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Review: Fuse Chicken Titan Plus and Rivet Charge

Review in Partnership with ByronDoss.com

I’ve owned more than my fair share of Lightning cables. I’ve had Apple ones and third party, from half a meter to 3 meters in length, and in a variety of colors. Because of Apple’s MFi (Made for iPhone/iPad/iPod) licensing program, they have all been exceptional cables with none of the compatibility issues I’ve seen from their Micro USB counterparts. Through all those cables, one has stood above above the rest in my arsenal: The Fuse Chicken Titan. This cable brought a level of tough that no other cable comes close is. I have another pair of Fuse Chicken products I put through the ringer: The Titan Plus & Rivet Charge

Transparency Disclaimer

These are review units supplied by the manufacturer. We did not buy them. However, we maintain full editorial control without interference. This is my honest assessment of the products.

Titan Plus

Pros

  • Toughest MFi cable out there by a mile
  • Longer 1.5m length
  • Scratch resistant Gold, Rose Gold, or Black Finish
  • Retains most flexibility of a traditional cable
  • Fully MFi compliant and compatible

Cons

  • At $42.50, it can be difficult to justify the price unless you do really need an indestructible cable.

I have both the Titan and Titan Loop from my previous review a couple years back. If there are any downsides to them, I use this term loosely, the bigger Titan at 1m can be too short to use while plugged in and both feature a very utilitarian industrial design. The Titan Plus fixes both of these.

The original Titan is a cable that I would literally go to war with it. The cable itself is so tough, I’m completely convinced that it could survive field work with the military. After two years of abuse that has claimed the life of several Apple branded cables, the Original Titan works and looks just like it came out of the box.

The Titan Plus is just as tough as the original cable. Its also just as flexible. It brings an Apple-like design aesthetic to that toughness. It comes in your choice of Gold, Rose Gold, and Black to match your iPhone. Both the cable and connector shroud are finished. Not only is the cable tough, so is the paint. It took scraping it with a hammer to be able to scratch it. It lives up to the promise in all aspects. The only wishlist items I have for the Titan Plus are 2m and 3m lengths to go with the 1.5.

At $42.50, the Titan Plus is even less cheap than the Titan that preceded it. You could buy several lessor cables for that price and for some users that might be the better fit. For the active user who wants something more while retaining the level of design of their iPhone, the Titan Plus is hands down the finest lightning cable on the market.

Android fans, you’re not completely left out. A Micro USB version of the original 1m Titan called the Titan M is available for just under $25 and the Original Titan can also be found

Rivet Charge

Pros

  • Innovative magnetic cable management system built-in that works like a charm
  • Fully MFI compatible and compliant.

Cons

  • Expensive

To be honest, I was nor familiar with the Rivet Charge until I had one in my hands. Now I’m not entirely sure how I would exist without it. The Rivet Charge isn’t extreme tough like the Titan-series, but it adds its own niche- built in cable management. The cable features five magnets throughout its 1m length allowing it to securely adhere to any magnet or magnetic metal.

So does it work? Absolutely it does. I have a steel frame desk and usually have my iPhone on the lower right hand corner. The Rivet Charge keeps the cable right where I need it to be. Not only does this allow for routing, you can also coil up the cable if you don’t need the full length/ The magnets are ridiculously strong. Strong enough where I’m able to get the magnetic mount that comes with the cable to defy gravity and fly up at the cable at at close to 1cm. My only qualm is that there aren’t more magnets for even more flexibility.

As cable, I had no qualm about the Rivet Charge. It sends both power and data like an MFi cable should. Like the Titan, the innovative nature of the Rivet Charge comes at a price. $34.95 to be exact. This makes it one of the more expensive cables on the market, especially at the 1m length. If you do spend the money, you will not regret it.

Where to Buy

Fuse Chicken Products are available at their website, Amazon, and some leading retail chains.

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Deconstruct WWDC Post Mortem Special Announcement (Update: Rescheduled 06/28)

This Wednesday at 4pm EDT, join Ben and whatever panel he can get together to talk about the developments that took place after Apple’s WWDC 2017 developers conference. Link to the hangout will be private. DM Ben (@BenRoethig) on Twitter if you would like to join.

