There’s always good news in the world of Apple, and today we have three stories that should make you more productive…or at least make it easy for you to send money to a friend with PayPal:
- OWC announces that they’re carrying the NewerTech NuPower 60W USB-C Power Adapter, a great replacement for the standard Apple MacBook or MacBook Pro charger
- A professional video editor has given the new 15-inch MacBook Pro his seal of approval, saying it’s fast enough to easily handle 5K ProRes footage in Final Cut Pro X
- PayPal keeps improving its iOS app; you can now send or receive money with just a Siri command
The text version of the podcast can be viewed below. To listen to the podcast here, click the play button on the player below.
Text Version
Hi, this is Steve Sande for Apple World Today, and this is the AWT News Update for November 10, 2016.
Our sponsor this week is 4K Video Downloader for Mac. Grab video from YouTube, Vimeo and other sources automatically for offline viewing at your leisure. For a limited time, 4K Video Downloader for Mac is available at half-off, just $9.95. Check out the link in the show notes for details.
A lot of people are still confused and concerned about the USB-C port and its ability to charge more than one device at a time, so we’re glad to see options coming out from third-party companies. OWC, at macsales.com, just announced the NuPower 60W USB-C Power Adapter from NewerTech, with two USB charging ports. Users can plug in a USB-C laptop and an iPad, for example, and plug both of them at the same time. The company even throws in an 18-inch USB Type-C to Type-C cable, so it’s ready for use with a MacBook or MacBook Pro immediately. The USB-C port handles up to 60W of power, while the Type-A port on the Power Adapter can handle up to 12W.
Pros who are thinking about purchasing the 15-inch MacBook Pro have been waiting for real-life reviews to see it the new laptop can actually be used for day to day, professional video editing. Thomas Grove Carter works at Trim Editing in London, where he works on editing “high end commercials, music videos and films” with Final Cut Pro. His conclusion? The 15-inch model is not only good at doing editing in Final Cut Pro X with 5K ProRes footage, but it beats the pants off of Windows workstations with better specifications. Carter said that “First off, It’s really fast. I’ve been using the MacBook Pro with the new version of FCP X and cutting 5k ProRes material all week, it’s buttery smooth. No matter what you think the specs say, the fact is the software and hardware are so well integrated it tears strips off “superior spec’d” Windows counterparts in the real world. This has always been true of Macs. If you’re running software with old code which doesn’t utilise the hardware well, you’re not going to get great performance (as pointed out here)” As for the dongle dilemma, Carter isn’t concerned. He says that “I already use USB-C Samsung T3 SSD’s as my external drives. These things are super fast and have the footprint of a credit card. The only change here is that I don’t need a USB-A to C cable to use them now, they’ll plug straight in. I’ll probably have a Thunderbolt 3 dock at my desk for expandability but that will ultimately just replace the Thunderbolt/mini-display converters I already need to support legacy displays.” To see the full review, click the link found in the show notes on Apple World Today.
PayPal has announced that SIri is integrated with the PayPal app beginning today. You have to be running the latest version of the app and iOS 10, but you can send and request money via voice commands with SIri. For example, if I wanted to send my sister $50, I could say “Hey SIri, send Susan $50 using PayPal” and it would be done. The company also now provides a way to sign into the PayPal iOS app with Touch ID, which can speed your login for such things as Order Ahead and paying in stores like Macy’s and Autozone. PayPal apparently wants you to use the app as your default digital wallet, as it now also has a way to add loyalty cards from just about every business you can think of. It’s nice to see the original online and mobile payment app actually keeping up with the times.
That’s all for today; We’ll be back tomorrow afternoon with another edition of the AWT News Update.
