Longer posts on Numeric Citizen Blog

Testing Wavelength 2.0

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:31:08 -0400

I always wondering if publishing In-the-moment audio bits could be something that I could explore. Consider this the first step. 😉

Transcript

The journey should be the only reward

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 20:16:41 -0400

My sister, who discovered water painting late in life, is part of a group of artists who share the same passion for art and painting in general. She is really good. She has taken many art courses since COVID. Now, she’s part of a Facebook Group, and when she mentioned it, I suggested creating a website for her to showcase her work, separate from platforms like Meta. She inquired about discoverability. What can I say to her? Is discoverability always tied to rewards? Are likes part of a validation process? Can we be on the web without seeking discoverability or rewards (likes, reblogs, etc.)?

Incogni value proposition and contradictory policy

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 09:35:41 -0400

For the second time in as many days, I’ve seen paid promotion from Incogni (one in a YouTube video and on the 9to5Mac website). According to the Incogni website:

Incogni is a personal data removal service that automatically removes your information from data broker websites, significantly reducing your digital footprint. Anyone can get instant access to personal data online—Incogni makes sure it stays private.

I was curious and headed to their website, where you can enter your email address to test the service. The problem is that, according to their ToS and privacy policy, they collect email addresses this way so they can bug you with promotions and all that. I find this against their value proposition and it weakens their credibility. People willing to pay for such a service are probably protective of their email address, and yet, this is the first thing Incogni collects. If they offered a way to test the service, albeit in a limited way, while saying they don’t collect email addresses to perform these tests, it would be quite another matter, and I would be more willing to test and maybe even subscribe! But no. Bummer. I’ll pass.

Adding an MCP endpoint is...

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 16:47:54 -0400

My bookmarking web app is now mature, but one thing was missing: an MCP endpoint. I wasn’t sure whether I could add that feature while running on Vercel. Well, after less than an hour, Claude Code helped me get my MCP endpoint running smoothly and responding to all sorts of prompts! I was expecting a much more challenging journey. 😅

Mid-August

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 16:05:12 -0400

There are so many small things that differ in August and make this month one of the most enjoyable: the hours of sunlight, the angle of the shadows, the outdoor temperature at sunrise, the reduced humidity, the chirping of crickets in the evening, the air smell, the mild temperature, the vegetation gradually transforming into mature growth that begins to decline. I love everything about August.

Oh Quick Reads ♥️

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 21:22:38 -0400

I’m currently testing Quick Reads by @mattbirchler, and I must say that I’m impressed. From the onboarding experience to the actual product use, it’s a joy to use. The read-aloud voices are top-notch. I have small and bigger plans for this relatively new service, and I’m really looking forward to making this happen.

The digital toxicity

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 07:13:56 -0400

No One’s Happy recent blog post suggesting not to use native apps:

“Most native apps collect far more data than their website equivalents ever could. They request permissions to hardware, sensors, and background processes that browsers deliberately restrict. The third-party software embedded in these apps frequently transmits your location, device identifiers, and behavioral data to third parties before you even see a consent prompt. This data is in tandem bought, sold, and aggregated by brokers. It has been used to out individuals, track immigrants, and enable prosecution over reproductive healthcare.”

While this is true, refusing to use native apps is surprising advice. One might think the App Store submission process that every developer is subject to prevents bad actors, but it doesn’t. Coupled with the developer’s ordeal with the App Store review process, some developers are suggesting focusing development efforts on web applications instead. And finally, vibe coding might be another factor driving a move toward web application development. Yet the web is a jungle where user tracking is a standard “feature” that mines the browsing experience with bloated web pages that sell you ads and lead you to forced engagement.

Happy ignorant here

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 12:41:07 -0400

I wanted to open a link pointing to a post on x.com. Clicked on it. After a few seconds, X website opened but right after the App Store launched to the download the app for reading content on X. I went back to the website, dismissing the App Store. Clicking to play the shared media again launched the App Store. I went back to watch the video. What an awful experience.

I wondered if installing the X app would make the experience more tolerable. The login / signin screen scared the shit out of me when I started remembering all the bad things about social networks, Musk, etc. but then I started thinking that even if things like the dark web is bad, some people still need to visit this place for investigation. Was I investigating this morning when opening up X? I certainly was looking to understand something.

Having to create a new X account, then being exposed to ads, tracking, etc. killed my desire to understand. It’s ok not to understand everything. I’m a happier ignorant.

The new and uncharted way for me to get advices

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 07:28:19 -0400

I’ve been working as a technical project manager on a major migration project at my job. It’s a new role for me, which has increased the demand for my soft skills. While I’m technically inclined, it’s not necessarily my strongest area, but I manage well enough. Yesterday, a team member privately mentioned that my project management style sometimes borders on micromanagement. Though it’s hard to hear, I responded positively and thanked him for the feedback. Our discussion lasted some time, helping me understand his perspective. The issue is that my technical expertise often leads me to ask detailed questions, which might seem like I don’t trust my team members’ abilities. However, that’s not the case. This feedback prompted deep reflection and self-assessment.

