Today Apple has their "Far Out" event at Steve Jobs Theatre in Cupertino. There were three products covered, AirPods, Apple Watch, and iPhone. Let us look at each of these starting with AirPods.

AirPods

AirPods are a popular set of in-ear headphones that many people like to use. The AirPods Pro were last introduced in October of 2019 and today Apple introduced the 2nd generation AirPods Pro. The 2nd generation AirPods Pro has gained improved battery life with up to six hours of listening time on a single charge. This is up from 4.5 hours on the 1st generation AirPods Pro. The charging case also allows for up to 30 hours of total listening time. On the topic of the charging case that has seen some changes as well.

The AirPods Pro charging case can now be charged via lightning, using MagSafe, or any Qi-compatible charger, including the Apple Watch charger. The 2nd generation AirPods Pro case also includes a lanyard, so you can easily attach them to items like a bag, purse, or any other item.

AirPods Pro are still $249 and they will be available for pre-order on September 9th, and will be available starting on September 23rd. Next, let us look at the Apple Watch.

Apple Watch

The largest part of today's event was spent on the Apple Watch. There were three new models introduced, the Apple Watch Series 8, the Apple Watch SE (2nd generation), and the all new Apple Watch Ultra. Let us look at all of them in turn, starting with the 2nd Generation Apple Watch SE.

Apple Watch SE (2nd Generation)

The new Apple Watch SE is a redesigned Apple Watch. It still has the 40mm or 44mm size as the previous version. It now has an S8 SIP. The S8 system-in-package includes some new features like Crash Detection, which can be used to automatically contact emergency services and your emergency contacts should you get into a crash while wearing the Apple Watch SE.

There are variety of bands and styles, like the Solo Loop which comes in Sunglow, Succulent, Chalk Pink, Storm Blue, Midnight, and Starlight. There are Braided Solo Loops in Rainforest, Slate Blue, Beige, Midnight, Black Unity, Pride Edition, and (PRODUCT)RED. A Slew of Sport Bands, Sport Loops, and Nike Editions.

The Apple Watch SE also has a slightly lower price at $249 for the 40mm and $279 for the 44mm version. This is in comparison to its previous $279 price tag for the 40mm and $309 for the 44mm. The GPS + Cellular models are $299 for the 40mm, and $349 for the 44mm version. You can order the 2nd generation Apple Watch SE today in one of three colors, Midnight, Starlight, and Silver. It will begin delivering on September 16th.

Now, onto the Apple Watch Series 8.

Apple Watch Series 8

The Apple Watch Series 8 is an improvement over the Apple Watch Series 7 in a variety of ways. It still has the same 41mm and 45mm case options. The Apple Watch Series 8 has the same S8 SIP as the 2nd generation Apple Watch SE, which means that it has the same Crash Detection feature.

There is a new "Low Power Mode" on the Apple Watch Series 8. This can increase the battery life up to 36 hours from a full charge, when an iPhone is paired with the Apple Watch. This can be toggled on and off in the Control Center on the Apple Watch. When you enable Low Power Mode it will disable auto-workout detection, the Always-On display, and heart health notifications, amongst other items. You can This feature is available on all Apple Watches from Series 4 and later with watchOS 9.

The Apple Watch Series 8 also brings a new sensor, this time it is a temperature sensor. To quote Apple's press release:

"Apple Watch Series 8 takes a unique approach to temperature sensing with a two-sensor design — one sensor on the back of the watch, nearest the skin, and another just under the display — reducing bias from the outside environment. Nighttime wrist temperature can be a good indicator of overall body temperature. The sensors in Apple Watch Series 8 sample the wrist temperature during sleep every five seconds and measure changes as small as 0.1° C. In the Health app, users can see nightly shifts in baseline temperature, which can be caused by exercise, jet lag, or even illness."

The temperature sensor was designed for use for women's health, specifically this is designed to allow women to keep a record of retrospective ovulation estimates, which can be useful in family planning. Along with this temperature sensing also enables improved period predictions.

Beyond family planning, iOS 16 and watchOS 9 also add additional features for Cycle Tracking. Now users can receive notifications if their logged cycle history shows any deviations, like irregular, prolonged, or spotty periods. Thees can be symptoms of an underlying health condition, which can be discussed with a woman's physician.

