Bradley C

A few weeks ago, I was having some issues where I couldn’t get my VPN to work on my laptop. I was running the beta of macOS Catalina, so I decided to fix the problem by just reformatting and setting up my laptop from scratch. Thanks to iCloud and the Mac App Store, doing a new install of macOS is pretty easy time-wise. It did fix the problem, but as I was changing my Safari Start Page back to DuckDuckGo, I had a thought. Why hasn’t Apple built a default “Start Page” for Safari to create a tremendous first-run experience for Apple products?

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If you have become an Apple fan in the past decade or so, you are used to yearly operating system updates for free. If you have been a Mac user longer than that, you remember actually paying for OS updates every 18 months or so. I know Halloween is coming up, so I’ll inform you of something even scarier: we had to wait in a line to buy a new version of OS X on a CD. While we’ve gotten used to free OS updates as consumers, it has been a big help to Apple in the enterprise. This week, I want to explain why frequent and free OS updates are a big help for Apple’s growth in the enterprise.
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A few months ago, I wrote about The Athletic, and I thought it would make a great acquisition target for Apple. When I originally wrote that article, I mentioned that the Athletic had recently launched a podcast section, but they were only available inside of their app and not dedicated podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or Pocket Casts. In recent weeks, they’ve reversed that stance and started submitting their shows to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, but only including some of the episodes as a free download.
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A question facing a lot of K–12 school districts this time of year is whether their devices can go just one more year. Budgets are being set (and likely looking to be cut), so keeping an iPad or Mac laptop deployment in place for another school year is a way to eliminate a costly line item in the budget. Is that a wise decision? Let’s look at the factors you need to consider before holding off on that new Mac or iPad device refresh. A different way that I often get this question asked to me is: “how long do iPads last?”
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I’ve used Backblaze for many years as my go-to backup service on macOS. Just last week, it saved me from re-creating a presentation I worked on for three hours. I had been having issues with one of my laptops (due to macOS Catalina), so I decided to reformat the drive and set up from scratch. I didn’t realize that iCloud Drive hadn’t uploaded the document, though. I am not blaming Apple here because I was running a beta OS, and I knew I had some wonky things going on. Thankfully, Backblaze was working, though. I logged in to the online portal, downloaded the PowerPoint, and was up and running. One of the things that makes Backblaze such an excellent backup service on macOS is how much care they put into their app. It’s fast, lightweight, and is 100% native to macOS. Today, Backblaze for Mac 7.0 is being released. All clients will update over the next two weeks, or you can download by clicking on the Backblaze icon in the Menu Bar and check for updates. So what’s new in Backblaze 7.0?
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Over the past few months, we’ve started to see rumors of Apple releasing an updated version of the Apple TV hardware. I have one of the 4K models and four of the 1080p models around my house, so we are all in on the ecosystem at my home. While I wish it were less expensive, I do enjoy the Apple Music and iCloud Photos integration (along with the impressive screen savers). As we look ahead to what is coming, I have five hardware features on my Apple TV wishlist.
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If you look at Apple’s device lineup over the past few years, the vast majority of them do not have ethernet ports. Wi-Fi has grown across retail centers, sports stadium, universities, K–12 schools, and business centers. One of the major drivers behind the growth of Wi-Fi is Apple’s products.

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Apple Launched Apple News+ during its March event, and to say that it has been underwhelming is beyond an understatement. Despite Apple’s promise of 100s of magazines for a low monthly price, rumors suggest that publishers aren’t happy and I’ve read reports that sign up growth has flatlined. I tried the service for a month, and I came away from it less than impressed. As Apple has continued to deploy its new services across 2019 (Apple Arcade and Apple TV+), I’ve been thinking a lot about News+, the path Apple should take going forward, and what impact it could make in journalism. What should Apple’s strategy be with Apple News+?
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Apple @ Work is brought to you by Spike, the world’s first conversational email app that helps professionals and teams spend less time on email, and more on getting things done.

I started working in a corporate environment in 2004. Since then, I’ve watched enterprise communications dramatically change. Back then, we relied on Outlook, desk phones, and the occasional cell phone call. Today, the landscape looks completely different. We still have e-mail, but we’ve also added tools like iMessage, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more. What’s ironic is that I feel overwhelmed at times. I joked with my wife that working in 2019 sometimes feels like keeping inboxes empty. Let’s take a look at the current state of enterprise communication tools.
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Yahoo is unveiling a new version of its iOS and Android Mail apps that were built around the way that a lot of people use email. In the past few years, email has drastically shifted with people creating multiple accounts for different purposes. One account might be for shopping, another might be a work one, and another might be for just general personal use. Yahoo’s new app is built for this exact situation.
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Is AppleCare worth the price? Is AppleCare good value? These are questions I get asked a lot this time of year. While people generally buy Macs and iPads when they are falling apart, a lot of people love to buy the latest iPhone every other year, if not every year. Thanks to the iPhone Upgrade Program and leasing through cellular carriers, it’s gotten a lot easier to always carry the latest iPhone. I’ve never bought AppleCare on a device, and I’ve never regretted it.
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Apple @ Work is brought to you by Spike, the world’s first conversational email app that helps professionals and teams spend less time on email, and more on getting things done.