As an experiment and out of curiosity, I provided the context to Claude AI and sought advice. Overall, the experience was very insightful. My issue isn’t unique and is likely common and well-documented in management literature. After this session with Claude AI, I felt uplifted and more prepared to confront today’s challenges. It’s not easy, and the project may be full of pitfalls and surprises, but I believe it will help me grow.

MyMind MCP

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 07:05:23 -0400

MyMind now offers an MCP endpoint for use with Claude. I can imagine that for those who store a lot in MyMind, it could be really useful. I tested MyMind and liked a few things about it. It’s like Pinterest but without the AI and ads crap. I connect to my MyMind account from time to time just to see how the service is evolving, and it does, but I eventually found it was redundant with what I already use: Craft, which also supports MCP and API endpoints.

Any lessons from EchoFeed's closure?

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 20:37:00 -0400

What can I learn from the demise of EchoFeed? Earlier this year, when I heard about this service, I looked into it to see if it could be useful. It wasn’t, thanks to Micro.blog’s ability to cross-post to Bluesky, Mastodon and more. Plus, at first it looked like an experiment more than anything else. I didn’t know EchoFeed’s long-term goals. I was on the breaks.

I’m wary of one-person services like EchoFeed. Another example is FeedPress. I like this service a lot, but I think there is only one person behind it, and it’s owned by a parent company which I know nothing about. It’s not entirely clear from this post what their mission is. What happens if this guy decides, or the parent company says, it’s no longer viable? Moving off EchoFeed might be a pain for people who need cross-posting capabilities. I highly doubt these people are willing to move to Buffer.

The same could be said about moving off FeedPress. It would be a pain in the ass to reconfigure all my feeds. The same torment applies to Micro.blog itself (or Scribbles.page, for that matter!). What is the future of Micro.blog if something bad happens to its founder? What is the continuity plan? Micro.blog has done everything it can to enable data portability and ownership, but moving things around, even if you own most parts, is not as easy as it sounds. In today’s world, nothing is permanent, and planning for this is mandatory.

Trusting AI companies

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 08:08:44 -0400

One quick question for the Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta IT guys: is it that hard to configure a sandbox to block outbound traffic to the Internet? I know really good guys who could help you with this. Or, if you don’t want to hire a human to do it, just ask your fuckin models how to do it. Until then, how can we trust you?

AI everywhere in YouTube Studio

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 07:09:14 -0400

I’m returning from a short visit to YouTube Studio to find out that Google is now offering AI-based ideas to inspire the creation of new videos. I selected that one because it relates to Micro.blog. Very low quality. Here’s an excerpt:

“Most Micro.blog sites are digital ghosts, invisible to the search engines and professional networks that matter. We are going to fix that by engineering a high-authority ecosystem that ranks on the first page while keeping you in total control. Stop shouting into a void and start building a discoverable hub.”

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

About my curiosity for FreshRSS

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:20:29 -0400

I saw people mention FreshRSS on my timeline today and I was curious about it. Why? Because self-hosting an RSS reader service might mean that I could drop Inoreader… so, I started reading the documentation. If there was a single-click install droplet on DigitalOcean, that would be enticing, provided that FreshRSS offers a great set of APIs. The UI is meh, though, but using the engine with a nice client like NNW might be a possibility. I didn’t go further in my exploration so far… but now I want to look at other self-hosting solutions, too. Suggestions?

Too many products?

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 21:15:50 -0400

Today, while preparing the next edition of my newsletter, I wondered whether managing numerous product lines, with a multitude of variants and configurations, might be harming Apple, especially in the current context of supply chain difficulties. I feel that Apple’s strategy is no longer in tune with the times.

Are we in a world war yet?

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 20:46:28 -0400

In “The War That Could Swallow the World”, David French writes:

“I’ve often wondered what it was like to be alive in the summer of 1914, much less in 1938 and 1939. When did people start to realize that the world was on the brink of catastrophe? Speak up too soon or too frequently, and you look ridiculous — like the Chicken Little of World War. Speak up too late, and you live (if you live) with bitter regret.”

I often ask myself similar questions. When does it feel like it? Are we calling a world war after-the-fact? Does it matter in the end? This blog used to have a blog post category named “UkraineWar”. It will be renamed “Conflicts” which I think feels closer to what I perceive from today’s world.

What's up with Anthropic?

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 09:13:37 -0400

I’m not sure what is going on at Anthropic these days, but updates to Claude Desktop have stopped. Normally, I would get an update every few days; the last update was July 24th. Something might be going on. I wouldn’t mind if AI companies took a pause and started thinking about the consequences of putting their products in the hands of millions, you know, being conscious about what you do? Alas, that’s not going to happen.

Keep dreaming

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 09:06:54 -0400

This morning, I received a renewal notice for a domain I registered during my transition from my previous job to my current one. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I would start my own consulting firm, so I registered the domain but then changed jobs. Despite that, I decided to renew the domain just in case. I like to think that one day I’ll be my own boss. It cost me about ten bucks a year, which is really cheap for dreaming.

