Rain, sun, flowers, and spring teasers. All the rain this season has been wonderful - our rainfall totals are close to normal and the reservoirs are full. Even better news is that the Sierra snowpack is at 141% of normal and is already over the minimum as measured yearly on April 1st. This is great news for us, drought or no drought. Of course as I write this we have another beautiful sunny day so I am enjoying this spring teaser before the rains return. My favorite spring occurrence is the blooming of daffodils! They are sprouting up all over the county and always make me smile.
In the Apple computing world we are seeing rumors of spring releases of new AirPods (wireless ear buds), maybe the long awaited refresh to the iPad Mini, maybe new laptops and of course more. These are all rumors but it bodes well for a fun spring for technology fans.
I am finally giving a 'qualified' okay to Mojave - please see below for details and an upgrade special. IF you are looking to get a new iPhone, the iPhone XS has an amazing, amazing, amazing camera!! Pricey but in my opinion worth it for the camera alone.
MOVING ON TO MOJAVE!
Upgrade time has arrived! Apple has recently released MacOS Mojave 10.14.3 and we feel that enough of the bugs have been worked out. As such, we are finally ready to recommend Mojave to clients who have qualified computers. See below to check if your computer qualifies for the upgrade. Mojave has some very strict security controls designed to prevent many of the recent scams and malware issues we have been seeing and by now, most if not all third party software developers have updated their software to be compatible.
System Requirements to Upgrade to Mojave
Technology Simplified has recommended requirements for the Mojave upgrade that are much more stringent than Apple's very general requirements.
Important note: Mojave does best when running on a computer that has a Solid State Drive (SSD) or Fusion Drive. In fact we are NOT recommending you move to Mojave if you have a standard spinning drive**. With a standard drive you should be running High Sierra (macOS 10.13.6) - Apple is still releasing security patches for High Sierra.
1. Computers must be no older than 5 years.
* MacBook (Early 2015 or later)
* MacBook Air (Mid-2013 or later)
* MacBook Pro (Mid-2013 or later)
* Mac mini (Late 2015 or later)
* iMac (Late 2015 or later)
* iMac Pro (all models)
2. Minimum RAM of 4 GBs required WITH Solid State Drive (SSD) or Fusion Drive.
3. Mojave absolutely requires the user also upgrade all their third party software.
This includes but is not limited to Microsoft Office (to Office 365 or Office 2019), Adobe Creative Cloud - Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and Lightroom (to CC 2019 or the absolute latest version if you use the apps standalone), Quicken 2007 (to Banktivity 7 or a more recent version of Quicken - be aware that Quicken 2019 is subscription only now!) and 1Password 6 (to 1Password 7.) There are other many, less common apps that may or may not run on Mojave.
Mojave does disable older versions of Apple's Aperture (no longer made or supported by Apple), The new versions of Apple's software is fine, such as Pages, Keynote and Numbers. If older than 2013, these apps MAY NOT run. NOTE: some folks are successfully running some older apps on Mojave BUT there are definitely expected issues.
** To see what type of computer - model, ram, and storage you have do this: Apple Menu > About This Mac. The first screen will give you model / year, current Mac OS and RAM / memory.
Then touch on Storage at the top to see this screen - look at the left you will see either Fusion (iMacs) or SSD - which will read "Flash Drive."
As always call us IF you have a question about whether or not to upgrade.
For updates, all iOS devices should be at iOS 12.1.4 or iOS 11.4.1 on older devices.
TECH TIPS
iOS 12 tip - Magnifier
Did you know you can use the camera on your iPhone or iPad as a magnifier?? It's easy to do and it's free! Bonus: the screen magnifier has a light and the ability to adjust contrast and color. Follow the steps below.
1. Turn on this feature: Settings app >
2. General > Accessibility > Magnifier > Turn it on (green)
3. To use the magnifier - Press your iPhone or iPad's side button 3 times (iPhone X, XR or XS or new iPad Pro) OR the Home button 3 times for older iPhones and iPads.
4. Slide the yellow dot right (increase) or left (decrease) on your iPhone or iPad's magnification. Tap the lightning bolt to add light.
5. Tap the 3 overlapping circles at the right to get to color, lighting or contrast options. Once you have any options set touch the Lock icon to save them as a default.
macOS tip - Switch between applications
This one has been around for awhile but I use it daily. Often we have multiple applications running on our computer at the same time. You can quickly switch between open applications by:
1. Press and hold down the Command key
2. Now tap on the Tab key > this brings up the Application switcher. Each time you touch Tab you will move to the next application in the line. This is a huge time saver!