As mentioned above, the Apple Watch Series 8 comes in two sizes, the 41mm and 45mm versions. You can choose from an aluminum case or a stainless steel case. The aluminum case comes in Starlight, Midnight, Silver, and (PRODUCT)RED. Pricing for the Aluminum is $399 for the 41mm GPS, $429 for the 45mm GPS, $499 for the 41mm GPS + Cellular, and $529 for the 45mm GPS + Cellular.

The Stainless Steel colors are Silver Graphite and Gold. The Stainless Steel are GPS + Cellular models. The 41mm is $699, and the 45mm GPS model is $749.

One thing to note is that there are no longer "Nike Editions" of the Apple Watch. There are still Nike Bands, but now you can use the Nike Watch faces on any of the Apple Watches. This is a big change from previous Apple Watches.

The Apple Watch Series 8 is available to order today and will be available starting September 16th. Now, onto the Apple Watch Ultra.

Apple Watch Ultra

The Apple Watch Ultra is a brand new model designed for extreme conditions, and its design is meant for this. The Apple Watch Ultra sports a 49mm watch face, which is 8.8% larger than the 45mm and 17% larger than the 41mm model. The screen is enclosed by the case of the Apple Watch to help protect it against damage when hit against surfaces. Beyond encasing the screen with the case of the Apple Watch, the case material is Titanium which should also help with protecting the Apple Watch Ultra.

The Apple Watch Ultra has the side button and Digital Crown, but it also includes a new Action button. The Action button can be configured to allow you to easily perform a quick action by clicking the Action button. The actions available can be customized in the Apple Watch Ultra's settings.

The Apple Watch Ultra is designed for extreme sports, like ultra marathons, diving, hiking, and more. Since it was designed to be used in a variety of environments the screen is brighter, up to 2000 nits. There is a "Night mode", which will remove any harsh lights and change the color to be a Red to make it easier for you.

Since it is possible that you will be out in extreme environments, if you do need help there is an 86-decibel alarm that you can enable that will travel up to 600 feet, or 180 meters, so others can help find you. There is a new Compass app that will allow you to mark waypoints so you can try and find your way back.

The larger screen on the Apple Watch Ultra allows for up to 36 hours of battery life while in full workout, or up to 60 hours with low power mode. This is very helpful if you do not have a charger with you, or if you are in an area where you cannot charge the Apple Watch.

Watch Bands

There are three different watch bands designed with the Apple Watch Ultra in mind. These are Alpine Loop, Trail Loop, Ocean Band. The Alpine Loop comes in three different colors, Orange, Starlight, and Green. The Trail Loop comes in Yellow/Beige, Blue/Gray, and Black/Gray. The Ocean band comes in Yellow, White, and Midnight. There are also some bands that you find on the other Apple Watch models, like the Solo Loop, the Braided Solo Loop, Sport Band, and Sport Loop. The Alpine Loop, Trail Loop, and Ocean band are each $99.

The Apple Watch Ultra is available for order today for $799, and will be available beginning on September 23rd. Now, onto the iPhone

iPhone

Apple introduced four new iPhone 14 models today. The iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max, as predicted there is no iPhone mini model. Let us look at each of the pairings, starting with iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus. There are two physical sizes for devices, either 6.1-inch or a 6.7-inch screen. The entire iPhone 14 line up has some commonalities. This includes some camera improvements, Crash Detection, changes to Emergency SOS, and a change to SIM cards.

SIM Card Changes

There is a big change across all of the iPhone 14 models, at least in the United States. There are no longer any physical SIM slots. All devices will now have eSim. This means that you will need to transfer your number from your physical SIM to an eSim.

Action Mode

All of the iPhone 14 devices have new camera sensors, which will be discussed in each section, but one of the common items is a new feature called "Action Mode". Action Mode is designed to allow you to be right in the action and still have stabilized photos and videos, without any third-party accessory, like a Gimbal stand for stabilization. This means that you can keep up with the action and have the video come out stabilized.