Yes this is scary as hell

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 21:49:32 -0400

The real AI risk is inside the labs -

I believe we should not consider AI safe. A critical event that may result in the extinction of Homo sapiens is possible, but the danger is not in open models, or China making faster progress than the US. The danger is that a few CEOs (everywhere in the world) without the required background and legitimacy are in the position of making hard choices for humanity at large. They were not selected to do so; it was just the randomness of events that created this setup. They can’t speak for everybody, given the stakes, just because they have GPUs and money. This is the first thing that should be fixed.

In light of recent security-related events, both at OpenAI and Anthropic, I also believe these companies must be held accountable for what they put out there. I believe we are entering dangerous times with AI, maybe we are even on the verge of being out of control with this. Add this to the AI bubble speculation. Scary.

Too much to ask

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 16:44:02 -0400

For the past two or three years, I’ve been contemplating the idea of creating a comprehensive training course for Craft. There’s nothing comparable to what you find for Notion or Obsidian. I think it’s a great opportunity, very niche, but still an opportunity. Craft has evolved considerably in recent years, making it difficult to produce content that doesn’t become outdated quickly. Now that Craft’s evolution seems to be slowing down, the idea of creating this training keeps resurfacing. But there’s a problem: a lack of motivation and time with no guarantee of results.

I tested creating a training plan using Claude AI, and while I’m impressed by the level of detail and completeness of the proposed content, I would need to record more than 75 video capsules lasting 2 to 4 minutes each. Preparing those recordings requires between 15 to 45 minutes of preparation, without considering the post-processing requirements. That’s quite a commitment!

I’m afraid the idea won’t materialize. Life is short and I’m not here on a humanitarian mission. I think I’ll move on to something else. 😌

WTF Substack? What are you for?

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 19:12:24 -0400

I’m unsure who Substack writers aim to reach. In my view, Substack might be the most anti-reader platform I’ve ever seen, even more so than Medium, which is in itself very telling. Today, I wanted to read an article on Substack after following a link in an email from my inbox, but my app wasn’t installed on my iPhone. After reinstalling it, I tried to open the link again, but it didn’t work. I had to log back in, apparently, which I did. The next step? Reading the article? Not quite—now it asks for topics of interest, then requests access to my Contacts. I stopped there, killed and removed the app from my phone and never read that article. Instead, I’m here to vent my frustration.

About a potential AI bubble

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 07:37:24 -0400

I follow technological news every day, and I’m starting to get nervous about the situation surrounding investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure. This video is particularly revealing and convincing. There’s increasing talk of a tech bubble, much bigger than the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s. What worries me, actually, is the impact of this crisis on my finances. I’ll be retiring in less than 7 years. A financial crisis of the magnitude being predicted would take years to recover from. I wonder if it’s time to reevaluate some of my investment strategies. 🤨

About Glaze

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 19:32:44 -0400

I played a little bit with Glaze today. In less than half an hour, I was able to build a “native” macOS app, a front end to my web-based task manager. It’s far from north stars like Things 3, but it is quite capable for the efforts I put into this experiment. Glaze offers a Glaze Store where app builders can share their work with others. A brand new account comes with 120 free credits. I’m currently at a bit less than a hundred credits left now after building this little Mac app. It’s currently in read-only mode and looks very dry but I plan to tweak it and see what I can come up with the remaining credits.

Ship it when it's ready

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:12:47 -0400

MacRumors’s article “Anthropic’s New Claude Opus 5 Nearly Matches Flagship Fable 5 at Half the Cost”:

Anthropic has released Claude Opus 5, an upgraded AI model that delivers near-Fable 5 performance at half the cost and is optimized for everyday use. The new model shows significant improvements over its predecessor (Opus 4.8) across multiple benchmarks including coding, problem-solving, and visual outputs, while maintaining the same pricing structure. Opus 5 is now available as the default model on Claude Max and the strongest option on Claude Pro, with an optional faster mode available at double the cost.

It’s fascinating to watch AI companies release their new offerings. It’s all over the place if you compare that to the way Apple releases their flagship products like the iPhone. “Ship it as soon as it’s ready” seems to be the way to go.

Is Apple about to win the AI race?

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:03:56 -0400

Here’s a very compelling argument that Apple will win the AI race… or, more specifically, the personal AI race. Cue this video for all the details. Spoiler if you are lazy: Apple owns the device and the context, they don’t need the most powerful LLM to succeed in the personal AI space.

Thought of the day

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 07:27:24 -0400

A blogger shouldn’t need to defend their selection of topics, writing style, approach, writing tools or writing workflows. Sometimes, my writing is moody.

On John C. Dvorak

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 07:12:15 -0400

Another tech journalist has passed away: John C. Dvorak at age 80. I recall reading his column in MacUser magazine during the challenging early days of Apple. Although I wasn’t a fan, I occasionally kept reading his work. I always saw him as a perennial Apple skeptic, perhaps more for the sake of it, but personally, he might have felt more warmly about Apple’s future than he let on. He was often wrong on tech trends and about Apple.

AI and weather map interpretation

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 09:46:52 -0400

I’ve been a weather enthusiast since I was a teenager. At that time, I wanted a weather station (which I got) and manually recorded weather conditions on paper, one page per day with three observations per page (early morning, noon, and before going to bed). It was fun, and I learned a lot in those days. I even met a real meteorologist who was also doing the public radio weather forecast. I was lucky. I still have an interest in weather and climate, but it takes a different form these days.