You can access the show notes here.

Update:
Due to unforeseen internet connection issues, tomorrow’s special episode is postponed.

Update:
The Hangout is Rescheduled for net Wednesday June 28th at 4EDT.

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WWDC 2017: The Hardware Barrage of iMacs, MacBooks, iPads, and HomePods

WWDC 2017: The Hardware Barrage of iMacs, MacBooks, iPads, and HomePods

Make no mistake, WWDC is Apple’s developers conference. Its primary mission is announcing what’s coming next to Apple’s operating system line up. That said, hardware is not out of the question. This year’s keynote had an unusually large amount of hardware across 5 different product categories. Three of those were completely new or radically redesigned. With as Mac focused as it was, we’ll start there.

MacBook


The big redesign updates to Apple’s notebook range happened in 2015 and 2016. 2017 is spec upgrade to Intel’s latest 7th Generation Kaby Lake Core CPUs. The 12-inch MacBook remains the only Mac in Apple’s lineup to use USB-C only instead of USB-C + Thunderbolt 3. Its price also remains the same. However, its specs are now worthy of its price tag with a very useable 8GB of memory and a 256GB hard drive. Unlike the 11” MacBook Air, this can be your everyday computer.

The low end model comes with 256GB of SSD storage and a 1.2ghz dual core Core m3 for $1299 while the high end model has a 1.3ghz Core i5, and 512GB of storage. Both have 8GB of Low Profile DDR3 memory and Intel HD 615 Graphics. Both models are now shipping.

MacBook Pro


Like its little brother, the 13 and 15 inch MacBook Pros got an upgrade to Kaby Lake. With the exception of a new 13” 128GB model to effectively replace the low end 13” MacBook Air, there is not a whole lot different from the 2016 models except for CPUs and graphics. Same configurations, same price points, same storage options, same upper limit of 16GB DDR3. For 2017 the 13” models come with Iris Plus 640 and 650 integrated graphics while the 15” models get your choice of a 2GB AMD Radeon Pro 555 or 4GB Radeon Pro 560.

The Non-Touch Bar 13” has a 2.3ghz Dual Core i5 CPU and gives you your choice of 128GB of storage for $1299 or $256 for $1499. The Touch Bar 13” comes with 3.1ghz Core i5 in $1799 for 256gb or $1999 for 512GB. The 15” model comes in at $2399 for a 2.8ghz Quad core i7, 256GB of storage, and the 2GB Radeon Pro 555. The higher end model comes with a 2.9ghz CPU, the Pro 560, and 512GB of storage. Addition options are available BTO. They ship today.

iMac


All ranges of the iMac got their first big update in quite a while. Like the MacBooks, they get Kaby Lake, albeit of the desktop variety. They come in 3 Different models: 21.5” Full HD, 21.5” 4K, and 27” 5k. All models of the iMac have been upgraded with modern I/O. No matter what model you choose, you get 4 USB 3.1 Type-A connectors and two Thunderbolt 3 ports as well as a SDXC slot, Gigabit ether, and the standard 3.5mm headphone jack. With the exception of the Full HD model which has the Intel Iris Plus 640, all iMacs for 2017 come with dedicated Radeon Pro 500-series graphics. The 21.5” 4K model gives you the choose of the Radeon Pro 555 or 560; the 27” 5K offers the Radeon Pro 570, 575, and 580. The displays are 43% brighter than previous models and display up to 1 billion colors.

The new iMacs are shipping now. The Full HD model starts at a very affordable $1099 while $200 more gets you the entry level 4k iMac. The 27” 5K starts at $1799, BTO options give you up to 32GB of storage and 1TB of SSD storage or 2TB of fusion drive storage.

iMac Pro


If you want the Trash Can Mac Pro in an iMac, your wish has been granted in the iMac Pro. This Space Gray Beauty shares its screen and looks with the 27” 5k iMac, but that’s all it shares. Internally, its pure workstation. The iMac Pro gives you the option of 8, 10, or even 18-core Xeon CPUs. Ram has a very tower-like 128GB maximum of 2666mhz DDR4 error correcting memory. Storage is all SSD with up to 4TB. Graphics are provided by workstation class Radeon Vega-series chips with up to 16GB of video memory. While the normal iMac had 2 Thunderbolt Ports, the Pro doubles it to 4. Those four can drive up to two additional 5K displays in addition to its own. To top it off, the iMac Pro comes standard with 10 gig-E ethernet.