Photonic Engine

iPhone 14 Pro takes computational photography even further with Photonic Engine, offering a giant leap for mid- to low-light performance in photos across all cameras through a deep integration of hardware and software: up to 2x on the Main camera, up to 3x on the Ultra Wide camera, up to 2x on the Telephoto camera, and up to 2x on the TrueDepth camera. Photonic Engine enables this dramatic increase in quality by applying Deep Fusion earlier in the imaging process to deliver extraordinary detail, and preserve subtle textures, provide better color, and maintain more information in a photo.

Crash Detection

Mentioned in the Apple Watch section is the Crash Detection. The iPhone 14 line also supports Crash Detection and can contact emergency services, if you do not cancel it in within 10 seconds.

Emergency SOS

There may be times when you are outside of cellular cover and you may need some emergency services. There is a new service called "Emergency SOS via Satellite". This function will allow your iPhone 14 to connect to a satellite and contact emergency services via text message. The iPhone 14 will help you align your iPhone with the satellite to be able to connect. This feature will be free for two years when you buy an iPhone 14 device. There is no indication of how much it will cost after the first two years. This will be available starting in November.

Now, let us look at the iPhone 14 devices.

iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus

The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus are the non-pro models of the iPhone 14. The iPhone 14 has a 6.1-inch screen, while the iPhone 14 Plus has a 6.7-inch screen. The iPhone 14 Plus is a new model and matches the same 6.7-inch screen size as the iPhone 14 Pro Max. The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus have a 4 nanometer A15 Bionic processor. This is a slightly improved A15 Bionic that provides even better efficiency which results in better battery life.

The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus have a total of three cameras, the front True Depth camera system, a 12MP Main Camera, and an Ultra Wide camera.The new camera has a larger ƒ/1.5 aperture and 1.9 µm pixels. This enables photo and video improvements in all lighting scenarios. The new front TrueDepth camera features an ƒ/1.9 aperture that now includes autofocus. This means that it can focus even faster than before, including with groups of people and it can make sure each one is focus.

The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus come in five colors, Midnight, Purple, Starlight, PRODUCT(RED), and Blue. They come in storage sizes of 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB. The iPhone 14 pricing is $799 for 128GB, $899 for 256GB, and $1099 for 512GB. The iPhone 14 Plus is $100 more, so it is $899 for 128GB, $999 for 256GB, and $1199 for 512GB. You can pre-order an iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Plus on Friday, September 9th. The iPhone 14 will begin delivering September 16th, and the iPhone 14 Plus will begin delivering on October 7th.

iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max

The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have the same screen size as the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max at 6.1-inches for the iPhone 14 Pro and 6.7-inches for the iPhone 14 Pro Max.This chip features a new 6-core CPU with an accelerated 5-core GPU. The GPU has 50 percent more memory bandwidth, which will make graphic intensive apps and games that much better. The new 16-core Neural Engine provides up to 17 trillion operations per second, which is great with the new Photonic Engine.

There is a new camera system for the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. This system includes a 12MP Ultra Wide camera with 1.4 µm pixels, which delivers sharper images with more detail. The telephoto lens has an improved 3x optical zoom capability. The True Depth camera on the front is just like the one on the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus and comes with an ƒ/1.9 aperture that, according to Apple, enables better low-light performance for photos and video. The new camera system also allows for a new Cinematic mode, which is 4K at 24 frames per second, which is the standard for many films. This is in addition to the existing 4K at 30 frames per second. There is one last big feature with the Main camera.

The Main camera is a new 48 Megapixel sensor with quad-pixel grouping. This means that each of the pixels is groups of four, which provides more light in low-light situations. Along with this, the 48 Megapixel sensor, with quad-pixel grouping, results in the standard 12 Megapixel images, with more details, and is optimized for professional workflows. The quad-pixel sensor also allows for a new 2x zoom, which will take a 12-megapixel image with the pixels that are in the center of the sensor. This results in a full 4K image with no digital zoom.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max has a completely new feature for the screen, an Always-On display. The Always-On display is similar to that on the Apple Watch, in that it can reduce the refresh rate down to 1Hz. This will be fantastic when you do not need the information on the screen to refresh that often. The screen is one of the biggest uses of battery on an iPhone, so being able to reduce it down to 1Hz should allow you to improved battery life.