This morning, I wondered if Claude AI could read a surface conditions map. It can. 🤯 I wonder if today’s meteorologists are using AI to summarize weather conditions.

Canada Weather Snapshot — Friday, July 18, 2026

Valid morning of July 18 (08:00 EDT / 12:00 UTC). A single-moment snapshot, not a forecast.

The big picture

A tale of two countries this morning. A deep summer storm system is spinning over northern Quebec and the Hudson Strait, keeping the Far North unsettled and breezy, while most of southern Canada sits under warm, humid, and comparatively quiet air. The sharpest weather is well to the north; the population belt along the U.S. border is having a mild, muggy summer day.

Region by region

Northern Quebec, Nunavik & Labrador

This is the active zone. A strong low is churning over the region, so expect gusty winds, unsettled skies, and periods of cloud and showers, especially around Ungava Bay and the Hudson Strait. Conditions ease the further south you go.

Southern Quebec & the St. Lawrence Valley

Warm and humid, with a gentle flow of muggy air moving up from the south. Comfortable-to-sticky temperatures and a fair amount of moisture in the air — a typical mid-July feel. Nothing severe on the map here.

Atlantic Canada

Sitting under the influence of a broad ridge of high pressure anchored over the Atlantic and Greenland. That generally means more settled conditions in the east, with the ridge acting as a bit of a wall that keeps systems moving off the continent from barrelling straight through.

The Prairies & Western Interior

A few weak, shallow low-pressure areas are scattered across the Prairies and interior west. These are minor and disorganized — think passing clouds and the odd shower rather than any organized storm. Broadly unremarkable.

British Columbia & the Pacific Coast

Under a mix of weak systems along the coast, with generally mild conditions. No dominant storm feature — a quiet Pacific setup for the day.

The North (Arctic & territories)

Cold air remains locked over the high Arctic, as you’d expect, with the northern Quebec storm being the standout feature. The rest of the territories are relatively calm.

Bottom line

If you’re in southern Canada, it’s a warm, humid, low-drama summer day. If you’re in northern Quebec, Nunavik, or Labrador, keep an eye on the wind and showers from that storm parked overhead. The east is settled thanks to Atlantic high pressure, and the west and Prairies are quiet with only minor disturbances.

Card view on RSS feeds

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 20:24:00 -0400

Today, I implemented a card view in my RSS flow web app. I don’t recall seeing this style of RSS feed display in the numerous RSS readers I’ve tried and used. It’s quite fun.

How AI Freed Me to Focus on What Actually Matters

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 12:44:17 -0400

Today, for the first time, I used AI to write an email for me. It was a rather typical email: asking a colleague for his contribution on a large project so that he could validate potential technical issues that might become a risk in the project. I had a full picture of how I would ask his contribution and what I expect from it. AI came back with a perfectly structured request. I don’t expect this to become a trend but today, I saved precious minutes for other more high-value tasks.

Yeah, I know, very click-baty title. 🫣

A Permanent digital artefact: Om Malik RSS feed

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 07:16:17 -0400

I’ll keep Om Malik’s RSS feed in my Inoreader account forever because I think it perfectly reflects his personality and contribution to this world.

On OpenAI HomePod

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 20:45:28 -0400

OpenAI’s First AI Device Will Be a Portable Smart Speaker:

OpenAI’s speaker-like product is designed to “serve as a humanlike AI companion that lives in the home,” according to Bloomberg. It will be able to control smart home accessories, answer questions, play media, respond to messages, and more, with the device powered by ChatGPT. It is meant to learn more about the user over time, becoming more personalized and proactive, using GPT-Live to communicate with users.

What will be the onboarding experience? Will it require a smartphone? Can they beat Apple on integrations? How is this OpenAI device going to access my messages? Which messaging service will be supported?

The Siri AI paradox

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 20:21:09 -0400

If Siri AI delivers on its promise, what does it mean for app developers? Since 2008, the iPhone experience has been built on top of application-based experiences. Siri AI seems to be offering a bridge between these apps, pushing the application experience behind Siri’s. Not only that, but Apple will ask developers to add support for Siri AI, accelerating the paradox of helping Apple’s bottom line, not the developers’. Interesting read from The Verge, for more context.

When paranoia becomes projection

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 06:37:22 -0400

Gruber on Musk fixation on Apple and ChatGPT in a recent blog post: Remember Musk’s Suit Alleging a Conspiracy Between Apple and OpenAI? — Daring Fireball

Musk alleges that the top downloads list is crooked too. That’s just projection. If Musk ran a popular App Store he’d put his thumb on the scale to make sure his own apps always top the list. That’s what he’s done with his personal account, and accounts aligned with his politics, on Twitter/X. Because that’s what he would do, he thinks that’s what Apple does.

He’s probably right: Cheaters are often suspicious of others cheating too.

Frustration buildup

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 21:01:22 -0400

I don’t know if I should trust the news, but it seems that opposition to data centers and artificial intelligence is growing. Nowadays, you have to be cautious about what the media spreads. Controversial topics sell, but they don’t always reflect reality. Still, I get the feeling that frustration is gradually building. 🤨

Working for the soon-to-be-winners?

