Apple Archives - A Leslie Wong Blog

September 25, 2019March 31, 2023

iPhone 11 Pro Camera Lenses – Focal Length Comparison

Apple iPhone 11 Pro lenses (Photo: Apple Inc)

The iPhone 11 Pro phones come with triple 12MP Ultra Wide, Wide, and Telephoto cameras. The iPhone focal length of the lenses are 1.54mm, 4.25mm and 6mm. Their 35mm equivalent focal lengths are 13mm, 26mm, and 52mm, respectively. Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel gives a great explanation of the different effects of wide, normal and telephoto lenses.

iPhone 11 Pro Max Ultra Wide Camera – lens focal length 1.54mm (35mm equivalent: 13mm)

iPhone 11 Pro Max Wide Camera – lens focal length 4.25mm (35mm equivalent: 26mm)

iPhone 11 Pro Max Telephoto Camera – lens focal length 6mm (35mm equivalent: 52mm)

In the late 1970’s, I used the Nikon 13mm f5.6 lens on the Nikon F2 camera. The Nikon 13mm lens had a 118 degree angle of view and in its time, it was remarkable in that it was a rectilinear lens. The extreme angle of view opened up new creative possibilities in all types of photography including indoor, architectural and landscape photography.

The iPhone 11 Pro’s Ultra Wide camera angle of view is 120 degrees. When using the Wide and Telephoto cameras with iOS 13.1 camera app, the Ultra Wide lens enables a preview of what is outside the frame. This outside the frame information is also captured in the Wide and Telephoto cameras to enable post processing cropping without losing image information. This setting can be enabled in Settings -> Camera -> Photos Capture Outside the Frame.

iOS 13.1 Camera App screen – Ultra Wide field of view (Photo: Apple Inc)

July 1, 2019March 11, 2022

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012) SSD Upgrade

In 2012, the MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012) with a 256GB SSD sold for $2399. A speed bump to a 2.6 GHz Core i7 and a larger 512 GB SSD was $3099. That’s $700 for a modest CPU speed bump and an extra 256 GB of storage. I was always constrained for disk space on my MacBook Pro’s 256GB SSD because I use Boot Camp and rEFInd to run macOS betas and Windows 10 Insider Previews.

I knew that my MacBook Pro Retina (Mid 2012) used a proprietary storage drive connector, but until recently, I didn’t know that a standard mSATA drive could be used in it with an adapter.

I bought this SHINESTAR mSATA to A1398 Adapter and this Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB mSATA for about $180 and I had 1 TB of internal storage.

If you want to use the SSD drive you just removed from your Macbook as a backup drive or other external storage, the easiest solution is to just buy the $59 OWC Envoy Pro case for your SSD.

iFixit has a guide to replacing the SSD in the MacBook Pro 15″ Retina (Mid 2012). It’s a simple five minute process.

Why did I upgrade a seven year old MacBook Pro? My MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012) was one of the first MacBook Pros with a Retina display. I bought it because of the Retina display and the quad core Core i7 (I7-3615QM), The third generation Intel Core processor, “Ivy Bridge,” has a 6MB cache on the CPU.

The Geekbench 4 (MC) score on the Everymac.com page for this computer is 10578. That Geekbench score is 30% faster than the latest 2018 MacBook Air – 7379. Even up to the Apple MacBook Pro “Core i7″ 2.8 15” Touch/Mid-2017, the Geekbench score was less than 14% faster (12069) the 2012 MBPr.

It wasn’t until the the 6 core processors debuted in the Macbook Pros Apple MacBook Pro “Core i7″ 2.2 15” Touch/2018 did the Geekbench (MC) score double – 21111.

March 27, 2019March 11, 2022

Macbook Keyboard Rivets

TLDR: can’t remove rivets; glue the new keyboard in with a medium thickness cyanoacrylate

The spilled coffee on my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012) disabled only one key on the keyboard. Unfortunately, it was the power button. I confirmed that my MacBook Pro wasn’t completely dead by shorting the pads on the system board that I found on insidemylaptop.com.

The top case (which includes the keyboard and trackpad) of the MacBook Pro can be replaced, with new parts on eBay that cost about $100. I also found that the just the keyboard can be purchased on eBay for about $20.