In short, this is not an iMac pretending to be a workstation. Quite the opposite, its a workstation trying to pose as an iMac. When shipping it also has a workstation level starting price: $4999. It’ll come in December. Make no mistake, this is the fastest and most advanced computer Apple has ever made.

iPad Pro


The iMac Pro wasn’t the only Pro model Apple’s introduce today. The iPad Pro got an update as well. Both models were upgraded with the 6-Core A10X fusion system on chip with 12-core GPU and high end displays with ProMotion technology for an an active refresh rate up to 120hz. the iPad Pro comes in two sizes: the 12.9” starting at a familiar $799 and a 10.5” model replacing the 9.7” for $649. The larger display on the smaller model allows for a full size on screen keyboard and distances itself from the consumer model. Like pretty much everything else, you can get your hands on them now.

HomePod


Rumors of Apple’s competitor to the Amazon Echo and Google Home proved to be true in the form of the Apple HomePod. As expected, the HomePod is based around Apple Music, Siri, and HomeKit functionality.

In both price and feature set, this a more high end device. The HomePod features a 7 tweeter array with custom woofer for 360° sound. For listening, there is a similar array of 6 microphones. Apple is targeting at those who want the high end sound of a Sonos system with the functionality of an Echo. Basically if you’ve used one of those or Siri at all, you know how to use a HomePod, the big difference is security. Apple doesn’t monetize data, so they submit yours anonymously.

To accomplish this, its smart. Really smart. HomePod is able to sense the room and its position in it then modify its sound output to give optimal sound for the room. Its even able to work with other HomePods to optimize sound. To achieve this, its based around the same A8 chip that you find in older iPhones and the AppleTV.

I hinted at a premium price, I wasn’t joking. At $349, its double of the price of an Echo. It’ll ship in December.

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WWDC 2017: iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and other Software News

Today was Apple’s annual WWDC conference. As expected they had some major… and minor news for their big 4 platforms: macOS, iOS, watchOS and tvOS. Let’s take a look at what was announced.

macOS 10.13 High Sierra

Yes, I’m going go get this out front: yes, Apple made a weed joke about macOS High Sierra being full baked. Its not only mildly funny, its also accurate. Like Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion before it, High Sierra’s major changes are under the hood where the end user doesn’t seem them. There are big changes to the file system, graphics, and more.

APFS

High Sierra marks the end of the line for the Hierarchical File System (HFS). It was introduced back in 1985 with the Mac System 2.1. It has been upgraded in the form of HFS+ and has held up surprisingly compared to its contemporary FAT. That said, it wasn’t designed for modern flash based storage. It first saw the light of data with iOS 10 and now is the standard file system for the Mac. I won’t go into the nuts and bolts as file systems aren’t sexy to the end user, but it will be a beneficial change that will hopefully underpin Apple for the next 22 years.

H.265 HEVC

Video files are huge. Not just in terms of popularity, but in terms of file size. H.265 uses compression technology that shrinks down file size by up to 40%. For the end user, that means that streaming 4K uses less bandwidth and less of your data cap for both mobile and broadband connection. It also means that downloaded movies will use up significantly less storage space. Essentially HVEC brings 4K to the masses. Expect to hear more in the next few months.

Metal 2 and VR

Apple’s history with graphics technology has been less than stellar. OpenGL was routinely years behind and poorly implemented. As a result, the Mac suffered on gaming and other graphics intensive programs. Metal was a major step in the right direction. The developers who ported their apps to it say major performance gains over OpenGL. However, too few took advantage. Apple is going all in with Metal 2 and making improvements and optimizations that will improve speed and hopefully make Metal the graphics system for developers going forward.

Metal 2 coincides with the addition of system-level hardware support for two types devices users have been asking for. First, High Sierra will officially support external graphics solutions via Thunderbolt 3. There are no shortage of manufacturers out there making PCIe to Thunderbolt boxes out there and they allow any Mac with Thunderbolt 3 access to even Nvidia and AMD’s most high graphics cards. Also announced was support for VR. Valve SteamVR and HTC Vive are specifically mentioned and VR development tools are coming as well. Apple is also adding a patch to FCPX for VR video output.