The TrueDepth camera location has changed slightly, to be right inline with the status bar at the top of the screen, including screen around the sensor. This new sensor area is call the "Dynamic Island". This area will dynamically change depending on usage. Things like notifications will adjust and appear out of the Dynamic Island. You can tap on a notification and interact with it. Similarly, the Face ID popup will appear around the Dynamic Island. If you have multiple items that could use attention, one of the items will be off to the right, so you can interact with it as necessary.

The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max come in four colors, Space Black, Silver, Gold, and Deep Purple. They also come in four different sizes, 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. The iPhone 14 costs $999 for 128GB, $1099 for 256GB, $1299 for 512GB, and $1499 for the 1TB. The iPhone 14 Pro Max is $100 more for each, meaning $1099 for 128GB, $1199 for 256GB, $1399 for 512GB, and $1599 for the 1TB model. You can pre-order iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max on Friday September 9th, with delivery starting on on September 16th.

Closing Thoughts

Today's event was packed at just over 90 minutes. 40 minutes was dedicated to the Apple Watch, another 40 minutes to the iPhone, and the last 10 minutes to the AirPods Pro. The Apple Watch models are available for order today, with the AirPods Pro and iPhone 14 line of phones being available for pre-order this Friday, September 9th.

Sources

Apple Watch Ultra
iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus
iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max
AirPods Pro
Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch SE (2nd Generation)

Apple's 'Far Out' event is on Wednesday, and with that I have some ideas of what I think we will see at the event.

iPhone

One of Apple's Fall events is usually about the iPhone. I expect that we will see four phones, The same as the previous two years. There have long been rumors that the iPhone mini would not be in this year's line up of phones. And my guess is just that. The iPhone mini will leave the . In its place will be a larger iPhone. This will result in two 6.1-inch iPhones and two 6.7-inch iPhones.

I am presuming we will see the iPhone 14 (6.1-inch), iPhone 14 Pro (6.1-inch), and iPhone 14 Pro Max (6.7-inch). The name of the remaining phone is likely to be the "iPhone 14 Plus", with the 'Max' name being reserved for the highest end phone.

The other thing that I think the phones may have is an always-on screen. It is possible that this might only be on the "Pro" line of phones, but it is also possible that it will be on all of the phones.

The Apple Watch has had an always on screen for a couple of years, and it is likely that the iPhone will get the same feature.

Apple Watch

The Apple Watch was introduced in September 2014 and released in April of 2015. I expect a new Apple Watch Series 8 to be released in the same 41mm and 45mm configurations. I also think it is possible that there might

There are rumors of an "Apple Watch Pro", and it is possible that Apple will release one. I suspect if this is introduced it will be a larger screen, and the larger screen means a larger battery and loner battery life.

If there is a larger Apple Watch, I suspect that existing Apple Watch bands will not work with the new Apple Watch.

Along with the Apple Watch Series 8, I think there is also going to be a new Apple Watch SE model. The last one was introduced in September of 2020, so it is about time for a new model, and this event makes the most sense for that to happen.

AirPods Pro

I am suspecting that we will see a new version of the AirPods Pro. The first generation AirPods Pro were introduced in October of 2019, so it definitely time for a second generation of the AirPods Pro.

No new iPads

Apple officially made a statement to TechCrunch indicating that iPadOS 16 would be delayed until 'later this fall'. With that, this means that there are no iPads. Any new iPads will be released would likely be closer to the release of iPadOS.

No Macs

I do not expect there to be any Macs announced at this event. Similar to the iPads, it is likely that any new Macs will be released later in the fall, probably the same time as any new iPads.

Recap

Here is a recap of what I think we will see.

Overall, I think it will be a packed event, but a good one regardless. You can watch the event live at 10 am. Pacific Time on Wednesday, September 7th, on the Apple Events page, or on your Apple TV.

The final month of Summer 2022 is now officially over and we are now entering meteorological fall. Over the course of August I managed to listen to 17 titles, with only one of them being new, so only 5.88% were new titles. Normally, I would highlight a new title, but instead I want to highlight "The Caledonian Gambit" by Dan Moren:

The galaxy is mired in a cold war between the Illyrican Empire and the Commonwealth. Thrust between this struggle are Simon Kovalic, the Commonwealth’s preeminent spy, and Kyle Rankin, a lowly janitor happily scrubbing toilets on Sabaea, a remote and isolated planet. However, nothing is as it seems.
 
