Has it ever happened to you that Apple’s Notes just stopped syncing reliably via iCloud?

For me it happens like this: the Mac stops uploading local changes to some notes to iCloud, so I don’t see them on my phone. I know that the problem is really in uploading from the Mac because the web version of iCloud continues to sync normally with my iPhone. Also, the new notes that I create on the phone, appear on my Mac.

You may have found several fix suggestions online, most futile. Signing off iCloud and then signing back on helps, but this way you lose all the local changes that haven’t been uploaded to iCloud.

What I’ve found to be a working and safe solution is to select the “All iCloud” folder in Notes, then sort notes by date changed, then move all the notes that hadn’t been uploaded to iCloud to the “On My Mac” account (you must enable it in Preferences) and then move them back to the iCloud account.

In The best laptop ever made, Marco Arment outlines just how great the previous-generation MacBook Pros were. He does not say this directly, but obviously alludes to the multiple problems with the current MacBook Pros.

Really, almost all changes in the new MacBook Pros made them worse: unreliable keyboard, no useful ports, no MagSafe, worse battery life under load. All this with no meaningful improvements to performance. And nobody seems to care about the Touch Bar.

I don’t know whether Apple internally even think they’ve made a mistake with the 2016 design, but let’s pretend they do. If they just go back to the 2012 design next year, they will thus admit they’ve screwed up with the design. And that’s not what Apple usually does. But the 2012 design with the newer guts is what the market wants — at least until Apple comes up with a design that is actually better, and that takes time.

So how can they both satisfy the market and preserve face?

They still sell new 2012-design MacBook Pros. I think they will continue to do so, and will update those machines. Maybe they will rebrand them as “Classic” to contrast with the “Touch Bar” models, at least when they talk about them.

So, in year 2018 we may see updates to both lines. The Classic MacBook Pros could get faster processors, better displays and a couple of USB-C ports. The Touch Bar MacBook Pros could get a reliable keyboard, and to make them look super-cool, maybe, Face ID, if that’s not too early.

And by the year 2020 or so Apple will hopefully do another redesign, and we’ll see if it’s good enough to finally abandon the Classic line.

In some cases an app on your Mac would hang: the mouse cursor would turn into a spinning beach ball, and the app would ignore all clicks and key presses. If this doesn’t cure itself in a couple of seconds, there’s not much you can do other than to force quit the app and re-launch it.

Except that sometimes you can. Open Activity Monitor and select the hung app in the list. It’s shown in red as “not responding”. Then click the gear icon and select “Sample Process”:

If you are lucky, the app would just magically un-hang!

I have no idea what this feature is for, and it doesn’t always work. But if the app’s data is very valuable to you, you don’t just want to give up and force quit it. So you can try this. I’ve saved a couple of Photoshop files this way.

Reminders is one of buggiest apps Apple has ever made. Sometimes it forgets to remind, sometimes it reminds twice. It cannot sync anything between Macs, iOS devices and the watch. And now, it decided to remind me of five things:

Thanks, I guess.

Wow! Finder in Sierra has finally learnt to put folders on top:

Let’s say you’ve right-clicked the Mail.app’s dock icon and want to write a new mail:

Why, why is the menu item called “Compose New Message”? Why does it say “Compose”? No sane person would ever say: “Honey, I need to compose a message”.

In every other app on Earth there is no verb before “New”. Just “New Window” in Safari. Just “New Event” in Calendar. Heck, in iMessage it is just “New Message”. Who does Apple make me spend several seconds trying to find the line I need in Mail.app? This is one of those things you cannot get used to.

Watch this video. I am almost as excited about the stuff they show as the audience:

I think the 2007 iPhone demo will look impressive even in thirty years.