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:12:37 -0400

Apple lawsuit reveals how many of its former employees now work at OpenAI — 9to5Mac

While Apple doesn’t get into specifics, we know from Bloomberg reporting that Apple employees across countless teams inside Apple have left for OpenAI. Most recently, OpenAI poached Paul Meade, who had been in charge of Apple Vision Pro and Apple’s smart glasses project.

Maybe those former Apple employees think that Apple is no longer THE place to be to invent the best possible user experiences or the next revolutionnary device? Or maybe OpenAI simply pays more than Apple? Or maybe a combination of both?

The boring side of the tech world

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 10:06:14 -0400

I understand that companies want to protect their intellectual property. But this new saga between Apple and OpenAI represents what I dislike about the tech world: it’s just noise that distracts me from more fundamental and interesting things. Apple is very fond of these legal battles, and I find it all tiresome.

On Getting a new Windows laptop

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 07:28:03 -0400

Yesterday I got a new Windows laptop at the office. It’s called an Autopilot laptop, and I’m not sure what it really means other than that it’s deployed and managed using enterprise management software. The migration from my older laptop went surprisingly well, but nothing like using Apple’s Migration Assistant, and I suspect this is because most of my data and settings are stored in OneDrive. It’s an HP laptop. While it doesn’t come close to Apple’s MacBook in terms of build quality and general design, I can see improvements in Windows laptops over the years. Even so, Windows still feels bloated due to a plethora of security-related and must-have software, because it still isn’t secure.

Apple Ring confirmed?

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 07:15:42 -0400

A very telling image of Eddy Cue. First, Eddy Cue is not a fan of the iPad and prefers to use paper for his agenda. Second, and not least, Apple is clearly working on an Oura Ring competitor. The first Apple ring to be offered in light gray. 🤫

Claude Cowork unleashed

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 07:00:12 -0400

Anthropic is unleashing Claude Cowork, which means artifacts can now be run in the cloud rather than on the machine where they were created. This means that if an artifact depends only on cloud resources and services, it can be executed in the cloud and accessed from anywhere, on any device. Until today, I was looking for a way to migrate my artifacts from my MacBook Air to my desktop Mac, but there were no easy solutions. So far, I have four artifacts that I use daily, and I plan to build more.

On MacSurfer's Headlines Evolution

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 18:09:21 -0400

I often revisit MacSurfer’s Headlines website because I’ve been a fan since it launched. Here are some thoughts from my latest visit: the wave logo has been revamped, and I like it — it looks glossy and modern. Now, readers can hide articles behind a paywall, a feature I don’t recall seeing on similar sites. In this screenshot, 19 out of 40 articles are paywalled, which is very useful. Also, readers can subscribe to a newsletter; I’m not sure if this was always available. Lastly, Amazon ads appear on the left sidebar and inline, which has always been part of MacSurfer and has returned after the recent site reboot. Unfortunately, that’s a bit disappointing. I hope MacSurfer continues to thrive by relying solely on human curation. Do we need another OpenAI Pulse or Kagi News, both of which are AI-based?

Anthropic: you can do better

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 07:34:46 -0400

From the DF Archive: ‘Electron and the Decline of Native Apps’:

The ironic frustration with Anthropic’s Claude app being an Electron turd is that Claude and especially Claude Code are so capable of helping to create good native Mac apps. It’s one thing for a big company or organization with cross-platform aspirations but no institutional Mac expertise, like Notion or Slack or Discord, to choose Electron to create their Mac client. It’s another when it’s a company like Anthropic, whose only product’s single most impressive ability is generating programming code, including high-quality AppKit and SwiftUI code for the Mac. To return to my hammering-screws-into-the-walls metaphor from yesterday, it’s as though the building into which Anthropic decided to hammer all the screws is a renowned screwdriver factory.

Bingo.

Bye Bye ChatGPT Atlas

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 07:08:04 -0400

Back home. Rebooted my Mac because of an issue with macOS 27 Golden Gate. Got this warning. Oh well, I didn’t use Atlas anyway. I’m not even sure if Atlas is on OpenAI roadmap for the long run.

Too hot

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 13:00:28 -0400

Vacations coming to an end this weekend, expect normal programming resuming by Sunday. It was a great two-week vacation in France but the overwhelming heat wherever we stayed was a challenge that we didn’t expect and was hard at some points to cope with, especially in Paris.

Why Inkwell is so useful while on vacation

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 05:05:25 -0400

I use Inkwell quite often and I like it. While on vacation, I tend to spend less time reading my RSS feeds so my unread count goes up quite a bit. How do I catch up efficiently? I stop for a small reading session, I switch to Inkwell and use the Today tab but also the Recent tab which is super useful to see what I have missed. In extreme case of disconnection, the Fading tab comes to the rescue. If you’re an RSS feeds junkie, you should consider trying Inkwell.

Stop scrolling TikTok and start building YOUR app

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 09:50:12 -0400

AI coding is creating a new generation of makers:

it’s been heartening seeing people reverse engineer things and build weird little things that they never would have done before. I guess they’d be scrolling TikTok instead.

Anything to stay away from TikTok is a win for humankind.

