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Woah, I didn’t know we could have a test blog on Micro.blog. It’s free! Thanks to https://custom.micro.blog, I’m starting to learn more about CSS and how MB works to make its magic!
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Giving without asking in return (#bloggerlife #blogging #writing)
Greg Morris recently on his blog about trying hard as a blogger to make something out of all this:
āI asked, Iām giving, and I am still blogging ā now more than ever.ā
Strangely, pure coincidence I guess, I wrote this last week-end āThe journey is the Rewardā in which I said:
āIt doesnāt really matter if nobody comes and reads my stuff here or there. What matters is the process and the thinking that took place behind my writing. Itās all the small moments where I had to pause, think, read, learn and write. Itās about feeling creative. Alive. The rest is just another tiny drop in the numeric ocean. A few will taste it, and most wonāt. Thatās the life of a blogger and a writer in a sea of abundance. So, Iāll keep doing it, no matter what.ā
The journey is really the reward for me.
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The look of desperation (#intel #benchmark #m1chip #apple)
I think Intel could have done better than this in a world without the M1 chip. But the problem is that the M1 chip is among us. Obviously, the carefully selected benchmarks results are published to people who doesnāt know about Apple. Itās an issue of perception manipulation. Apple is only getting started. Intel is freaking out and look desperate. 2021 will make matters even worse.
Another one with a look of desperation: Facebook because of iOS 14.4 tracking exposure to the users.
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The iPad legitimacy (#apple #iPad #computer)
Matt Birchler is writing yet another post about the iPad. The last paragraph (emphasis is mine):
āWe live in a world where weāre surrounded by computers. People have a home computer, a work computer, a phone, a watch, a smart TV, and smart speakers. Hell, even the iPadās harshest critics often have one that they use for watching video and playing games. The iPad is the only device in that list that some people mandate has feature parity with another item on that list.ā
That is so true. I never thought about it this way. Why do we need to constantly compare the iPad to other computing devices to find its legitimacy? For me, the iPad is one of the best computing device of all time. There is nothing like it, it is singular.
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Itās Rosetta 2ās fault (#apple #rosetta2 #bigsur)
According to a recent small survey by AppleInsider, 53% of apps are running natively on M1-powered Macs. What about the remaining 47%? Well:
āWithout native support, they’re run in Rosetta 2 emulation. That may conceivably turn out to mean that they run faster than they did on old Intel hardware, but it’s not why you’ve bought an Apple Silicon Mac.ā
One of the problem is that Appleās Rosetta 2 is too good at running non-native apps. Itās so good that they can run faster than on an Intel-powered Mac.
A lot of things are on developerās shoulders. There are enthusiastic developers and then there are the lazy one. The former rush to add M1 support for their apps even if the performance gain is negligible. The latter either doesnāt care, think itās good enough or they donāt have full control of the software stack they use to build their apps. Think about the Electron framework. It does support the M1-powered Macs. Developers need to upgrade their apps to take advantage of the latest Apple technologies. An example if the email client for HEY. The last update came in September of last year.
As someone who use both, native and non-native apps, on my M1-powered Mac mini, I donāt see much difference, most of the time. Apps like Lightroom CC or Pixelmator Pro do show a big improvement in many operations. But for the rest? Again, Rosetta 2 is doing a marvellous job and the whole experience on Big Sur with M1 is really good.
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On the Lack of Safariās extensions support (#apple #safariextension #browserextension)
Itās becoming quite frustrating to see Appleās Safari not being supported for browser extensions. Safari is now reportedly supporting standard web extensions but with an Apple twist making it cumbersome for developers to add support. Apple being Apple, I think it is related to the requirement of having to download an application in order to be able to expose an extension to Safariās engine. Thanks to privacy protection, Apple is forcing the game here, but this has real consequences.
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Apps cannot be installed errors (#appstore #apple #bug)
Since running macOS Big Sur, I quite often get these āUnable to Download Appā error when trying to update my apps on my M1-based Mac mini. I need to try a few times or even reboot the machine in order to fix this issue. The app is being downloaded, but the installation phase is failing at the very end. Version 11.2 of Big Sur didnāt fix the issue. And itās not related to an app being open or in use.