In the enterprise IT market, eliminating variables is an essential part of the job when it comes to troubleshooting. The more variables you have, the more opportunities you have for things to go wrong. By eliminating variables on your network and with your end-user devices, you make it easier to troubleshoot when issues arise. Variables especially cause issues when it comes to major OS upgrades as you have more testing to do. The longer I’ve been in enterprise IT, the more I’ve realized that Apple’s tightly controlled system of hardware and software integration is exactly what IT departments crave. Apple controls every bit of driver updates as part of their OS upgrades, and that helps IT departments be more efficient. While IT departments used to be all in on Windows, we are starting to see that tide shift. Thanks to upgrades in the ability to manage Apple products in mass, and the simplicity of the Apple hardware and software configuration, IT departments are now seeing the value of Apple in the enterprise. Instead of banning Apple devices, IT departments are now recommending them.
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One of the tentpole features of iPadOS 13 was a desktop version of Safari. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been saying that Mobile Safari on the iPad was a significant weakness. Even when the iPad had the power of a laptop, it was still running a web browser that was limited. For the past few weeks, I’ve been testing Desktop Safari on the iPad to see if it’s genuinely a desktop browser. Is the iPad finally ready to be on the same level as the Mac? Does iPadOS 13 make it easier to go iPad only? Let’s dive in on a review of Desktop Safari on iPadOS 13.
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Apple @ Work is brought to you by Spike, the world’s first conversational email app that helps professionals and teams spend less time on email, and more on getting things done.

One of the common things I hear about Mobile Device Management solutions from my technology-focused friends is they hate when their company IT departments “suck” their devices into the management system the organization chooses. For those that love to tinker, set up, and manage their own devices, having them “managed” may seem like big brother is watching. Thankfully, Apple has clear APIs for how their devices interact with MDMs, so end users can rest assured their IT department doesn’t have access to everything on their devices. If you’re wondering if your IT department can read your iMessages, you’ve come to the right place.
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When Parallels 15 was released a few weeks ago, I realized that there are two types of people when it comes to virtualization software: those that care deeply and those that cannot fathom why people still run Windows/Linux on top of macOS. The more people I talk to about this, the more I realize that the market might have been broader for running Windows on macOS back during the initial Intel transition, but that today, the market is more in-depth. The people who use this software rely on it for essential tasks related to their jobs and or hobbies. The good thing for them is that Parallels 15 continues to go deeper with Windows integration on macOS. What’s the verdict on Parallels 15? After using it for a few weeks, let’s dive into my Parallels 15 review.
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I’ve had multiple Apple IDs over the years of being an Apple customer since I started buying music on iTunes in 2004. I eventually consolidated everything into two accounts back around the time I got my first iPod touch. I had one account for purchases (my Gmail account), and then I had my .Mac/MobileMe/iCloud account. Apple has always done a great job allowing you to keep a store account running alongside a data account on their devices. When I signed up for Apple Music in 2015, I took the time to set up Family Sharing with my wife and children. We had previously all shared an account, but with an Apple Music family subscription option at $14.99 per month, it was time to prepare for the future. I created a Family Sharing account, invited my wife as a parent, and then set up kid accounts for all my children. We then could each have our own Apple Music, iCloud data, but still access each other’s purchases. Apple really built a strong foundation for families to manage their data, have privacy, but also stay connected. And I think there is much work to do, and I hope that they add some much-needed Family Sharing additions in 2020 with future versions of iOS, macOS, and iCloud.
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Apple @ Work is brought to you by Spike, the world’s first conversational email app that helps professionals and teams spend less time on email, and more on getting things done.

I still remember when iMessage first launched with iOS 5 in 2011 and OS X Mountain Lion in 2012. In my office, we had (and still have) terrible cell service. Since iMessage worked on Wi-Fi, I could finally send and receive “text messages” with ease. I don’t think we’ve given Apple enough credit for creating such a popular service across their ecosystem. By 2016, Apple announced that 200,000 messages were being sent every second. iMessage, despite its faults, is an excellent service. It provides fast communication to other iOS users and syncs across all of your devices. Over time, I’ve ended up in more group texts than I would have ever imagined. These aren’t just friends who are sending GIFs back and forth. These group messages are various subgroups at my office, where people are communicating about work. The problem with this situation is that iMessage was not built for internal business communications, but Apple could evolve its features to help with this use case in the future. 
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