Bye bye Paris

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 09:42:06 +0200

My last day in Paris. This week flew by. Despite the climate-related challenges, visiting such a wonderful city has been an unforgettable experience. Now, we’re heading south, on a three-hour TGV ride, for a relaxing week on the seaside. Don’t expect too many check-ins. I’m taking a break. I hoped you enjoyed this photo-centric journaling as much as I enjoyed posting.

The 128 GB trick

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 18:01:48 +0200

Is the Apple TV the new Trash Can Mac Pro? And why on earth do we need a 128 GB configuration? Was it an Apple trick so that people not knowing what they were buying would go the 128 GB route, making Apple smile with 💵💵💵? It’s a shame that Apple keep this around and even increase the price!

RIP Mr Om Malik

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 09:43:40 +0200

I learned of Om Malik’s passing last night when I got back to the apartment through a short message from Manton Reece. What sad news. I had noticed recently that the frequency of his posts had changed and become irregular. He had some health issues and shared a few words about it in the past.

I had been following Om Malik for a few years and appreciated his perspectives on Apple and technology in general. He knew how to read the nuances and contrasts of Apple much better than other bloggers I won’t name here. He was a great tech journalist. Finally, I was a big fan of his photographic style. I had the pleasure of following him on Glass and regularly showed him my appreciation for his unique style, full of nuance. He will be missed by us all.

Om Malik was one year older than me.

I read his last post dozen of times. This feels surreal.

A slight twist

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 03:18:33 -0400

Is the worst of this Paris heatwave behind us? Maybe, as we’re only heading for 37°C today instead of 38°C or 39°C 😒🥵. After three mostly sleepless nights, we decided to leave our apartment a day early to stay in a hotel with AC before leaving Paris for good. Other than that, our plans for the day are still up in the (hot) air.

Too hot for photography?

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 03:46:10 -0400

You might think that, by looking at the trail here, I’m taking a lot of photos in visiting Paris, but that’s not the case. One reason is it’s my second time in Paris, but the second reason is the heat. Sadly, It’s not fun to stop on the street for a few minutes, under the sun, for shooting a few photos. And lastly, my iPhone is overheating quickly while taking pictures! Running a beta version of iOS 27 probably doesn’t help either. 🤦🏻‍♂️ I’m probably snapping a third of what I would shoot normally.

28C at 9 o’clock!

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 03:23:26 -0400

Starting day #6 in Paris. After a nearly sleepless night with high temperatures in our apartment, no breeze at all, we are facing another record breaking heatwave day. Heading to Notre Dame this morning while outside temperatures are still ok for waiting inline in a queue. Beyond that, we still don’t know. Max temperature is expected to be 38C at 5PM. 🥵🫤😒

Those open space offices suck

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:40:01 -0400

Open-plan offices have many drawbacks, and I was reminded of another one today. Instead of a generic, rotating desk, I much prefer having a dedicated, private office. I want a space of my own, and I enjoy seeing how others personalize their workspaces. You can learn so much about people’s interests and personalities just by seeing how they occupy the space where they spend a third of their lives.

Peak heatwave

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 03:37:28 -0400

Good morning from heated Paris! Today might be the worst of all as we enter peak heatwave. Expected temperatures are around 38C. 😳🥵😩 Photowalk is not a possibility today, this heat removes any glimpses of inspiration. Looking for more museums to visit.

Still hot in Paris

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 03:46:40 -0400

Well, at the beginning our third day in Paris and options for visiting air conditioned museums are limited because of high demand. Apparently, we should plan in advance which we rarely do in vacation. 🫤 Probably going to visit around Le Louvre then see La Seine river nearby where I expect somewhat colder air. Temperatures are expected to be around 35C this afternoon. 🥵

Paris is hot!

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 03:30:14 -0400

First full day in Paris completed. Now starting second day. In case you didn’t know: there is a heat wave affecting most of France. It’s hot 🥵 here in Paris with a temperature of around 26C early morning. Now planning museum visits where temperatures are colder inside.

More of Siri AI

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 07:31:13 -0400

Since the Siri AI beta is out, I have started using it more and more for simple prompts like the following. It’s not fancy, but it works. Unlike ChatGPT or Claude, Siri AI doesn’t seem to have a memory beyond the data on my device. I’m not quite sure yet, but that’s my current understanding.

Not Addicted Yet

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 07:21:02 -0400

This morning, I realized that my Discord notifications were delayed; the last one was over 24 hours old. After a brief investigation, I found that I couldn’t connect to my n8n instance; it seemed to require a restart. I didn’t have time to investigate further, so I rebooted everything. Everything is back to normal.

What’s funny is that I only realized this morning that my Discord instance wasn’t receiving any notifications, which shows I’m not yet addicted to these notifications; no n8n workflows are essential yet, and I can do without them. It’s just a mild annoyance.

High Temperatures Expected

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 20:52:33 -0400

The weather in Montreal, Canada, has not been very good this Spring (lots of rain, too few sunny days, colder than usual). If weather forecasts for the next ten days materialize, improvements aren’t expected soon. Paris, France, is quite another story. They have had plenty of sun, and temperatures are abnormally high and expected to remain so in the near future, as they are still going through a heat wave. The expected high in Paris this coming Saturday is 36C! As a reminder: AC in Paris, or Europe in general, is not common. 😅🥵

Can Siri AI Taking Over?

