I’m just on the way home from finally seeing Lion King at the theatre. It was one of my favourite movies growing up, so it certainly had a lot to live up to.

In general I think that it was pretty good, there were some bits that were really enjoyable, and others not so much.

My favourite characters were easily Rafiki and Pumba, because they seemed the most “realistic”, and the songs seemed to be near original with them.

What I didn’t like was when scenes were added or removed. I understand that it may be slightly different, but there was a 2/3 minute scene that just wasn’t in the film. A slightly smaller example is when Timone and Pumba are tasked with distracting the Hyenas, instead of the little song and dance I remember from the movies, there was some random Irish dancing?

Of course there was some Frozen references, but I guess we can’t escape that anymore.

So as I said before, it was pretty good.

I would encourage people to see it, but I don’t think I’ll be going a second time.o

Apple have today (24th January 2017) released the first beta of iOS 10.3 to developers. I am of course putting this on my iPad and iPhone, so I will keep updating this post with anything new I find.

Apple File System

Apple File System (Wiki) is a file system that is currently being made by Apple for macOS, iOS, tvOS, and watchOS. However since announcing it in mid 2016, I haven’t seen any more information about it.

But in the first build of iOS 10.3, your iOS devices will be converted to the new file system, so it’s probably best that you do a backup before you upgrade any devices.

Find My AirPods Has Been Sherlocked

Since the AirPods came out, there was a few apps that helped you find them, seeing as they are pretty easy to lose! However they have now been sherlocked, as you can now use Apple’s Find My iPhone app to find them, and even play a sound.

Asking for App Store Rating and Reviews

A new way for developers to ask for ratings and reviews inside apps has been introduced, with the SKStoreReviewController (Currently not resolving) API.

More details from The Loop:

Apple is also limiting the amount of times developers can ask customers for reviews. Developers will only be able to bring up the review dialog three times a year. If a customer has rated the app, they will not be prompted again. If a customer has dismissed the review prompt three times, they will not be asked to review the app for another year.

Customers will also have a master switch that will turn off the notifications for app reviews from all developers, if they wish to do that. – The Loop

Responding to Reviews on the App Store

This is pretty huge, when iOS 10.3 ships, you will be able to respond to reviews on the App Store! The responses will be public, and even the Mac App Store is getting support!

New Profile Section In Settings

At the top of the Settings app, there is now a profile section which makes it easier to quickly find important information.

Firstly, you can change your Name, what phone numbers/email addresses you are contactable at, date of birth, and then a few settings for whether you want to be notified by Apple News, Apple Music, etc.

Then there is the Password & Security section, where you an obviously change your password. But you can also control your two-factor authentication from here, and change your trusted phone number. If you’re trying to verify another Apple device to your iCloud account, then you can request a verification code here as well.

After that there is the Payment & Shipping section, where you can choose your default payment method, and address for when purchasing items from iTunes, iCloud, Apple Store, etc.

You can also navigate to the iCloud, iTunes & App Store, and Family Sharing settings from the same page.

Finally, this section also shows you a list of what devices are currently registered to your iCloud account. And if you select one of them, you can configure Find My iPhone/iPad/Watch, iCloud Backup, and even remove Apple Pay cards from them.

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As mentioned above, this post will regularly update as I find out more information on the latest Beta.

Latest Update: 24th January 2017

I’ve seen a few people have issues regarding opening applications that they have downloaded from the internet, that they get the error below, about it being from an unidentified developer.

This is due to the latest security settings in macOS, and these are accessible in the Security & Privacy pane in System Preferences.

There are two options to choose from:

• App Store
• App Store and identified developers

Of course the top option means you can only open applications distributed from the Mac App Store. But the other one means it allows all apps from the Mac App Store, and also any developers that have signed their application with Apple’s “Developer ID” certificate. This allows developers to distribute their apps outside of the store, but also maintain the same security features, and trust level as the former option.

You can read more about Developer ID on the Apple Developer website.

There is also a temporary solution, which lets you override the security settings on a case by case basis. Just press “Open Anyway” at the bottom of the preferences pane, and it will then open like normal!

Edit (14th January 2017):

My friend Cesare let me know that you can also unlock a third option, this let’s you choose “Anywhere” in the preferences, and will let you download and open any application without restriction.

To unlock it, just open Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal) and enter the following line exactly:

sudo spctl --master-disable

If you want to return it back to normal, just enter the following:

sudo spctl --master-enable

We would like to welcome Chris Lattner, who will join Tesla as our Vice President of Autopilot Software. Chris’s reputation for engineering excellence is well known. He comes to Tesla after 11 years at Apple where he was primarily responsible for creating Swift, the programming language for building apps on Apple platforms and one of the fastest growing languages for doing so on Linux. Prior to Apple, Chris was lead author of the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure, an open source umbrella project that is widely used in commercial products and academic research today. – Tesla Blog

Elon Musk: "Do you want to sell sugar water compilers for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?"

I’ve just found IINA on Product Hunt, which in my opinion shows great potential to be the video player for macOS.

Of course as I’m currently writing this, it is only v0.0.1 build 1, so there’s going to be some bugs, and maybe a few missing features. But this is one hell of a first build.