Is anyone getting these too? Itās kind of annoying.
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Desktop vs Laptop vs Mobile vs Tablet (#blog #bloggerlife #analytics)
Here is something absolutely fascinating and surprising to me. According to my main blogās visitors statistics, thanks to my recent switch to Plausible, over the last thirty days, the distribution of devices type used to visit my blog puts the tablet far behind the desktop, the laptop and the smartphone. One would think the tablet form factor to be much more popular.
The iPad is massively popular. Iām still in love with this form factor after all these years. These numbers doesnāt jive.
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Appleās macOS Big Sur updates on the path of iOS updates? (#apple #macos #bigsur)
After the release yesterday of macOS Big Sur 11.2, Apple today released the first beta of macOS Big Sur 11.3. It does look like macOS is following the trails of iOS with updates that brings many small features, improvements and tweaks. Weāre not used to that, as before Big Sur, macOS updates used to be mostly about bug fixes. Iām happy to see Apple change course for macOS, if this update is any indication.
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And here goes beta 1 of iOS 14.5 (#apple #ios14.5)
iOS 14.5 beta 1 is out today with a slew of new features and small tweaks. Unlocking your iPhone while wearing a face mask, thanks to your Apple Watch, falls in the category of āfinallyā moments. In the tweaks category, the Apple logo of an iPad booting up iPadOS āfinallyā follows the deviceās orientation. Updates to Apple Card too to support shared cards. Now, if only this could come to Canada!
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Our secret? Optimizing workflows (#blogger #writer #tools)
I like to see other people talk about their own writing or blogging workflows. Hereās an interesting tidbit from Greg Morris about using Appleās Shortcut to publish to WordPress:
āShortcuts is a really robust way to publish to WordPress and not have to use the WordPress app or third-party app.ā
Appleās Shortcuts are also an important part of my blogger workflow. Since Iām using Ulysses, which supports publishing directly to WordPress, I donāt need a shortcut for that. But for many other small things, it is a valuable tool in my arsenal. Shortcuts are an interesting technology within the iOS and iPadOS ecosystem.
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Design is how it works (#apple #design #ux #ui)
From John Gruberās Apple report card:
“Iām reminded of all the UI and interaction designs and changes in iOS and MacOS that are just bad. Thereās a real sense that _Ā Appleās current HI team, under Alan Dye, is a ādesign is what it looks likeā group, not a ādesign is how it worksā group_. Exhibit A: What MacOS 11 Big Sur has done to document proxy icons. Arguably it looks better to hide them. (I disagree, but I can see the counterargument.) Inarguably, they work far worse nowāāāharder to use for people who use them, and much harder to discover for people who donāt yet know about them.”
Gruber often has an effective way of putting out his take on Appleās issues. If you look and use macOS Big Sur for a while, you should get a feel that only the visual parts were redesigned, not the way it works in response to the user behaviour. Big difference.
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Apple in 2020 (#review #apple #appletv)
Really insightful score card report from Six Colors. Take out for me: Apple TV is the new 2013 Mac Pro.
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What the hell is going on with Flickr? (#Flickr #photography)
This morning I got the most recent update to the venerable photo sharing service: Flickr. The only addition to this update, support for iOS 14 widgets. Finally! Itās quite a change from the usual āBug fixes and improvements.ā. Even if Iām no longer actively using Flickr, I was happy to see that widgets were finally supported. So, I frantically updated the apps to have a look at the possibilities. What a let down. Sure, all three sizes are supported, but we cannot change any widget settings! How about being able to set the source for pictures or even stats or anything! Nope. I call this pathetic.
No wonder why I left Flickr and services like Unsplash took over the world. Over the years and during its tumultuous history, Flickr was a series of promises left without real and deep actions to transform the platform. They brag about having two million groups. It takes just a few minutes to see that a vast majority of these groups are ghost towns. And donāt get me started with the general design of the app and the website.
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Today is about data privacy (#privacy #dataprivacy #privacyprotection #apple)
Today, January 28th, is data privacy day. I didnāt know that. Now I know, thanks to Mr. Phillip Schiller. I paid a visit to Appleās privacy web page. What I found is a super nicely designed page with highlights of Appleās ecosystem privacy focused features. To me, Appleās privacy stance is a product, not a feature.