Kyle Rankin’s real name is Eli Brody, and he fled his home world of Caledonia years ago. Kovalic knows a top-secret Illyrican superweapon project is hiding in Caledonia. He also knows that the past Brody so desperately abandoned can grant him access to people and places that are impenetrable even for him.
 
Now Brody and Kovalic are on a mission fraught with dangerous unknowns, guaranteed to tip the scales of galactic peace. Sounds like a desperate plan, sure, but what gambit isn’t?

Next month there will definitely be a couple of new books, because I already have them pre-ordered.

Previous Reading Lists

Today Apple sent out invitations to various people in the media about an event happening on September 7th. There were two different invitations sent out, one for an in-person event and another for streaming. The fact that there are two different invitations being sent out indicates that this might be a similar to the World Wide Developer Conference keynote where a selection of press and developers were able to attend the keynote in person.

This event will begin streaming at 10 am Pacific Time on Wednesday, September 7th, 2022. Typically, Apple has Tuesday events, but September 5th is Labor Day in the United States, so it will be on Wednesday the 7th.

As with all other events this one has a theme, "Far Out". It has also become standard that there is an Augmented Reality experience when you visit the Apple Events page.

This event's AR object is a star field that you can zoom in on and view. Music will also play if you zoom in far enough.

It is likely that Apple will announce the new line up of iPhones as well as any new Apple Watches. It is not likely that we will see any new iPads given that Apple confirmed that iPadOS will be released later in the fall.

As is the case with all Apple's events I will have a recap of what was announced sometime after the event, as well as my predictions, sometime before the event.

There has been speculation that Apple would be releasing iPadOS later than iOS 16.0. Typically, Apple does not comment on when they will do this, but Apple has indeed made this official. Apple issued a statement to TechCrunch that said:

This is an especially big year for iPadOS. As its own platform with features specifically designed for iPad, we have the flexibility to deliver iPadOS on its own schedule. This Fall, iPadOS will ship after iOS, as version 16.1 in a free software update.

Beyond this, today Apple released another set of betas for developers. Specifically they released, iOS 16 Beta 7, iPadOS 16 Beta 7, and watchOS 9 Beta 7. The installed version of iOS is displayed as 16.0, and the installed version for iPadOS is displayed as 16.1. This just provides additional confirmation to Apple's statement above.

This is not the first time that iPadOS has been released later than iOS and it is not known whether or not Apple will continue to have separate initial release cycles going forward, only time will tell if that is the case.

With iPadOS being its own operating system, it does not necessarily need to be tied to the release of iOS, even if it has been so in the past. Even so, it would be beneficial for Apple to possibly let developers know earlier in the beta cycle whether or not the operating systems will be released at the same time, or even close together, so that developers can plan their new releases and upgrades accordingly.

Source: TechCrunch

Over the lats six months or so I have had to debug a couple of interesting issues with iPads, in particular iPads with cellular on them. The two devices were an 2nd generation iPad and another was a 2nd Generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Let us look at both of these, starting with the 2nd generation iPad.

2nd Generation iPad

The issue that this iPad was exhibiting was that it would start randomly saying "Activating iPad". The issues as intermittent and would do this upon reboot as well as when waking the iPad up.

Rebooting it would not fix it, as it would still give the same issue. Sometimes, letting it sit and attempt to activate would allow it to work, at least for a while. Before it would just be intermittent and happen occasionally, but starting in May it would do it consistently.

While sitting and pondering it for a bit, I came to realization of what was happening. The 2nd generation iPad had a 3G modem in it. The reason that it started doing it consistently in March was because the T-Mobile 3G service began to be shut down in March.

The fix for this was quite simple, remove the 3G SIM card from the iPad, and it works perfectly fine now.

2nd Generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro

The second iPad that has been having issues is a 2nd Generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro from 2017. The issue started with the iOS 15.0.1 update. Updating to iOS 15 on this device was no problem, but starting with iOS 15.0.1 it would no longer update.

The update would download, but upon trying to install it, it would get stuck on "verifying update". No matter how long I let it sit there, it would not do anything. I tried updating using a Mac, through Finder, but that also did not work. The same thing would occur, it would just sit there and spin at the "Verifying Update" window. I could reboot the iPad, and try again, but it would not do anything differently, just the same results.