Here are the features from the GitHub page:

• Based on mpv, a powerful media player
• Designed for modern macOS (10.10+)
• User-friendly interface
• All the features you need for videos, audios and subtitles
• Supported basic playlist and chapters
• MPV config files and script system are available for advanced users
• Written in Swift, followed up on new technologies like Touch Bar
• Still in active development

The best bit in my opinion, is the video, audio, and subtitle controls you get. It’s such a simple aesthetic, but it certainly packs in some power!

Here are some screenshots:

You can check out IINO on the website, or on GitHub!

Who would of expected this?

The Model S P100D with Ludicrous mode is the third fastest accelerating production car ever produced, with a 0-60 mph time of 2.5* seconds. However, both the LaFerrari and the Porsche 918 Spyder were limited run, million dollar vehicles and cannot be bought new. While those cars are small two seaters with very little luggage space, the pure electric, all-wheel drive Model S P100D has four doors, seats up to 5 adults plus 2 children and has exceptional cargo capacity.

Read More

A lot of people write long year in review blog posts, so I also decided to do one as well. But it was also beneficial for myself, as it seems I did a lot more this year than I thought I did!

Projects

Qwiki

Qwiki is an app for macOS, that let’s you search directly and view Wikipedia articles, directly in your menu bar. It also has sharing and export options, but that’s basically what it is.

Now in version 1.3, the app has come a long way. And it is my first proper app, meaning I spent longer in development, I had a beta testing stage, and then I actually marketed the app. I learned a lot from this project, and it’s my best app to date.

Website
App Store

ChrisHannah.me

I think I may of owned this domain before 2016, but this was the year it finally got sorted out.

This website serves as my “About Me” page on the internet, a place where you can find general information, my past work, and also how to contact me.

I initially wrote about it in September, but it has been radically changed since then.

Website

Pixels Sticker Pack

When iOS 10 (X) came out, I knew I had to create an iMessage Sticker Pack myself. So I put my pixel art skills to the test, and created Pixels Sticker Pack!

Blog Post
App Store

CH Uploads

Another small project came later in the year, and it was the result of being bored in my university classes. This time it was a basic image/video upload manager, that was built with PHP and MySQL.

Blog Post
GitHub

Tap Gap

Again, I got bored at university. But this time I made a little game! More specifically an iPhone game, where you need to tap the screen when the line is inside the gap.

Blog Post
App Store

Devices

Two of my main devices received a pretty big update this year:

• iPhone 7 Plus
• MacBook Pro (Touch Bar!) – Initial Blog Post / My Review

Writing

I write a lot on my blog, but this year I got a few opportunities (Although very similar 😉) to write on other peoples blogs:

• MacSparky – HOME SCREENS – CHRISTOPHER HANNAH
• MacStories Weekly – My Home Screen

I also started a weekly newsletter, which was fun when it started. But after a few weeks, I couldn’t think of anything interesting to write. So this was unfortunately stopped. Here is the first issue that went out, which I’m still pretty pleased with.

I also wrote about Apple’s “Hello Again” event, where they announced the pretty nifty MacBook Pro that I’m currently writing this post on. It was a while since I did a post like this, since covering loads of Apple events when I wrote AppRecap.

Travelling

Although I started the year just coming back from Italy, I didn’t actually do much travelling in 2016.

However in the summer I did take a two-week trip to Crete!

YouTube

I’ve had a YouTube Channel for a long time, but this year I eventually started watching loads more videos. And this got me even to create a few myself:

• Typing Noises – MacBook Pro 2011 vs Wireless Keyboard vs MacBook Pro 2016
• A Few Seconds With Touch Bar Piano
• Touch Bar Apps

So I made another video!

It shows a few of the many Touch Bar apps that have been released, but these ones are clearly the best 😉.

Thanks to Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia (The Emoji Guru), here is a video of all the new emoji in the latest iOS 10.2 update:

Showing every new emoji that came out for iPhone on December 12, 2016. New in this update is face palm, shrug, tuxedo man, selfie, butterfly, black heart and ROFL, and more.

To read more about these new emojis, check out the post on Emojipedia.

I’ve got a lot of books, and the majority of them I never read. There’s old iOS development books, biographies, Minecraft guides (not even because I needed them), you get the picture. They of course don’t include the enormous collection on iBooks, but I tend to actually read them.

Well I’ve just went through the collection, and picked out 8 that I plan on reading next. I must admit it’s a strange bunch, but there’s a lot of variation, and maybe it will keep me interested.

So here’s a list of them all, including links where you can get them yourself!

Title	Author	Status
Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade	Guy Browning	Not Read
Beyond Good and Evil	Friedrich Nietzsche	Peeked Inside
The Martian	Andy Weir	Half Read
Ready Player One	Ernest Clyne	Not Read
Neutrino	Frank Close	Peeked Inside
Decoding Reality	Vlatko Vedral	Not Read
Fantastic Beasts (The Original Screenplay)	J.K. Rowling	Not Read
Elon Musk	Ashlee Vance	Half Read

That may give you an insight into what I’m interested in, but I can assure you, I’ve read even much weirder.

First up, I think I’m going to finish The Martian^[1].

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1. Oh shit, it’s 1am. Maybe no reading tonight. ↩︎