Tempted to installiPadOS 18b3 for my 2024 iPad Pro. It’s not my main driver. I’m cautious about cross-device sync issues though (Photos app is an example). Anything I should’ve be watching for?

Finally booked my Apple Vision Pro demo session for this coming week. I’m not buying this thing but I can’t wait to try it out. Side note: during my vacation in Croatia, we went to see a museum in Split where we were handed Meta Quest headset. The experience was interesting but the visual quality left to be desired.

An ATM in Montenegro shows a warning asking the admin user to login to activate Windows. 😱🤪

The “joy” of trying to be iPad-only while traveling. Hitting “try again” fixes the issue but it’s a recurring one. I’m just browsing a folder containing images stored on the iPad itself for god’s sake! 🤬

There is something that I find irritating on the my M4 iPad Pro (and probably on all devices which includes support for HDR content): when browsing photos in Photos.app and tapping on one photo in HDR format, the iPad screen turns itself very bright so that it can display the photo in full HDR… returning to the photos thumbnail view will turn off the HDR mode and photos turns in SDR mode… this flashing is not smooth. That’s the best Apple could do?

M. G. Siegler musing about possible next iteration of the Apple Vision:

The most compelling idea would be allowing/forcing the ‘Vision’ to tether to an iPhone or Mac to run the computing of the device. Frankly, I think they should do this. I know they view it as a stand-alone computing device, one that could potentially do it all one day, but that day is far, far away. You already have to use the ridiculous (and ridiculously inconvenient) external battery to power the device. They should either put a Mac SoC in that brick or use their software screen-casting smarts to offload much of the work to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

Now that people know they have to live with an external battery pack in order to use the Vision Pro, putting a small Mac-in-that-box to offload some of the weight off the Vision Pro could be a game changer too. Apple is clever at iterating on things to make them better. The Apple Vision is not done yet, just be patient.

In other notes: the Vision Pro is coming to Canada this July and I can’t wait to book myself a 30-minute demonstration appointment.

Warning: Unsettled thoughts: I think many tech pundits are overestimating Apple Intelligence capabilities and influence potential. If Apple fails to deliver, even slightly, it might trigger a crash like the dot com crash. Some tech pundits are fast at expecting Apple to be the gateway to generative AI legitimacy. In this logic, if Apple fails, AI will fail too. I might be over simplifying things here. Continue reading →

A new iOS 18 beta should drop tomorrow, where SharePlay improvements and iPhone Mirroring will be included for the first time. Except that they won’t be available for people in EU. Apple made the announcement last Friday. Poor EU users. 🙃 Here in Canada, we don’t have Apple Card nor Apple Cash. But that’s for quite different reasons. When iOS 18 ships, we won’t get Apple Intelligence either, unless we set our phone to English US, which I won’t do, except for testing the thing for a few moments. EU isn’t alone in their “misery”, I guess.

★ The EU Is Reaping What It Sows With the DMA: Uncertainty
https://daringfireball.net/2024/06/eu_reaping_what_it_sows

For once, I’m on Gruber’s side here. But who am I? A clueless north American who doesn’t get the EU’s laws and law’s spirit? Maybe.

For all of its purported goals to 'foster a better digital market', having foreign tech companies delay features into the EU market will have huge effects not just for consumers but for developers. I can't see that becoming an economic advantage to an already-lagging EU tech economy.

Well said.

For my M4 iPad Pro, I decided to skip the Magic Keyboard for iPad purchase. Instead, I’ll be using a Magic Keyboard and a mouse. I think it’s a great compromise and a very light one, by the way.

Yet, iPadOS and many apps aren’t really keyboard aware. As an example, using Micro.blog native app, if I select a few words and hit CMD-B, the command is ignored and I have to reach the screen to select the bold option. This adds friction to my writing experience. Cc @manton

On iPadOS, you can hit CMD-Q on your keyboard to « quit » an app… in fact, only the icon is removed from the app switcher view while pressing CMD-TAB. If you re-launch the app from the home screen, the app is stilll in memory. Who said iPadOS is a strange beast?

The CEO of the company I work for (450 employees) called me today over Microsoft Teams because he was seeking for help and explanations for a problem with repeated authentification requests when using Microsoft 365 services on his devices (an iPhone, an iPad). He wasn’t sure why he was getting that many requests. After calling the IT department for support, he was baffled by the responses he got for his problem: reboot your phone, uninstall Apple Mail and re-install, that type of shitty responses. Continue reading →

Claim of the moment: Perplexity AI ignores robot.txt files and crawls websites even when the site owner says no. https://rknight.me/blog/perplexity-ai-is-lying-about-its-user-agent/

Woah, that is not cool, at all. Even if I don’t care too much for AI bots to crawl and ingest my content, I would expect them to respect those author and site owners who decides otherwise. It’s not the best way to build trust.

📝 Just like my old iPods, the iPod name is just collecting dust, despite being the best name they ever came up with.
https://lmnt.me/blog/ipod.html

I agree. The iPod name more accurately describes the current iPhone. However, it’s unlikely that Apple will revert to this name, despite its strong brand recognition.

Apple announced a significant development at this year’s WWDC: the creation of its own cloud infrastructure named “Private Cloud Compute” for securely handling certain Apple Intelligence requests. As an IT professional working in data center technologies, I have a few questions that remain unanswered even after watching John Gruber’s The Talk Show Live: What CPU is used in each server? I wonder if Apple is utilizing high-end versions of its Apple Silicon chips. Continue reading →

Refreshing take also a good reminder:

@stroughtonsmith After seeing WWDC, I’m actually buying a iPad Air M2 next to my mini 6. But I have never seen and expected iPad as anything more than what Jobs used in his introduction. Never replacing my Mac, never replacing my iPhone.

Microsoft is recalling “Recall” after all, and this makes them look rather bad. This happens on the same week of Apple revealing Apple Intelligence which received a more positive set of reactions. We are witnessing two different approaches to the challenge of intelligently integrating generative AI prowess to the base operating system. These two events couldn’t be more evocative of how different Apple and Microsoft strategy and culture are. Guess which approach I prefer? Continue reading →

Referring to this post from MacStories’ Viticci, I might be living or coming from a different planet, but I do not want to block any of my sites from AI bot crawlers, none of them, even if it is from Google, OpenAI, Apple or even Meta. I want to embrace this new era while being critical to what is happening. More to come soon.

Two of my preferred visual things in iOS 18¹ is the colorful visual effect of Siri and the default wallpaper, which is also very nice. Siri animation is so relaxing and less intrusive than the big colorful ball. These are small changes but welcomed changes nonetheless.