Apple is now offering data migration services for free when you purchase a new Mac or need to have a Mac replaced or repaired. Until now data migration was $99.
Tidbits heard about the policy change from a reader and confirmed the change with an Apple Store Operations Specialist.
Beginning April 2, there will be no cost for Data Migrations with the purchase of a new Mac or Data Transfers with a repair.
My iMac is a late 2013 non-retina model. That’s close to 6 years old but it still runs fine. The only problem has been that it’s still on Sierra.
I’ve been reluctant to upgrade it to Mojave for two reasons. One is I was afraid I would run into the same problems I had when trying to upgrade from Sierra to High Sierra. I wrote about it here. Two is a problem that I read about on several forums where after upgrading to Mojave fonts are blurry on non-retina Macs.
So, here’s what finally convinced me that I needed to bite the bullet and attempt to put Mojave on my iMac. A few days ago Agile Tortoise released a Mac version of Drafts. Drafts is an app that I use regularly on iOS so of course, I wanted to have it on my Mac as well. So off to the Mac App Store I go to get the app. Come to find out the Mac version requires macOS 10.13 or higher and I’m running 10.12. I need to update my macOS.
To make a long story short I upgrade my Mac to Mojave without a hitch. I didn’t notice any blurry fonts but a few articles suggested running this terminal command so I did.
Apple’s macOS Mojave disables subpixel antialiasing, also known as font smoothing, by default. On a MacBook Air or a desktop Mac hooked up to a non-Retina display, upgrading will make your fonts look worse.
Update: We’ve found a better method that will actually re-enable subpixel antialiasing rather than just relying on font smoothing. Open a Terminal and run the following command:
defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool NO
Log out and log back in for your changes to take effect. Thanks to Dean Herbert for reporting this to us.
Via How-To-Geek
I now have Drafts on my Mac as well as the latest macOS.
The other day, I bought Moom after trying the free trial for about an hour. It’s an amazing Mac app for managing windows. As a side note, I’d tried it several times before but gave up on it because I found getting started confusing.
Before Moom, I was bouncing back a forth between Better Touch Tool and Magnet. I wasn’t really happy with either one and was looking for a replacement. This time around I was determined to understand how Moom works. So, after installing it I did a search for getting started with Moom. I came across this video Wrangle Your Windows with Moom by Kevin Yank that does a great job of explaining how to set up and use it.
If you’re looking for a way to manage windows on your Mac you ought to download the Moom trial and get started by watching Kevin Yank’s video. You’ll be glad you did.
I have been using Day One for going on three years now. One concern I’ve had is that journals by default are encrypted but with Day One holding the encryption key. This means that someone at Day One might be able to access my journals. Journals with Standard encryption are also exposed to a data breach or security glitch. This has caused me to limit what I write in them.
Now, after reading Shawn Blanc’s ”Best Journaling App for iPhone, iPad, and Mac” on The Sweet Setup I’ve taken his advice and enabled End-to-end encryption for all my journals.
Shawn Blanc:
End-to-end encryption is not turned on by default for providing the best type of security for your journal entries, as users must maintain their encryption key at all times to unlock journals if necessary. As Day One’s FAQ puts it:
When using end-to-end encryption, it is essential you save your encryption key in a secure location. If you lose your key, you will not be able to decrypt the journal data stored in the Day One Cloud. You’ll need to restore your data from an unencrypted locally-stored backup.
We recommend turning on end-to-end encryption whenever you create a new journal to ensure your data is always kept safe and secure. Save your encryption key in an app like 1Password or a locked note inside Notes.app and never lose the key.
Now no one has access to my journals without the encryption key. I keep it in 1Password.
This post by David Sparks aka MacSparky from a couple of days ago provides an Apple Script that he uses to get links to Apple Mail messages anywhere using TextExpander.
It’s easy to understand and there’s also a video that shows you how and why you would want to use it.
After reading the post and watching the video I decided that this would be something that I would use. Only one problem. I don’t use TextExpander. So after thinking about it for a few minutes, I figured I could accomplish the same thing using a Keyboard Maestro macro.
