It has become my own tradition to write two books about Apple's latest operating systems. Despite everything going on in 2020, I have managed to do just that. There are two books, one for macOS and another for iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS. The title's of this year's books should not be any surprise. These books are not yet available for pre-order yet, but will be soon.

macOS Big Sur for Users, Administrators, and Developers

macOS Big Sur for Users, Administrators, and Developers covers the new features with the latest release. macOS Big Sur brings a slew of new features like new icons, a refined design with updated toolbars, menu, and alerts. The new design is accompanied by Messages and Maps now having feature parity with their iOS versions, which means new features coming to the Mac that were not present before. One of the most used apps on the Mac is Safari, and there is a whole new privacy section to help you see which websites are tracking you and which trackers they are using. Reminders and Notes have seen a couple of updates like assigning reminders and easier access to text styles in notes. The biggest change for the Mac this year is that it is moving to Apple Silicon and a significant portion of the book is dedicated to that, including a history of the Mac

For administrators we dive into managing Macs running Apple Silicon, scripting language updates, some changes to how updates are handled, and the updates to Profile Manager.

Developers can learn about how Apple Silicon will affect their applications, the changes to Xcode, enhancements to the Swift programming language and SwiftUI. Also discussed are some new Swift Packages, how to implement Widgets using WidgetKit, SF Symbols 2, and Safari extensions.

macOS Big Sur for Users, Administrators, and Developers has something for everyone.

iOS 14, iPadOS 14, tvOS 14, and watchOS 7 for Users and Developers

iOS 14, iPadOS 14, tvOS 14, and watchOS 7 for Users and Developers somewhat mirrors macOS Big Sur in that there are some design tweaks like the new Widgets and your ability to place them on the home screen for device running iOS, the new App Library system, which can help you organize your home screen. Along with the home screen changes, search and Siri have seen some improvements as well, and those are covered. Safari can now help keep you informed about who is tracking you across the web.

Communications is a big part of today's society, so the updates to Messages is covered, and there is a whole new help to help you translate text, called the Translate app. Users will be able to learn about the new updates to Notes, Reminders, and Maps. If you prefer to handwrite items there is a new feature just for you called called Scribble, which will take your handwriting and covert it into text.

Health is a huge topic and there have been some big changes like the renamed Fitness app on the iPhone and a way of tracking Sleep on the Apple Watch. These are both covered along with updates to Face ID and masks, as well as new ways to protect your hearing.

The Music and Home apps have been slightly changed and updated and the Shortcuts app gets some new tricks to help automate things even better than before.

Developers will learn all about Apple Silicon, because their iOS and iPadOS apps can run natively on Macs running Apple Silicon. Along with Apple Silicon, developers can learn about changes to Xcode, the new Swift, SwiftUI, and Swift Packages, as well as how to implement WidgetKit, some things to keep in mind about AppClips, how to implement the new Color Picker and how to support PencilKit and Scribble with their custom interfaces.

To quote the late Carl Sagan:

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit? Yes. Settle? Not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. ... To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve, and cherish, the pale blue dot; the only home we've ever known.

It is true, no matter how much Science Fiction and the actions of some may provide us the hope of being able to settle and colonize another planet, it is still a long, long ways away. It is not likely that we will be able to colonize another planet in my lifetime, or within the next 100 years.

In order to be able to be able to colonize another world, we need to take care of this one. Apple is doing its part to help protect the one planet that we have. Apple has already been carbon neutral with its global corporate operations, but this goes well beyond that.

Apple is hoping to be carbon neutral not just for global operations, but also for manufacturing, its supply chain partners, and even all of the products it sells. This is a big task, but it should go a long way to helping the planet. From the press release, here is Apple's ten year roadmap:

Apple’s Climate Roadmap

Apple’s 10-year roadmap will lower emissions with a series of innovative actions, including:Low carbon product design: Apple will continue to increase the use of low carbon and recycled materials in its products, innovate in product recycling, and design products to be as energy efficient as possible.

• Apple’s latest recycling innovation — a robot the company is calling “Dave” — disassembles the Taptic Engine from iPhone to better recover key materials such as rare earth magnets and tungsten while also enabling recovery of steel, the next step following its line of “Daisy” iPhone disassembly robots.

• The company’s Material Recovery Lab in Austin, Texas, which is focused on innovative electronics recycling technology, is now partnering with Carnegie Mellon University to further develop engineering solutions.

• All iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch devices released in the past year are made with recycled content, including 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in the iPhone Taptic Engine — a first for Apple and for any smartphone.

• Apple decreased its carbon footprint by 4.3 million metric tons in 2019 through design and recycled content innovations in its products. Over the past 11 years, Apple has reduced the average energy needed for product use by 73 percent.

This is just part of their overall strategy. This is a big undertaking and one that I hope they are able to achieve. There are many that claim that being carbon neutral, or even just moving to be more green is not fiscally possible. I disagree with them. Will it be free? No, but nothing is free. This video starring Bill Nye is still accurate, and we all need to do better to help the environment.

We only have one planet, and we must take care of it in order to be able to have not only our species, but many other species, survive. It is good to see companies doing their part to help save our planet, since it is the only one we have.

Source: Apple.com

At a special event in March of 2019, Apple's previews a number of their new services including Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and Apple TV+. The last item they talked about was a new service called Apple Card. Apple Card takes what we all have come to expect from a credit card and enhances it. Apple Card is a credit card that lives on your iPhone and integrates with Apple Pay. Apple Card was released to consumers beginning in the late summer of 2019.

When Apple Card was first unveiled, one of the most requested features was the ability to export transactions, which was added in January of this year. The second most requested feature was a website. Today, Apple unveiled a website just for Apple Card. It is available at card.apple.com. The website has the basics available. You can see your current balance, including some details, you can view your statements, schedule payments, manage bank accounts, and view benefits as well as terms and conditions. While you are on the site, you can also contact support via phone or the official Apple Card Support site.

There is one last thing to mention Apple Card. If you apply for a new Apple Card you will get $50 Daily Cash when you use your new Apple Card to pay for an Apple Service
and get $50 Daily Cash back. This includes Apple Music, TV+, App Store and other services. This only applies to new applicants, but it is a great way to get them into using the card.

It is great to see Apple adding features that user want. I am sure one of the things on their list is the ability to provide access for multiple people to the same Apple Card.

Source: Macstories.net