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Apple is Finally Showing Courage
I asked for this since the beginning of the Ukrainian war (on Twitter: first here, then here, then here), and today Apple delivered. Appleās products are no longer being sold through its online store. While the App Store is still working apparently, Iām ok with their decision. On top of that, Apple will donate money, twice the amount that employees will give to help Ukrainians. Itās a good move, the only move, without using real arms, to make an impact. Itās even more powerful when many companies are doing exactly the same.
Yep, finally.
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Going Downwards
I don’t know about you but I find current events in Ukraine very disturbing and distracting. As much as Iām happy to see Russia being more and more isolated every hour, I can see its leader being more and more pissed off and willing to commit the worst. The world seems to go in a spiralling direction toward even more violence and hard to resolve situations.
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A Message for Ukrainians
The news of the Russian criminal invasion of its sovereign neighbour, Ukraine, is appalling. Putin and his regime is committing an aggression that shall be punished, at the right time, at the right place with the right means. I cannot believe that weāre seeing such an invasion in Europe, in 2022. Whatās next? Whoās next? Weāre all going to suffer at various degrees from this utterly criminal invasion. I pay no respect to Putin, his government, his propaganda machine and every single Russian who support this aggression. This is an act of war against democracy.
No wonder why Ukraine wanted to stay in NATO camp, because Russia is simply an antidemocratic land. Democratic governments and systems are far from perfect, but they are the least imperfect solution.
For now, Iām sending my positive waves of support to the Ukrainians community of Montreal, Canada. I cannot wait for the next demonstration, so I can show my full support of the Ukrainians.
Hitler must be so proud.
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Old Computer-Related Memories
From 1993 to 1994, I owned a PowerBook Duo 210 sporting a trackball, a low-profile keyboard and a grayscale screen. I didnāt like the trackball as the pointing device. The keyboard wasnāt that great either. But, it was small, highly portable. Coupled with the Duo Dock and an external monitor, it was a cool and novel setup. Itās been a long time ago. This article was written using a M1 MacBook Air, in a coffee shop.
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Health of Developer Relations with Apple in Free Fall
According to this yearās Six Colors Report Card, relationships between Apple and its developers’ community is in terrible shape. The trend isnāt looking good either.
Marco Arment said, āAppleās tightening grip on App Store fees, attempts to reach into other parts of businesses that they donāt deserve, and extremely entitled and galling statements on the matter continue to be distasteful and extremely damaging to their reputation. It seems like a huge strategic blunder to inflame developer relations, generate bad PR, invite more regulatory scrutiny, and risk governments imposing much worse changes for such a small percentage of their revenue.ā
Is Apple still able to read the room temperature, or it is blind because of its financial successes? For once, I think Apple should copy Microsoftās leadership.
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"Itās not just how things look, itās about how things work."
Somehow, I missed David Sparks’ observations regarding the Wallpaper feature of Apple’s Design Team (emphasis is mine):
Instead of quoting Steve Jobs, I would have preferred an explanation from Alan Dye about his philosophy of user interface design and what his north star is when he does his work. Iād like him to make his case. If he explained the thinking behind this minimal approach, it might make more sense. Maybe this article was never meant to be that kind of deep dive on design philosophy, but it feels like a missed opportunity.
Indeed. I’m not fond of Alan Dye’s work.
Source: The Wallpaper* Feature on the Apple Design Team and a Missed Opportunity - MacSparky
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Beyond the iPhone
Remember when people claimed Java would replace all computer languages? Maybe you remember when tech pundits told us that network computers would replace Windows PC? Or what about those who said that netbooks would replace laptops? Why some people consider the tech world to be a place where technologies always get replaced with another one? I tend to view the tech world as a space where several waves hitting the shores. Not everything disappears with each wave, and most of the time, technologies keep adding up.
What will replace the iPhone, you might ask? For me, nothing will replace the iPhone. But, according to Kelly Evans, the iPhone is going away. I donāt think her article will age well. Is she really thinking that a vast majority of people will wear goggles and stop buying smartphones? Really? Is she serious, or am I missing something in her writing?
As much as I despise articles who pretend to predict a product failure on day one, I hate articles who predict success of an unannounced product like Appleās AR headset.
I should create a Craft document where I store those articles with a date attached to them, like five years from now, and get back to them to see how well the prediction came to be.
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COVID ā Did He Really Got Me?
Here is an update following yesterdayās post about getting caught by COVID. I thought that I had been infected because of my symptoms. We all did a quick test after posting my article. The results came up positive for one of my friends, but everyone else was negative, including me. It could be false negatives, but I highly doubt it, except if we didnāt do the test correctly.
How am I feeling 24 hours later? I had a not-so-good night with a sour throat. It was like if I had a fever, my body felt heavy. Thatās a strange feeling. We still have two quick tests on hand, which weāll probably use before going back home today. Weāll probably go to a clinic to get a PCR test, but long lines of people are waiting to get tested, which is discouraging. I should probably just declare myself as positive.
