After a mis-spent youth in the '80s as a service tech and salesperson at a now-closed Apple dealership, AppleInsider's Mike Wuerthele spent nearly a decade in the US Navy through the '90s as a submarine reactor chemist, where he routinely had to suffer through two Captains on the USS Hyman G Rickover (SSN-709) "borrowing" his MacWeek magazines before he got a chance to read them.
During his time in the Navy as a nuclear reactor water chemist, Mike was also instrumental in migrating the submarine fleet into the computer age, and assisted the US Army with its PowerMac G3 program. At the tail-end of his Navy service, he proposed a variant of the PowerMac G3 server program for the assorted military shipyards.
After his exit from the Navy, Mike spent 11 years in federal service as a commercial tech analyst, worked in an assortment of independent dealers, and supported a large swathe of Apple customers in the Washington DC area.
In 2012, he parlayed his experience discussing Apple and other tech companies with the federal government into a gig at MacNN and its sister site Electronista in 2012. Following the closure of those publications in July 2016, Mike moved over to AppleInsider as a content contributor. He is now the Managing Editor of AppleInsider.
OmniOutliner 3 is a brainstorming app as well as a writer's tool, and with Wednesday's update brings a pared down Essentials options to the iPad. AppleInsider delves into what's good and bad about the new release.
In its continuing bid to produce content to expand services revenue, Apple has commissioned a drama based on basketball star Kevin Durant's life.
Testing stalwart Consumer Reports declared this week that Apple's HomePod falls behind Google's Home Max — and even the Sonos One — in terms of audio quality. To anyone who knows the publication's controversial history with Apple products, that conclusion is utterly unsurprising.
The IOGear USB-C Compact Docking Station with Power Delivery Pass-Thru is a port-replacement peripheral for USB 3.1 type C gear — but isn't perfect for 4K.
The follow-up to "Alto's Adventure," snowboarding endless-runner "Alto's Odyssey" now has a release date, with the new title expected on Feb. 22.
Apple, in its "infinite wisdom," compacted the Control Center in iOS 11, and gave AirPlay even less of a starring role on it. With HomePod now available and able to have audio streamed via AirPlay, AppleInsider shows you where the AirPlay button is, and two slightly different ways to turn it on.
The audiophile community now has their hands on the HomePod, and one Reddit user has thoroughly examined the device from an acoustical standpoint, calling it 'witchcraft" plus "100 percent an Audiophile grade Speaker."
The drone flights around Apple Park have not stopped following opening of the campus, with the latest footage showing still-progressing landscaping, and most of the facilities very near 100 percent completion.
As it does with every Apple device, iFixit has torn apart the HomePod, finding a device that is a "labyrinth to open." That means, like many other devices, it's probably not a great candidate for user repairs.
The more technically-minded you are, and the less dependent on paper, the more you'll love Ulysses, the comprehensive writing tool for both Mac and iOS.
Apple has posted a trio of "how to" videos for the HomePod, instructing users how to use Siri to play music, how the touch controls work, and how to adjust settings on the device.
You'll buy Loopback for one job, and then keep finding more uses for this sound routing app for your Mac.
Apple's AppleCare+ extended warranty and accidental damage repair program for the HomePod retails for $39, with a single out-of-warranty repair like accidental damage from a drop otherwise costing the user $279 uncovered, and $39 when under the program.
DirecTV Now has re-started the promotion it had at launch, and is offering new subscribers the new Apple TV 4K if they pay for three months of service in advance instead of the normal four.
Apple has signed another deal for video content, this time, an anthology series focusing on immigrants in the United States.
Apple hasn't totally left old iPad owners behind. In addition to still signing the last iOS releases for those devices, you can still download software for them — assuming you know where to look.
Reports from the supply chain suggest that Apple is widening its supplier lists for the 2018 iPhone lineup, with the new report also saying that LG Innotek will be the main vendor instead of Sharp.
Download aggregator MacUpdate briefly linked to three malicious applications masquerading as legitimate downloads for Firefox, OnyX, and Deeper, that not only install the apps, but also deposit a cryptocurrency miner on downloader's systems.
Google is merging the Nest and the native Google Home hardware team to "supercharge" the goal of conquering the smarthome market.
Data gleaned from Apple's job postings suggests that the company has amped up its hiring of hardware engineers, with an 80 percent increase in staffing needs from the fall of 2016 to the start of 2018.
An editorial in the New York Times complains about the slow death of the writer's five-year-old iPad mini, while still noting that everything about it functions fine — if not in the eternally new fashion the author demands.
Apple and Goldman Sachs are in conversations, which if fruitful, could result in alternate financing options for Apple buyers across the board in the future.
Three hours after the release of the second iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3 betas, Apple has deployed the second macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 beta.
Apple has published a new page about lithium ion batteries in an iPhone, discussing how they work in simple terms, why throttling is necessary, and how iPhone performance management works in iOS 11.3.
Two weeks after the debut, Apple has updated the iOS 11.3 beta adding the first Battery Health beta features, and also deployed a new tvOS beta version.
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Mike Wuerthele and William Gallagher