Here’s the macro:
This Keyboard Maestro macro works the same way as David’s TextExpander snippet. Now type “;elink” in any app that can take a URL and you create a link to the currently selected email message. I’m primarily using it in Things 3 and Bear.
Here’s the AppleScript if you want to copy and paste it:
(*
Returns a link to the first selected Apple Mail message
*)
tell application "Mail"
set _msgs to selected messages of message viewer 0
if (_msgs is not equal to missing value) then
set _msg to first item of _msgs
set _msgID to do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import sys, urllib; print urllib.quote(sys.argv[1])' " & (message id of _msg)
return "message://%3C" & (_msgID) & "%3E"
end if
end tell
I’ve been thinking about Apple’s pricing a lot lately. It’s reached a point where I’m not going to be able to afford to update my Apple hardware as often as I would like.
My Apple devices are getting dated but for now, I won’t be upgrading to any new devices. I’m going to have to use my existing hardware until it becomes unusable. Instead of having an iMac, MacBook, iPad, and iPhone as I do now I’ll be more selective in the future. For example, my iMac is a late 2013 non-retina. It’s getting dated. It’s stuck on Sierra. I love it but when it fails I won’t be replacing it. Instead, I’ll use my 2015 MacBook for all my computing needs. I just can’t justify the cost of owning two macs anymore.
I’ll also be sticking with my iPhone 7 Plus for now. It works great and does everything that I need for it to do. At a $1,000 plus a new iPhone Xs model isn’t in my budget.
I’ve got a feeling I’m not the only one feeling this way. Here’s a Washington Post article that does a nice job of laying Apple’s price hikes and what you should do if the price of Apple loyalty is getting hard for you to swallow.
Geoffrey A. Fowler and Andrew Van Dam, writing for the Washington Post
Apple has never made cheap stuff. But this fall many of its prices increased 20 percent or more. The MacBook Air went from $1,000 to $1,200. A Mac Mini leaped from $500 to $800. It felt as though the value proposition that has made Apple products no-brainers might unravel.
What we learned: Being loyal to Apple is getting expensive. Many Apple product prices are rising faster than inflation — faster, even, than the price of prescription drugs or going to college. Yet when Apple offers cheaper options for its most important product, the iPhone, Americans tend to take the more expensive choice. So while Apple isn’t charging all customers more, it’s definitely extracting more money from frequent upgraders.
What we see is a reflection of a new reality for consumer tech. Most Americans who want a smartphone, tablet or laptop already have one and aren’t interested in changing to a new system. Without big subsidies from phone carriers and as product innovation slows, we also don’t mind holding on to these products for three or more years. Apple, hoping to charge more every time we do buy, is changing how it gets money from us. So we need to change how we think about its value.
But the specs hardly matter. As any member of the Apple tribe will profess, it’s selling far more than sexy hardware. It’s an Apple-only operating system that works with all its other Apple-only stuff, like iMessage and iCloud — a (mostly) happy trap that’s hard to leave. You’re buying access to all those Apple Stores and customer service, not to mention Apple’s aggressive stance on privacy.
The paradox is that many Apple customers think they must have the latest, trained by Apple marketing to future-proof ourselves. So this year, instead of buying a year-old iPhone 8 at a discount or an iPhone XR (a much less expensive compromise to the top iPhone XS), many customers are skipping out on an upgrade altogether.
The question is: How far can Apple’s latest and greatest prices stretch? “Apple is becoming aggressive, perhaps overly so, in pricing the top- of-the-line models of its products,” says Rafi Mohammed, a pricing strategy consultant. And that is “putting its loyal relationship with its core customers at risk.”
In 2014, Americans waited about 24 months to upgrade their phones at national carriers, according to BayStreet. Now we’re waiting almost 36 months. People will ride their iPhone 6S until its wheels come off.
“I could see it going to four years” for phones, says industry analyst Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies.
So what should you do if the price of Apple loyalty is getting hard to swallow?
Instead, you might ask: How many Apple products do you really need?