Apple is also launching a developer Kit for external graphics which includes a PCI-E chassis and Radeon RX 580 8GB card as well as a USB-C hub for $599. Considering the price of both external enclosures and the RX580 cards, That’s actually a pretty competitive price for what you get.

Everything Else

The system apps are getting some minor changes as well. The biggest and probably most welcome is with the Photos apps which allows editing apps like Pixelmator or Photoshop to launch within Photos and work with your library, There are also minor updates to Safari, Mail, iCloud Drive, and more.

Availability:

Look, we aren’t even going to talk pricing here because you know damn well its a free upgrade. The final version will ship this fall with the public beta launching later in June.

Source: [Apple}(https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/macos-high-sierra-delivers-advanced-technologies-for-storage-video-and-graphics/)

iOS 11

iOS is now Apple’s most popular and flagship product. Its also the one with the most growth opportunity as mobile’s not as mature a market as computers. Apple has continued to drop a wealth of new features with iOS 11.

The iPad

There has been talk that the last few years have been iPhone-centric when it comes to the iPad and there is some truth to that. For 2017, the iPac is back in force. The Dock and app switcher have been redesigned to make them more powerful and a lot more like macOS and there’s a new files app that combines iCloud Drive as well as DropBox and other cloud platforms into a system level storage apparatus. Files that were once locked down by iOS are now wide open while still being safe. The Apple Pencil app is now full baked into the OS and Notes are usable from the lock screen. This makes the iPad the paper notebook replacement it was meant to be.

Control Center and Lock Screen

iOS 10 introduced a new 3-pane lock screen giving you Home and Music access without ever having to get into your phone. iOS 11 brings this back to a single pane, but keeps the expanded functionality. It uses 3D Touch to allow users to expand what each pane grouping can do beyond basic controls.. 3D Touch is limited to the 6S and 7-series devices so, for owners of the 6, 5S, and SE, there may be a degraded capability depending on how they handle it. On iPads, they use the expanded screen real estate to get the full functionality.

Notifications and the lock screen are now one and the same and you get the same exact functionality here, complete with widget and camera access no matter if you device is locked or not.

Camera

The biggest changes in Camera with iOS 11 are in file formats. Video now uses the HEVC that was talked about on the Mac. There is a still picture counterpart called the High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF). The question with HEIF and HVEC is compatibility with other platforms and services as well as older devices. Live photos get an upgrade allowing for. Loop and Bounce effects to create GIF-like images. You’re also able to now choose any frame within the live photo as the still picture . Lastly, there is a new form of automatic movies called Memories created from similar content on your phone.

ARKit

Just as VR is being integrated into the Mac, ARKit brings system level Augmented reality onto iOS allowing full access to hardware. This allows developers to make a far better AR experience than iOS currently enjoys.

##Siri
Siri was the original system level personal assistant and it keeps a major update for Apple’s platforms this time around. The voices have been overhauled for a more natural and less robotic tone. Like Cortana and Alex, the new Siri employs machine learning to tailor responses based on usage. Unlike the competition, Apple has no design to monetize this and keeps your results secure on device. SiriKit expands the tasks that Siri can perform. The Machine Learning that powers the new Siri is also available to developers in the form of CoreML.

Home and Music.

Home Automation and Music may seem like strange bedfellows, but in iOS 11 they are very much intertwined. Airplay2 integrates into HomeKit and the Home app giving you multi-room audio with Siri support. HomeKit also adds additional device types and functions to the mix and makes it easier for developers to integrate existing devices and get them certified.

Apple Music has new social media functions allowing people to share music. There’s also a new API called MusicKit allow the full power of Apple music in third party applications. There would no longer need any reader to go outside of your workout app or game to access your full AppleMusic catalog. This basically replaces an older and more limited iTunes integration.

Apple Pay

Apple Pay expands person to person in iOS 11. If you want to know how this works, use Vemo or Square Cash because its pretty much the same thing. In fact, the name of the place you receive is called your “Apple Pay Cash Account”, You can use funds added to this account for payment or you can send it back to your bank account. There’s even a Messages widget that automatically determines if you need to pay someone and suggests itself. There is also Siri support.