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 21:00:01 -0400

Since I now run OS 27 on most of my Apple devices, I should remember to use Siri AI instead for simple questions I’d usually ask ChatGPT. Habits are hard to break, I suppose. I find it strange that Writing Tools are no longer available—am I missing something?

Describe Extension

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 21:36:01 -0400

Just finished creating my second Safari Extension using Safari 27’s Describe Extension feature. And it just works on the first try. ¹😳 This one will save the selected text of the webpage to my bookmarking web app, including the page title, page URL and author. I wonder how much more complex an extension can be.

My first try was successful, right away, too. ↩︎

Microsoft 365 Needs Better Meeting Preparation Intelligence

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:57:31 -0400

At my job, I spend most of my time on Microsoft 365 office products, especially Teams and Outlook. I spend a lot of time preparing meetings, sometimes with 15 or 20 participants. I don’t understand why Microsoft hasn’t invested in tools to help plan these meetings.

For example: I need to prepare a meeting with 15 participants; if the 4 or 5 must-have participants are available, those time slots should be clearly highlighted to make it easier to spot the best time to schedule the meeting. But that’s not what happens. Although some participants are mandatory, they don’t all carry the same weight.

I wish Microsoft would improve this aspect of their products; in fact, I wish they would show more empathy in their functional design. I feel like today’s Outlook is very similar to the one from ten years ago.

Glurp!

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 20:36:39 -0400

Cool animation effect on the iPad when sliding down from the top to invoke Siri AI.

Why I'm (Almost) Buying a MacBook Neo Before Paris

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 17:53:10 -0400

What if I don’t plan to use any AI tools? What if I don’t plan to multitask like crazy and focus, instead, for once? What if I don’t need the mightiness of my MacBook Air, yet a trustworthy ally? What if I don’t want to lose my Apple Pencil for a third time during this upcoming vacation? What if I want a small yet powerful Mac while on the plane?

After reading Matt Birchler’s blog post about the MacBook Neo being a great second computer five days before leaving for Paris, I’m considering getting one. It’s so cheap. I have 4 days to decide. My wife wouldn’t understand if I got one. 🤫🫣

Come On

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 15:36:21 -0400

Rewatching WWDC keynote and boy these constantly moving sequences of people talking are very annoying. And, how ironic is it when we know it was filmed with iPhone which comes with sophisticated image stabilization. 🤷🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

Apple First, Devs Later

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:43:25 -0400

Apple’s Private Cloud Compute Is Severely Limited for Third-Party Developers:

The bottom line is that — for the OS 27 cycle at least — PCC is primarily a feature for Apple itself to use in Siri AI. Granting access to PCC to any third-party developers at all is better than nothing, but this 2-million-download cap cuts off many developers who are in the Small Business Program. Apple should reconsider that. And I know there are a lot of developers who exceed the eligibility for the Small Business Program who would love to have access to the PCC APIs, even if access was paid. The lack of paid tiers says to me that Apple is worried enough about meeting demand from Siri AI users alone.

Expect this to change sooner rather than later once Apple introduces API consumption tiers for developers. Currently, Apple appears to be managing demand for its PCC infrastructure.

A Few Random Notes and Observations on Apple's Latest OS Updates

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:39:03 -0400

1️⃣ macOS 27 Golden Gate is probably the most enjoyable macOS iteration to use in a long time. While Liquid Glass improvements are making a big difference for me, I feel Liquid Glass on the Mac makes the least sense, but it’s best on the Apple Watch, then the iPhone.

2️⃣ Stability and performance on these first betas are really impressive. This could have been so much worse. All my devices, except my M4 Mac mini and Apple TVs, are on beta 1. I just don’t have the time to upgrade my mini. 😅

3️⃣ I fail to see any issues with my apps. Everything just works. Very speedy betas! 😳

4️⃣ I still need to experiment more with Siri AI. I don’t like the dark theme and the big bubble that appears on the Dynamic Island.

5️⃣ The Image Playground redesign is so much better, but the possible use cases are still a mystery to me.

6️⃣ It will be interesting to see how much of an improvement a faster device will make for Apple Intelligence in general. So far, the execution speed is a bit slow, but how much of this depends on being on a beta cycle, network latency or running on an older device like an M2 MacBook Air?

Introducing Numeric Citizen Trails

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:53:20 -0400

I have finished my latest web app: a Path-like site for posting check-ins. It focuses on sharing images with a short accompanying note and does not resolve venue names beyond what an open-source map service can provide. The app organizes check-ins into trails, with each trail supporting multiple view types, including the default timeline, a grid view, a compact calendar, and a map view. It’s rather simple, but I like the end results very much. It’s the first publicly available web app (and will probably be the only one). I’ll have to check bandwidth consumption so that I don’t hit the free-tier limits on Vercel. 😅 Use cases are mainly about travel journaling and photo walks.

SwiftUI or Catalyst for Notion?

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 10:02:22 -0400

When reading about SwiftUI and how it leads to less than optimal Mac apps, I’m not convinced that rewriting Notion in SwiftUI is a good idea. Why not use Catalyst instead? Craft is a great example of a Catalyst-based app.