Now, being the Apple nerd that I am, the fact that it would not update bugged me to no end. So yesterday, I wanted to really figure out what the issue was. I had tried doing some searching online previously, but everything that came up would lead me to a bogus solution.

That is, until this thread (available at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253245929) came up from the Apple discussions forums, why it did not appear the previous times I did my searching, I do not know.

The first solution suggested to "Insert a SIM card and then do the update", and after inserting a SIM card, and re-trying the update, it actually worked. The second most helpful suggestion on that thread indicated that simply removing the SIM card tray would fix the issue. I did not try this second solution, because the first one worked. It should be noted that the SIM does not need to be an active one, just any compatible SIM card would work.

Obviously, there must be an issue with iOS 15 and verifying an update on a cellular iPad Pro when there is no SIM card in the slot. It is not yet known if the same thing will happen when updating to iOS 16, or if Apple will actually fix it. It seems like these types of issues wait until major versions to be fixed. At least there is a workaround that does indeed work.

July 2022 has just ended, which means that it is now 'Back to School' season. For July I did not listen to that many titles over the past month. I started and stopped a number of titles, but did not finish them because they just were not what I wanted to listen to. Instead, I opted to listen to items that I have listened to before. I only listened to 11 items and none of them were new titles.

All of the titles are Science Fiction titles, which is not too surprising, but typically there is some other genre.

It is likely that I will have new titles each of the next three months, at least I have pre-orders in for titles that are coming out in the next three months.

The book I am going to highlight for July is "Collapsing Empire" by John Scalzi.

Our universe is ruled by physics. Faster than light travel is impossible—until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars.

Riding The Flow, humanity spreads to innumerable other worlds. Earth is forgotten. A new empire arises, the Interdependency, based on the doctrine that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war—and, for the empire’s rulers, a system of control.

The Flow is eternal—but it’s not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well. In rare cases, entire worlds have been cut off from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that the entire Flow is moving, possibly separating all human worlds from one another forever, three individuals—a scientist, a starship captain, and the emperox of the Interdependency—must race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

Previous Reading Lists

This post is another in the series of me looking back at the technology related events that occurred during the year. The reason for the is because 2007 turned out to be a big year for me technology wise. This is the seventh in the series. the previous articles are:

• January 9th: The iPhone Introduction
• January 24th: Windows Vista
• January 28th: Twitter
• March 28th: My First Mac
• May 15th: Original Apple TV
• June 30th: Original iPhone

Mid-2007 13-inch MacBook

Back in March I posted about the fact that I purchased a Late-2006 20-inch iMac. While that was both my first Mac overall, it was also my first desktop Mac. A mere 4 months later, I ended up buying a MacBook. In fact, the one that I ended up purchasing was the 13.3-inch Black MacBook.

Price

The 13-inch Black MacBook was more expensive than the regular MacBook. In fact, it was quite a bit more, it started at $1499. The model that I got was the base model, because any upgrades would significantly add to the cost. The second reason I chose that model was because the base specifications were enough for what I needed. On the topic of specifications, let us look at the specifications.

Specifications

What was interesting with the 13-inch Black MacBook was that it had most of the same specifications as the Late 2006 20-inch iMac that I had purchased. It had a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo, with 1GB of RAM. The only difference between that and 20-inch iMac is that the MacBook only had a 160GB 5400 hard drive, whereas the iMac had a 250GB 7200 hard drive.

These specs go along with the two USB 2.0 ports and single Firewire port. Along with this, the MacBook had a first-generation MagSafe power port.

OS X

The MacBook came with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. The last version of OS X that the 13-inch MacBook supported was Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. The reason that it did not support any newer operating system is the fact that the Intel 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo is a 32-bit processor, and the logic board was 32-bit as well. Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion dropped support for 32-bit processors.

Having multiple Macs, I know I ended up buying the family pack of macOS Leopard so I could install it both of my Macs. The upgrade price of $199, so for $70 more than the single price you could install it up to five computers. This was a great thing to have at the time. Now, of course, macOS upgrades are free, so no special licensing is needed.