Do Not Disturb While Driving

This might not be the most popular feature in iOS 11, but I would argue its the most necessary. DND while Driving detects while your in a car through several methods and shuts down your notifications while you drive. The screen even goes black and gives you the option to send an auto message to tell your contacts that you’ll text them back. If you are a passenger, there is a button to say I’m not driving, but please take a hint and don’t use this while driving you’ll be putting somebody else’s life at risk.

App Store and Others

The App Store gets a major makeover based on the design of Apple Music. Apps and Games are now separate panes and its easier to get to in-app purchases for Apps your already have. The App Store for Messages as also had a redesign.

Rounding things out are indoor maps for major shopping centers, airports, and lane guidance. Apple News is now personalized using machine learning. There has also been updates to the keyboard

Availability

As with macOS High Sierra, iOS 11 will be free and ship this fall. There is also a public beta coming at the end of the month.

Source: Apple

watchOS 4

watchOS 4 continues to refine and enhance the Core functions of the Apple Watch. This year’s improvements make it an ever increasingly useful accessory to your iPhone.

Fitness and Health

The biggest improvements in watchOS 4 have to do with health and fitness. Chiefly is communication with outside devices. Introduced with the new OS is GymKit which uses the NFC to pair and provide two-way communication with exercise equipment computers. The equipment gets your Apple Watches’s sensors and the Watch gets the data from the equipment allowing for a single dataset. Apple already has support from several major exercise equipment companies. There is also enhanced compatibility with connected health devices, like continuous glucose meters.

The Workout and Activity apps have received upgrades to better switch between workouts on a single session. The Activity App also has personalized goal messages very reminiscent of the fitness app Human.

Watch Faces and Siri

The biggest news about watch faces is what watchOS still does not have: any ability to add third-party faces. For a device that is supposed to be highly personalized, the lack of a FaceKit seems out of place. If you want something different, you’re stuck with Nike or Hermes editions.

For the faces that we actually have to choose from, there are three new types. The most interesting one is the proactive Siri Face that uses the same machine learning as on iOS 11 to constantly update you with relevant data. You automatically get reminds, calendar events, location/ time specific items like boarding passes, traffic info, or HomeKit scenes. If that’s not your scenes, there are Toy Story themed character faces in the form of Woody, Buzz, and Jessie. There’s also a colorful kaleidoscope face. All faces get new access to complications for Now Playing and Apple News

Availability

watchOS 4 comes will come out later in 2011. Unlike iOS and macOS, there will not be a public beta.

Source: Apple

tvOS

There is a reason tvOS is last. It was basically a giant IOU. Apple announced two things: That Amazon was thankfully and finally releasing their Prime Video platform on tv and that sometime later, presumably in the fall, they would be talking about tvOS. That would presumably come with new hardware. Until then, it’s business as usual.

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Nvidia to Launch Beta Mac Drivers for 10 Series GPUs

Nvidia made a surprise announcement this week. No, its not that TITAN Xp graphics card. Yes, it will definitely appeal to serious gamers with near unlimited budgets, but let’s be honest, Nvidia one-ups itself on a fairly regular basis. The real shocker is the other announcement that came with it: Nividia would be releasing beta Mac drivers for its GeForce 10-series chips based around its Pascal architecture.

Nvidia has released its own Mac drivers in the past. The MacBook Pro I’m currently using is using the Nvidia driver rather than Apple’s own. The interesting part is that the newest official Apple machines capable of using these cards are the 5,1 model Mac Pros released in the middle of 2010 and updated in 2012. These machines are nearing the end of their lifespan, have outdated I/O and honestly, the owners are not likely to upgrade them with modern video cards. These cards are not meant for the Mac Pro.

Where does this leave us? With two very grey markets. The first is Hackintoshes. While not a huge market, Apple’s lack of a up to date tower has left some niches of Mac users to take matters into their own hands and install MacOS onto DIY computer hardware. Since Intel’s desktop and mobile platforms usually share an architecture, and thusly drivers, its possible to make some fairly update to date and power homemade Mac clones. There are plenty of resources on the web, so I’m not going to tell you how. The one catch has been the graphics cards. Since Nvidia has fallen out of favor with Apple as of late, there have been no shipping Macs or graphics card beyond the 900 series. The Pascal drivers allow those Hackintoshes the latest and greatest 10-series cards in Nvidia’s stables.