The thing about COVID is that not everything is clear-cut, far from it. There is a lot of confusion, especially in this fifth wave with Omicron. We didnāt really know what to do with a single test coming out as positive. We spent the last week together, with the Omicron variant, Itās pretty sure we would become infected. My friends thought of leaving early but changed their minds because we all had very mild symptoms because we were all fully vaccinated. So we didnāt feel the need to panic or worry too much.
Our holiday vacation is ending on a sour note, to say the least. š
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COVID ā Got Me!
After close to two years of relentless fight to protect myself from COVID-19, after following all the governmentās sanitary rules and telling others how it is important to get vaccinated, It appears that the virus won over me.
We had this āget together weekā planned for a long time, with friends. We were six. Everyone limited their contacts to the minimum in the week before, in accordance to the rules in place at the time. Yet, the virus got in. One of my friend got infected probably following a quick visit to their family for a gift exchange. They stayed half an hour then left. It was enough, apparently to get infected. So they came to this vacation week with us, without knowing they would bring the virus with them. Iām not angry. Iām resigned.
Iām not feeling that bad as I write and publish this post. I have very few secretions, but I feel my lung irritated and I cough sometimes. No fever. No out-of-ordinary fatigue. My sleep is unaffected. Itās seems to be in line with people who got two vaccines. Iām hoping this will stay that way for the coming days.
Now, Iāll have to tell my kids that I got it in a social gathering that I asked them well too often not to do with their friends. Thatās the hardest part. Guilt. š¤¦š»āāļø
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The Real Cost of Crypto
The real cost of Crypto. We need to stop buying into this shit and fast. Why is it so hard to think about these “side effects” when creating new technologies? I recently wrote about not getting into Crypto, NFTs, web3 because I’m probably just getting old. I know just enough to understand the costs of the technology behind and how bad it is for the planet.
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Doing Nothing Useful and Feeling Guilty About It
First day of holiday vacations. I’m not into Christmas at all this year. It’s the kind of day where I should work on my many writing projects or even do some photo processing! Yet, I feel in a lethargic state. I’m barely able to finish my newsletter. I’m unable to organize myself. Reading seems the best option. Or Netflix. I feel guilty for doing nothing useful. At least, I was able to express myself on this. š¤·š»āāļø
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Like the Dislike ā Put the Decision in Creatorās Hands
So, YouTube will remove the dislike button soon from its platform. In one of his recent video, the popular YouTuber, Marques Brownlee, expresses his dissatisfaction about Googleās decision. His view echos mine. Iām not a big consumer of YouTube content, but when I do spend time there, I want to spend it on good quality content. The like / dislike ratio is an important indicator for me, and I suspect it is for many people.
We heard during the experiment that some of you have used the public dislike count to help decide whether or not to watch a video. We know that you might not agree with this decision, but we believe that this is the right thing to do for the platform.
I think the content creators should play a bigger role in all this: let them decide. The same way a blogger can turn off the comment section at the end of each blog post, peopleās reactions on each video could be turned off by the authorās decision. In fact, I would argue that the ultimate decision to allow likes and dislikes should be held by the content creators. Simple as that. Make it an opt-in or opt-out default, but put the decision in creatorās hands. I would go as far as saying that the counters could stay private to the author if he or she decides so.
To me, one of the best rewarding indicator is the one that shows how far users are watching videos. They may agree or disagree, but as soon as they watch most of it, anything else is irrelevant.
I wonder if this decision by YouTube better serves their interests. I mean, without any ratio indicator, users have no choice but to start to play the video to decide if it is worth the time. This simple change makes people spend more time on the platform. Or is it the other way around and users will instead look at the comments to get a better idea of the video quality? I doubt it, as reading takes too much time to decide. People are busy, their attention span is short, a quick glance at the like dislike ratio is the way to go.
Once the decision to let people react to a video is made, then the platform could finally make it available only if the user watch āmost ofā the video. That no rocket science. There are probably other tricks that could be played to better control whatās going on in userās reactions. But at this stage, it seems closer to be only implementation details.
As for the creatorās mental health issue, again, I would argue that if they tend to rely too much on the likes to feel rewarded, they could turn off the option. Thatās something that could help others in dealing with this.
Glass, a photo sharing service, didnāt provide a like button from day one and doesnāt plan to add one. Is it good? Well, it depends. One thing is clear, from the comments Iām seeing posted by others, I have to ask myself: what is the difference between getting dozens of āI love itā or hitting the ālikeā button? Not much.
Photo credit: Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash
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Exposure Notifications ā Still Useful?
The other day I was looking at my iPhone battery consumption only to find out that the Exposure notifications feature was consuming close to 10% of the power on a 24 hours period. Itās not the first that I see Exposure Notifications to take so much juice out of my iPhone battery. Iām not alone, apparently, according to a Google search with the āexposure notifications battery drainā keywords.
The question is simple: considering that Iām fully vaccinated, considering the state of the pandemic here in Canada, considering that hardly any people actually enter their test results if found positive, why should I continue to care about having this turned on? I think I could turn it off.