On the topic of upgrades, let us look at upgrading the hardware next.

Upgrading Hardware

Even though I purchased just the base model, it was inevitable thaT I would upgrade the MacBook, because it was still possible with that model.One of the best features of the 13-inch Black MacBook was the simplicity of upgrading. The upgrade process was pretty quick. The steps were:

1. Turn off the MacBook.
2. Unlock the battery using a coin.
3. Remove the battery.
4. Unscrew the four screws holding the memory and hard drive cover.
5. Remove the memory and hard drive cover.

Once you have removed the cover, you had access to the memory and the hard drive. For the hard drive you could easily remove it with the tab on the hard drive enclosure. The memory could easily be removed by pressing on the two tabs next to the hard drives.

I do not know when, but I know I upgraded both the hard drive and the memory. I know I ended up installing a 250GB 7200 RPM drive and 3GB of memory.

Usage

The MacBook was designed to be portable. At the same time, it was not an inexpensive item. Because of the price, I went looking for a way to protect it, even while I traveled with it. I went looking for a good solution. I ended up buying two things. The first was an Incase 13-inch Laptop sleeve, which I still use to this day, but for my 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Th second item I purchased was a Pelican case. Specifically, it was the Pelican 1450.

The reason I chose this case was two fold. The first reason is that, as mentioned above, I wanted something that I knew could protect the laptop and a Pelican case definitely could do that. The second reason I went with this model was that it included an insert system that consists of tiny blocks. The blocks can be removed individually which would allow you to customize the function of the case.

Therefore, what I ended up doing was creating a layout for being able to transport just about anything that I could possibly need to transport with it. This included the power brick, the extended charging cord which would go into the power brick, a Mini-DVI to VGA adapter, a Mini-DVI to HDMI adapter, an ethernet cable, and other various cables that I might need, like USB to 30-pin cables.

Was the Pelican case excessive? Looking back now, yes, it was. I definitely did not need such a rugged case. I still have the case today, but it not really used for anything, but I am reluctant to get rid of it, because If I want to use it for something else, I simply need to get a replacement foam set and reconfigure it as necessary.

Now, let us look at how I use the 2007 Black MacBook now.

Usage Today

I no longer really use the 13-inch MacBook. It still functions, but the battery ended up swelling, so I removed it. Furthermore, my brother needed a replacement power cord for his MacBook Pro, so I gave him mine, along with a MagSafe to MagSafe 2 adapter that he can use for his 2012 MacBook Pro.

After initially writing this, I ended up buying a replacement power adapter and a NewerTech battery from MacSales.com. After I powered up the MacBook there were a few updates that needed to be installed, and the last version of macOS that is supported on the Machine is Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, which was released in 2011 and the last update was in October of 2012, so it's been a while since I booted up the MacBook.

Therefore, if I need any data off of the hard drive, I can either copy it directly on the MacBook, using File Sharing, or even use Screen Sharing to copy data.

Closing Thoughts

Even though the 13-inch Black MacBook was more expensive, it did have some higher specifications when purchased. I used the 2007 Black MacBook regularly from 2007 until April of 2015 when I purchased an early-2015 13-inch MacBook Pro, which coincidentally, I am actually using now to write this post, so almost a full eight years of usage of the 2007 MacBook before it was replaced.

I miss the pure black color on the 2007 MacBook. I understand why it is not possible to get a pure black MacBook Pro these days, but it would be really nice to get a MacBook Pro that is darker than the current Space Gray, even if it would cost a bit more for the color.

Apple Newsroom: Apple Updates Popular MacBook - May 15, 2007

As has become my habit, I have written another book about Apple's operating systems. This is the 21st Apple-related book that I have written, and 23rd book overall. I have a dedicated page for all of my books, so you can see the full list there.

This year's book is titled "iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS Ventura, and watchOS 9 for Users and Developers" and it s the longest one yet. The description of the book is:

Apple continues its cadence of yearly releases. iOS 16, iPadOS 16, watchOS 9, and macOS Ventura are packed with a slew new features.

The biggest change for iOS is the new customizable Lock Screen complete with widgets. For iPadOS and macOS there is a new window management feature called Stage Manager. Health gets some improvements with new medication tracking, including scheduling and notifications. If you use Photos there is now a new Shared Photo Library option.