Beyond that, it’s about recalibrating our upgrade urge. Apple devices really do last a long time, all the more so with the inexpensive battery replacements Apple is offering through the end of the year. If your iPhone breaks, used ones available on eBay can still work great for far less money.
Or: Before buying the new thing following one of Apple’s launch events, wait a month until the buzz settles. If the product doesn’t still seem very revolutionary, it’s a safe bet to save your money by holding on for another year. Or four.
This article is an annual tradition: towards the end of December I summarize My Must-Have Mac Apps that I will be using for the next year. This is always among my most popular posts. I’m sharing my 2019 must have apps in hopes you’ll discover a new app or two that will improve your workflow or make you more productive.
During 2018 I tried a lot of different apps. Some I liked and switched to, others I tried and didn’t like and stayed with what I’d been using. Having the right app for the right task on the right device is key to my productivity.
You can find My 2019 Must-Have iOS apps for iPhone and iPad here.
I have two Macs. A late-2013 21.5” iMac and an early-2015 13” Retina MacBook Pro.
Safari
Safari is my browser of choice. It just works best on macOS. I use Firefox Quantum browser when a site doesn’t play nice with Safari.
Fastmail
I’ve been using Fastmail as my email service for over 4 years. It’s been a great Gmail replacement. I’ve written about Fastmail here.
Things 3
Things 3 is for task management and reminders. I love the simplicity of how it works. I wrote about it here.
Fantastical 2
Fantastical is my calendar app. It’s where I keep my appointments and some reminders. I love that I can use natural language to quickly create events and reminders.
Bear
Bear is my notes and lists app. I’ve been a pro user since the inception of the app. It’s beautiful to work in, search is excellent and I’ve never had a sync issue.
Ulysses
Ulysses is the app I use to write my stories. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with it since it went subscription. During the year I tried other writing apps but none compares with Ulysses.
Marked 2
Marked is the markdown previewer app I use side by side with Ulysses.
Grammarly
Grammarly is for proofreading my stories for grammar and punctuation.
Copied
Copied is my cross-platform clipboard history manager. I’ve written about it here.
Reeder
Reeder is my newsreader for my Feedly RSS feeds.
Tweetbot
Tweetbot is for reading my Twitter feed.
Instapaper
Instapaper is my read it later service. I wrote an article about my Instapaper workflow here.
Alfred
Alfred is Spotlight on steroids. I’d be lost without it. Alfred is my launcher, search interface, TextExpander replacement and much more.
Keyboard Maestro
Keyboard Maestro is another productivity app that I couldn’t live without. I use Keyboard Maestro keyboard shortcuts to launch apps, open files and folders and for automating actions. It has a learning curve but once you start to get the hang of it you can do some amazing things. Check out Keyboard Maestro’s homepage for a list of all the things you can do.
BetterTouchTool
BetterTouchTool allows me to configure gestures or keyboard shortcuts for my Magic Mouse, MacBook Trackpad, and Magic Trackpad to trigger actions like moving and resizing windows, switching tabs in Safari and more. BTT has a 45-day free trial. Give it a try.
Dropbox
Dropbox is where I keep files that I want to have available on all my devices. It’s also where syncing happens for apps like Alfred, Keyboard Maestro, and BetterTouchTool.
PDFpen and Hazel are key apps for my paperless workflow. I’ve written about my paperless workflow here.
App Cleaner
AppCleaner is my app uninstaller. I use it because it deletes all the junk that gets left behind when you just drag the app icon to the trash.
PopClip
I use PopClip to manage what I do with selected text. I’ve written about PopClip here.
Yoink
Yoink speeds and up my workflow by simplifying drag and drop. I’ve written about Yoink here.
Bartender 3
Bartender is the app I use to organize my menu bar. I’ve written about it here.
ScreenFloat
ScreenFloat is my app for taking floating screenshots and storing them.
TunnelBear VPN
TunnelBear is my VPN for security on public WiFi and web browsing privacy.
f.lux
f.lux is for protecting my eyes and sleeping better at night.