I used iFixit’s MacBook Pro 15″ Retina Display Mid 2012 Upper Case Assembly Replacement guide to disassemble the computer, then found some YouTube videos detailing ripping out the old keyboard.

The problem for me was when I pulled the old keyboard away from the top case, the rivets remained in the case. I later thought that pulling on the keyboard very sharply when I removed it would have pulled the rivets out too.

There were screws included with my replacement keyboard but the now the problem was how to remove the rivets from the top case. I found various solutions that included drilling them out, using a screwdriver and hammer to pry them out and removing the rivets by pulling them out with diagonal flush side cutters. The latter seemed like the best solution, except that I didn’t have that tool.

It then occurred to me that Apple reparability scores were always very low because they glued everything together. So, I decided to glue the keyboard in using a medium cyanoacrylate glue.

Working from one side of the keyboard to the other, I used less than a drop of glue on top of each of the protruding rivets. The glue (use a medium thickness cyanoacrylate) ran down around the rivet and under the keyboard mounting plate, fastening it to the top case. I pressed down on the keyboard for a few seconds to hold it flush with the top case until the glue set.

When I put the computer back together, I felt that gluing the keyboard in worked as well as the screws. Typing on the new keyboard felt completely solid and I saved a lot of effort in not having to remove the rivets.

September 15, 2018March 23, 2019

I Dropped My Macbook Pro

isaligned display, MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012)

I dropped my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012) on it’s corner. It didn’t cause any internal damage – the computer worked normally – but the the lid (with the display) became misaligned.

Display scraping, MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012)

The misalignment made the lower right corner of the display scrape against the base of the computer whenever the display was opened. I thought if I could loosen the screws that held the display, I could realign the display with the base of the computer.

Loosen 6mm T6 Torx screws , MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012)

I used iFixit’s MacBook Pro 15″ Unibody Mid 2012 Display Replacement (by Andrew Optimus Goldberg (and 5 other contributors) as a guide to remove the lower case and to get to the six 6mm T6 Torx screws holding the display (there are three in each corner).

The repair is fairly straightforward. The only tools that I needed were a Phillips 00 Screwdriver and a T6 Torx Screwdriver.

1. Remove the lower case. (10 Phillips screws)

2. – Note: the links to the following two iFixit links are to illustrate the location of the screws – the screws shouldn’t be removed.

Slightly loosen (do not remove !) all six (three on the left corner and three on the right corner) 6mm T6 Torx screws holding the display to the upper case.

3. Close the lid and move the display so it properly aligned with the computer base (the part that has the keyboard).

4. Tighten the six 6mm T6 Torx screws

5. Reattach the lower case.

March 23, 2013July 26, 2021

Windows Server 2012 on a Macbook

After the failure of an old computer running Windows Server 2003, I setup Windows Server 2012 on a Macbook.

Years ago, I set up a Sony Vaio PCG-Z505HS running Windows Server 2003 at home so I could keep up with Macs and Active Directory. When I recently experienced problems with DHCP and DNS, I discovered that the Vaio had died. There was no LED power indication. My troubleshooting consisted of jiggling the power connector and checking the power supply voltage. When I measured voltage from the AC adaptor, I gave up, using the rationale that it had lived its useful life. The Vaio, with a Pentium 3, 500 MHz CPU, was introduced in January 2000.

Coincidentally, I had a hardware failure in my Macbook (late 2006), so I decided to repurpose it as a domain server using an evaluation version of Windows Server 2012.

The Windows Server 2012 installation was simple using the Server with a GUI mode installation. The Server Manager and configuration tools greatly simplify the setup. With Windows Server 2012 on a Macbook running silicon introduced in 2006 – an Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7200 that has Intel® Virtualization Technology (VT-x), the next step is to try virtualization. As a Macbook running OS X, I successfully ran VMware Fusion VMs running Ubuntu and Windows 2000, though I forsee the 3 GB of RAM in the current system will be a limiting factor.

The best part about running an Active Directory domain at home is joining computeres to the domain. The welcome message says, “Welcome to the lower_slobbovia domain.