Hackintoshes aren’t the only Macs the could benefit from the 10-series. With the advent of Thunderbolt 3, external GPU solutions for laptops are finally accessible. Not only that, but since the bus is bidirectional, TB3 can allow the eGPU to use your laptop’s own screen. There’s two catches. 1) The external enclosures tend to cost almost as much as the graphics cards themselves. This isn’t an option for the faint of budget at the moment. 2) Apple does not support external graphics options officially or otherwise. While there are options to enable external graphics support through terminal commands, if you fry your new $2500 MacBook Pro, you’re on your own.

All the grey areas aside, Nividia making these cards available to Mac users willing to live on the wild side is an exiting development. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes

Source: Nvidia

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Editorial: Apple Changes Course on Mac Pro After Missing With Current Generation

By 2012, Apple’s Mac Pro was getting long in the tooth. It was gigantic and made of old tech. The limitations of the big, old cheese grater case it inherited by the Power Mac G5 were apparent and it kept getting more expensive. Apple did something very odd, they pre-announced they were working on a replacement and in late 2013, they announced the new from the ground up Mac Pro.

The new Mac Pro was a marvel of design. It featured a cylindrical design built around a massive heat radiation system. It was the smallest professional workstation ever built. It… well, was massively over engineered in a way that nobody asked for. It featured one CPU slot instead of two, requiring more expensive CPUs. There were only 4 DIMM slots for Ram. Instead of the multiple 3.5” bays, there was a single proprietary SSD similar to the then year old Retina MacBook Pros. It had two video cards and neither were upgradable.

Apple bet the farm on Thunderbolt 2 expandability and that professional users were be wowed by the technology of the new machine. They were wrong on both accounts. While the new Mac Pro was and is one of the most visually stunning desktops ever made and an absolute marvel of engineering, it never understood its audience and expected a glut of third party expansion options that never came. As a result, combined with to rocky transition to Final Cut X, many of the video pros to look at other options in the Windows world and even Hackintosh routes. Other than a surprise update this week, the new and improved Mac Pro never got a second chance and was basically the redheaded stepchild of Apple’s lineup.

Apple, thankfully, seemingly understands that it went down the wrong path, admitting to Daring Fireball and other invited media outlets that the second generation Mac Pro is not the machine they need. In addition to its expansion woes, it turns out the Mac Pro was basically built thermally for the hardware that it came with. Apple has had issues with newer, hotter processors and graphics chips that have made any further upgrades nearly impossible. So, the corresponding upgrade is its swan song. However, its not the end of the road for the Mac Pro name. Like with this one, Apple has essentially pre-announced that a third generation Mac Pro is being developed.

So, what will this new Mac Pro be? The short answer is we don’t. Phil Schiller used the term “modular”, but that can mean a few different things. Conservatively, it could be another tower like the previous iterations of the Mac Pro and Power Mac line. It would give professionals the expandability they were looking for and I wouldn’t blame them for going to a known quantity. However, that doesn’t quite seem like Apple. When they say modular, I am disposed to take them at their word and am intrigued to see what form that takes, especially when paired with Thunderbolt 3 technology for external storage, PCI-E expansion, or even graphics cards.

Apple isn’t only resting its pro ambitions on the Mac Pro. They also gave word of a new generation iMac that would further encroach on the pro space. While the all in one will not fit all the former Mac Pro users, Apple is correct that some could and have already gone that route. Updating with the latest CPUs and I/O will make what is an already capable lineup even more so. And for those wondering, yes Apple still has plans for the Mac Mini as well.

This little Apple Q&A is that the demise of Apple’s desktop options are greatly exaggerated. I can’t tell you if the next generation of solutions will match the questions, but we know Apple is at least trying. For a company whose aim is to change the world, not drift with it, mistakes can and will be made. It’s moving forward after those mistakes and learning form them that counts.

Source: Daring Fireball