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The Special-Version Edition Monday, October 9, 2017

Apple Still Offers An iTunes Version With App Store, Ringtones And Other Features Removed In ‘Focused’ iTunes 12.7, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

Apple offers a special version of iTunes, iTunes 12.6.3, which retains the features that were abruptly removed in iTunes 12.7.

Apple positions this build as necessary for some businesses performing internal app deployments but it is available to download by anyone.

The Mac Is No Longer At The Heart Of Apple, by Anthony Caruana, Macworld Australia

It’s unfortunate but if you want to stay within the Apple fold, iCloud is fast become the new hub. In the long term, that’s probably not a bad thing as it means your data, apps and services will follow you around and be device independent. But until ubiquitous, fast, reliable and affordable internet connectivity is available to everyone, there will be some people who simply are unable to keep up with Apple in the new world.

Reverse Engineering macOS High Sierra Supplemental Update, by Cocoa Engineering

An unfortunate bug in macOS High Sierra stained a bit its generally well-received debut, and from this root-case analysis we can learn what happened exactly and how good software development practices (including testable design and strict code reviews) can help reduce the chance that this kind of problems happen again in the future.

Stuff

Plex Vs. EyeTV: Which Mac DVR App Is Best?, by Nathan Alterman, iMore

EyeTV boasts many superior individual features, like live TV and more precise scheduling. If you want to fine-tune your recording schedules, or more easily automate your recordings with AppleScript, you may want to go with EyeTV despite its idiosyncrasies and its hefty up-front price.

But for most users, EyeTV's strong suits aren't strong enough to outweigh Plex's good looks and impressive ease of use. EyeTV hasn't seen a major update in years — and likely won't, since it was recently sold to new owner Geniatech, which seems uninterested in investing too heavily in its development. Meanwhile, Plex is already working on bringing live TV (and hopefully commercial skipping) to its Mac app in future versions. Its ability to incorporate music and movies, and especially to stream your content anywhere you go, leaves EyeTV eating its dust.

Parallels Desktop 13 Review: Now Your MacBook Pro Touch Bar Works With Windows, Too, by J.R. Bookwalter , Macworld

If you own a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, Parallels Desktop 13 for Mac is a must-have upgrade. That’s because key features of Windows 10 will now appear on the Touch Bar while a VM is running, a feature that works straight away for the Start Menu, Cortana, Desktop, File Explorer, and popular web browsers like Edge, Chrome, and Firefox.

Beats Studio 3 Wireless Headphones Review: Apple Pairs Noise Cancellation And The W1 Chip, by Serenity Caldwell, iMore

They're not quite as comfortable or top-tier as the QC35s, but if easy connectivity and lengthy battery life matters to you more than having the edge in comfort or industry-leading noise cancellation, they're a solid alternative and more than worth considering.

Bottom of the Page

On some mornings, I wake up and feel that I am ready to go out and help solve problems. These are not profound problems -- I'm definitely not solving problems of world-hunger or world-peace's magnitute. These are just some problems some people have, and I help solve them so that I get to eat and buy an iPhone or two.

And then, on some mornings, I wake up and realize that I am just writing some PHP codes to make sure the number over there tallies with the number over here, and I feel depressed.

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Some iTunes programmer somewhere in Apple Park or Infinite Loop is progressing nicely along the way, streamlining and refactoring the giant beast known as iTunes, when some supervisor comes over and say, hey, our enterprise customers are having some problems with the latest version of iTunes, can you please solve their problems? And this programmer look at the problems, and say, screw it, just retrieve some older version of iTunes from the source control, put in online, and call it a day.

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Thanks for reading.