Sometimes you need to quickly escape a situation. If that is the case the new Safety Check feature will quickly remove access to your apps, location, and Apple ID account.

For those who like to run there are new measurements as well as ways of racing against yourself with a new Race Route function. If you like to compete in Triathlons, you can use the new Multisport exercise to seamlessly move between sports.

For developers is a whole new WeatherKit Framework that utilizes the existing Async/Await features, and has a REST API. SwiftUI, Apple’s Swift-only UI framework, continues to evolve with a whole framework of its own, Swift Charts.

These topics are just some of the topics covered in iOS 16, iPadOS 16, watchOS 9, and macOS Ventura. The information contained within provides details about all of the new features of each operating system and has something for everyone, no matter what level of expertise.

The eBook will be available this fall for $4.99. You can pre-order it now from Apple or Amazon and you will get it the day it is released. There will be a paperback and hardcover versions coming this fall as well, so keep an eye out for those as well.

Just about 5 years ago now, I purchased a 4.2GHz 27-inch iMac with a 3TB Fusion Drive. I opted for the Fusion drive due it being the most amount of storage that I could get at the time and besides that SSD prices were, and still are, a bit much for the same amount of storage.

With a Fusion Drive it is actually two physical drives. In my case a 128GB Solid State Drive and a 3TB 7200 RPM traditional spinning hard drive. These two drives are logically connected to be presented as a single drive to macOS. The SSD portion would store the operating system files as well as the most commonly used files and data, to provide it the fastest access possible, meanwhile everything else would be stored on the traditional spinning hard drive.

Back in April I purchased a Mac Studio and the Mac Studio is now my primary computer. I opted to get the Mac Studio after the screen on my iMac began to crack. It started as a small 1-inch crack but it since expanded quite a bit, to be 18-inches. As a side note, the crack has not expanded at all, which I find interesting. Since the iMac has been replaced, I was only being used as a device to test out the macOS Ventura betas.

I went to install macOS Ventura developer beta 3, but the update never installed, at least I do not think it did. When I went to check on it the screen was entirely black. The machine was still running because the backlight of the iMac screen was on. So, I held down the power button to force the iMac to turn off. I waited a bit, turned it back on and let it boot. Once at the login screen I went to login, but as soon as I attempted to actually login, the entire system just froze giving the infamous beachball.

Knowing that there was obviously something wrong, I rebooted into Recovery Mode and ran First Aid on both drives and their APFS containers. If I scanned each one of them on its own, they would both pass. Having both of them passed, I figured it might just be a software problem and re-installing macOS should fix it. I attempted to re-install macOS Ventura, but it presented me with an error that stated that the drive failed with some S.M.A.R.T errors. Typically, when drives have S.M.A.R.T. errors, that means that the device is failing.

This left me with a bit of a quandary. I have an external SSD that has macOS Monterey on it. So, I attempted use that to run Disk Utility and received the same results. It passed the First Aid checks. I thought it could be an issue with the Ventura beta, so I attempted to re-install macOS Monterey. But that also failed with the same S.M.A.R.T. error message. No matter what I did nothing would install. I was still able to access all of the data, which was all on the spinning hard drive.

Ultimately, what I ended up doing was erasing the spinning hard drive and re-partitioning it. After it was partitioned I re-installed macOS Monterey. This worked, because the spinning hard drive did not show any S.M.A.R.T. errors. After it finished the macOS Monterey install, I did the initial setup then I attempted to upgrade to macOS Ventura, but it sat there on 48 seconds remaining for who knows how long. So, I rebooted the iMac and restarted the installation.

The Ventura beta installation did complete and my 2017 iMac is back to working condition, albeit a bit slower than before. That is to be expected though, given that it is a 7200RPM hard drive that is now being used, even for system files. The slowness is acceptable though since it is just for testing and not my daily machine.

Regardless of type of drive, is that they will fail eventually. With that, the one thing I find interesting is the fact that SSD failed before the spinning hard drive. If the spinning hard drive fails, I will likely just hook up the external SSD again and use that. I briefly thought about possibly opening up the iMac and replacing both drives with a single SSD, but it is a lot more work than it is worth, and the procedure to do so, while possible, seems rather daunting.