āPrivacy is a fundamental human right. At Apple, itās also one of our core values. Your devices are important to so many parts of your life. What you share from those experiences, and who you share it with, should be up to you. We design Apple products to protect your privacy and give you control over your information. Itās not always easy. But thatās the kind of innovation we believe in.ā ā Apple
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I could play with this forever (#snowflakegenerator)
Please, do yourself a favour and go to this website, a snowflake generator. If you like winter, it will make you smile a bit.
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What is worst than Facebook? (#privacy #privacyprotection)
Apple made mandatory privacy protection ānutritionā labels on its App Store. One guy refuses to update its apps since then: Google. Maybe they are even worst than Facebook if such a thing is even possible. Was Google caught by surprise? Highly impossible. They had many months to prepare for that. When your business model highly depends on sucking all users data, itās hard to escape suspicion.
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On Tweetbot 6 update (@tweetbot #update #subscription)
Really nice update (and unexpected) to my preferred Twitter client. Tweetbot version 6 received a refreshed design, full support for Twitter APIs v2 and cleans up unsupported features with latest APIs. Tweetbot startup is much faster than Twitterās client and exposes a few features that arenāt available otherwise. Design-wise, Tweetbot contains a lot of nice touches throughout the app. Compared to that, Twitterās own client feels uninspired.
Like a growing number of apps recently introduced or updated, Tweetbot 6 now is subscription-based. I expect a few angry users but Iām not one of them. I find the pricing quite reasonable. I chose to go with the yearly subscription at 50% price reduction, a no brainer to me.
Tweetbot has recently returned as my go to Twitter client during my recent Twitter reset and Iām very happy with it.
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Being robbed, again (#stealing #robbing)
Someone stoled my most recent article. I hate when this happens. I guess my article was good enough for this guy to bother.
This morning, I got a pingback on WordPress for an article being published elsewhere as shown below.
Someone copied my latest article āThe Ultimate Twitter Tips and Tricks for Mastering Your Twitter Experienceā. By doing so, he forgot to remove one of the URL pointing back to another previously published article, āMy Review of Mailbrew: a Powerful and Time-Saving Internet Information Aggregatorā, I was notified via a pingback. I paid a visit to the āpublisherā and sure enough, 90% of my article was reproduced. The guy removed the screenshots but left the captions (weird). The title was modified too. The conclusion was removed. Here is what I wrote to the āpublishedā:
I also posted the same thing on the comment section but comments being moderate, I donāt think the guy will republish them. I will see what happens. This is the second time this happens to me.
Meanwhile, The Startup magazine on Medium accepted my article submission. More than 750K followers can see it from the magazine homepage. š
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The challenges with online speech and publishing (#socialnetworks #socialmedia #platforms)
A recent article by Benedict Evans exposes how hard it is to āfixā social networks.
āThe internet and then social platforms break a lot of our definitions of different kinds of speech, and yet somehow Facebook / Google / Twitter are supposed to recreate that whole 200-year tapestry of implicit structures and consensus, and answer all of those questions, from office parks in the San Francisco Bay Area, for both the USA and Myanmar, right now. We want them to Fix It, but we don’t actually know what that means.ā
I often think about issues that platforms like Facebook brings to our society. I donāt pretend to have any solution. I canāt quite define what Facebook is actually from a societal point of view. That being said, a lack of definition and understanding cannot prevent me to wish for things to be done differently. And I have one simple wish.
I want the eradication of algorithm-based feeds. I want them to be regulated, prohibited even. At the very least, it should be an opt-in āfeatureā. I want the return of chronological feeds. No tweaks, no tricks, nothing more. Nothing less. I want all people to have a look at the same reality. Two people having the exact same followers and following the same guys should give the same timeline. Period.
Without hyper-manipulated feeds, we have to wonder about the usefulness of all gathered data about us and our behaviours. Maybe ads targeting doesnāt make as much sense in tact hypothetical context.
If two people donāt see the same thing, itās because the choice was made by an individual wishing to control his or her exposure, not by a corporationās algorithm or an arbitrary group of people.
Thatās my wish. Letās try it and see if things change for the better.