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Going to the movies still sucks
We went to the movies yesterday night. The first time in two years. āNo Time To Dieā was good. As much as other types of business has evolved in this time frame, buying tickets, bad quality lighting, flaky sound systems are still part of my usual subpar experience at the movies. No wonder why this is a dying business.
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On the way back home
I’m on my way back home from a weekend in the Niagara Falls region. I put my iPhone 13 Pro to the test. I’m quite happy with my experience. Most of my photos are in ProRAW format. I’m not sure how I’ll process them: with Pixelmator? Lightroom CC? If the latter, the import process is putting me on the break instead of a more integrated experience with Pixelmator.
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Dear @Viticci, Iām Not a Professional Reviewer, So What?
This podcast episode from MacStories featuring Viticci triggered quite a few reactions. Why? Because of these two sentences in the first moments of the episode talking about the iPad mini:
āYou wouldnāt want to read/or watch a review by someone who is not a professional reviewer. It wouldnāt be enjoyable.ā
Yep. Viticci said that. In āThe value of a non-reviewerās perspectiveā from Mere Civilian:
āI agree, a review from a person who does not write for a living may not be enjoyable. However, I strongly disagree with the first sentence. ā
What? Really? Then, I read this reaction from Lee Peterson on his blog:
āMacStories posts some great stuff but not everyone wants to read long articles, some like smaller easy to digest articles from independent writers, I like to think I do that here. I get to the point and try to respect my audiences time, does that make my opinion invalid or not enjoyable?ā
And here is my response. Viticci comments make him look full of himself. Period. Iām happy for him if he can live from writing reviews. I would rather read review from real end-users because the point is to get comments and observations from real use case scenarios. Sure, I like reviews from Marques Brownlee because he has well-balanced and critical point of views on a lot of stuff. It also touches the subject of what makes someone a blogger or a writer. If you write constantly, then you are a writer. Are you Shakespeare? Probably not. There is a starting point for everyone. Some will fall along the road, others will thrive. I tend to think of reviews by professionnel reviewers as synthetic reviews, where there is a lot of speed and feed talk. At some point, we want to go beyond that and have comments coming from experience. So, sure, Iād like to read comments from pilots about the real usefulness of the iPad mini. They are the one who can make a judgment on the subject.
Last year I wrote āIām not an audiophile, but here are my thoughts on Appleās AirPods Maxā which is not of āreviewā but a collection of observations. I concluded with this:
āSo, do I like the sound quality of my AirPods Max? Yes. Do they sound better than my Bose QC25? Yes. By a wide margin compared with the price difference with my Bose Q25? No. But, hey, they are wireless, convenient, comfier, have transparency mode, spatial audio and they fit within Appleās walled garden.ā
Is there any value in this? I think so. Should Viticci care? Certainly not. I do have genuine thoughts and opinions, and this is my ultimate right to share them with the world for exactly what they are: thoughts and observations. Nothing more, nothing less.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
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Courage, Apple?
John Gruber on Appleās lack of courage regarding vaccination of their employees:
So whereās Apple on this? Why isnāt Apple requiring proof of vaccination for employees, including for retail employees and customers? Why reserve courageous decisions only for removing headphone jacks?
Boom.
Photo by Marisol Benitez on Unsplash
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Remembering that day
I was at the office. A normal day. It was a perfect sunny and more than usual mild September day. Blue sky. Then the news struck. At first, I didnāt understand what was actually happening. The internet went slow, to the point of becoming unusable. My colleagues started to leave their desks. We all turned to the TV set in the employees cafeteria. It was such a unique accident, we all thought. Then, the second plane, which marked a turning point in our history of modern barbarism. We are still trying to recover from it. I think of this day so often, each time with deception and bitterness because we didnāt learned the right lessons.
Side note: I find the American society fascinating. They seems to treat those who died on 9-11 differently then those who die each year from guns. The latter are more than three times those who died on 9-11. Each year. The US spent close to 6 000 billions dollars on war since 2001. It didnāt fix anything. How much do they spend on guns to try to fix this problem? Fascinating indeed.
Photo by Magnus Olsson on Unsplash
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About the Store, the Store Tab.
There is so much to think or write about a simple “Store” tab. Something so “obvious” can lead to weird design decisions, even for Apple. I love this (rare) blog post from Ken Segall.
Sarcasm ON: “Iām feeling inspired by Appleās new way of thinking. Itās liberating. Who needs āAppleā when you have āStoreā? Generic is just so much easier, donāt you think?” - Ken Segall
To be honest, I don’t remember when there was a dedicated Store section on the Apple.com website. Apple brought it back, leaving “Buy” buttons scattered around every single product pages. It is now so much easier to buy something from Apple these days.
Sarcasm OFF
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Four days week day? We can only dream it seems
Again, Matt Birchler:
technology and improved general productivity always had the promise of letting us work less, and yet today we work more than ever and have less than before Source: A Four Day Work Week? Yes, Please!
I sure wish we had this four days work week. I cannot see the day it will become reality. The problem in IT where I work, there is a worsening trend of a lack of qualified people for many IT fields. This trend puts pressure on those who are qualified to do more working hours.
