what we are going to do today. We are going to dive into the murky depths of Safari and hammer the browser with obscure corner cases until we uncover weird behavior quirks. Once we collect enough quirks, we can tie them together into a full kill chain.
The camera security model in iOS and macOS is pretty intense. In a nutshell, each app must be explicitly granted camera/microphone permission, which is handled by the OS via a standard alert box.
But there is an exception to this rule.
The expansion sees the App Store, Apple Arcade, Apple Podcasts and iCloud launch in 20 new countries. Meanwhile, Apple Music debuts in a total of 72 new markets. Users signing up to the Apple Music free trial in 52 of the new countries will be able to use the service for free for six months, compared to the usual three month trial offers.
The latest video from Apple shows off the best trick of the Apple’s Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro: it apparently makes the tablet float. A passing hummingbird stops by to see how the magic happens.
Apple has released new developer badge resources for those integrating third-party software with HealthKit. The update sees the launch of the “Works with Apple Health” badge.
While the idea of an interactive webinar is great for developers, it can be part of something bigger. As the company will soon hold its first fully online WWDC, this accessibility event may be the opportunity for Apple to test the platform that will be used to broadcast the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Over the past year, even before the current crisis, my wife and I have been slowly optimizing our bedroom to try and create an oasis of rest. Together with a more intentional bedtime routine, this series of subtle changes has utterly transformed our quality of sleep.
I’d love to share our approach in the hopes of inspiring similar changes in your own sleep setup.
France is asking Apple Inc. to remove a technical obstacle that it says is delaying a government contact-tracing application designed to contain the coronavirus spread.
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“We’re asking Apple to lift the technical hurdle to allow us to develop a sovereign European health solution that will be tied our health system,” O said in an interview with Bloomberg. Ministers have discussed their concerns with Apple, but aren’t making progress, he said.
With the Magic Keyboard for iPads, Apple is making sure its tablets can behave like laptops when required.
With the battery management stuff for MacBooks, Apple is also making sure its laptops can behave like desktops efficiently when needed.
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Thanks for reading.