A Different Type of Project

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:14:44 -0400

I chose to postpone purchasing the $1,500 Nikon 24-120 F4 lens to prioritize upgrading my home networking setup. This change is driven by my plan to turn the unused fireplace in the living room into a home theater space with related equipment. As shown in the photo, the items on and inside this small piece of furniture will be moved into a new structure to be built on the left, where the fireplace now is. Additionally, my Ubiquiti Wi-Fi router will be replaced with a ceiling antenna connected to a hub housed inside the new installation. More details about this coming later this summer.

A New Foursquare Is Born

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 07:20:16 -0400

I’m making great progress with my new web app. It’s already 90% feature complete and ready for my next trip to Paris, starting next week. When I started this project, I had a fairly clear idea of what I wanted, but as I made progress, it became easy to experiment with new features I didn’t think would even be possible. One such feature is the ability to securely share my check-ins publicly so you can follow me! It’s my only custom-built web app with a public-facing view.

On *OS 27 Betas

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 21:00:42 -0400

I’ve been rather silent since the release of Apple’s latest major betas, except for a few reaction blips. While I love the new iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, I cannot install macOS 27 beta. Installation always fails at the very end of the download process. Go figure. 🤷🏻‍♂️

iOS 27 Liquid Glass is what it should have been from the start. Oh, and the speed and stability on my iPhone 15 Pro Max prove to be the best fest beta ever. I’m still waiting on the Siri AI waiting list.

Remember Path? I do.

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 07:25:08 -0400

I’ve been fiercely working on something new since yesterday. 😎 Stay tuned.

Wishing for Lil Finder Guy

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:37:11 -0400

Apple embraces Lil Finder Guy with WWDC 2026 swag — 9to5Mac

There’s now a physical Apple pin for Lil Finder Guy, the adorable Finder-based Mac mascot who originated from MacBook Neo’s marketing campaign.

I want this little guy to pop up in tomorrow’s WWDC introductory video.

Testing Micro.blog for Mac 4.0 beta 1

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 15:41:16 -0400

I think the time to upgrade to a beefier Mac is coming… maybe this fall. Even if it’s a native Mac app, I think I prefer my custom-built Microblog Poster web app. Now, returning to normal programming.

Mac mini Canada: 52 configurations, one clear winner

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 21:16:06 -0400

If you’re shopping for a Mac mini in Canada right now, the Apple Store configurator is both powerful and opaque. It shows you one combination at a time, with no easy way to compare shipping wait times across the full lineup. So I decided to do something about it.

Using Claude’s browser automation tools, I navigated the Apple Canada store programmatically, cycling through every possible Mac mini configuration: all 52 of them, spanning two chips (M4 and M4 Pro), two CPU/GPU variants, two memory tiers, five storage options, and two Ethernet speeds. I captured the live price and shipping lead time for each one directly from the store. No guessing, no third-party data. Everything you see was pulled in real time from apple.com/ca.

The result is the reference table below. The headline finding is blunt: if you want a Mac mini without a long wait, your options are narrow. Only the base M4 model ships in 3 to 4 weeks. Upgrade almost anything (memory, storage, Ethernet, or chip), and you’re looking at 10 to 12 weeks. The Mac mini may be Apple’s most configurable desktop, but right now it’s also one of its hardest to get quickly.

Software Quality is Not Goal Anymore

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:23:56 -0400

Working on my iPad and Microsoft apps during lunch while attending a webinar… if you think Apple software is full of paper cuts, you ain’t see nothing because Microsoft apps like Outlook and Teams are literally full of bugs, mostly user interface related. 😩🫤

WWDC26 Expectations

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 21:36:13 -0400

So you were expecting a long blog post about my expectations for WWDC26, right? Well, I don’t have a clue. I think it would be better to write what I want, not what I expect. Here’s what I want.

A slider-type control for toning down Liquid Glass. This UI must disappear somehow, to a degree.
A useful Apple Intelligence, requiring minimal third-party support in order to be useful. Apple’s relationship with the developers is at an all-time low; it’s not the right strategy to depend on them for basic OS feature support.
Speaking of relationships: I want Apple to care about developers, for real. Don’t pretend. Be honest. Be humble.
Finally, I want bug fixes, all sorts of bug fixes.

That’s it.

The Helper

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 20:48:06 -0400

This morning, after reading and asking Kagi Summarizer for a summary of this article, I wanted to write a response and attempted to craft a counterargument, first using Kagi Summarizer, then using Claude AI. I reviewed numerous versions but remained unsatisfied with the results. After reviewing my options, I ultimately decided to create this version, entirely my own. I still have a feeling that AI helped forge my thoughts.

The Solution Was to Double Down on my AI Subscription

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 07:34:41 -0400

Since reading David’s article, “the solution might be cancelling my AI subscription”, I cannot stop thinking about how different our experiences are.

Six months ago, right before subscribing to Anthropic’s Claude AI, none of the following custom-built apps existed: a useful, personally fitting bookmark manager; a purpose-built RSS reader that works hand in hand with my bookmark manager; and a simplified task manager that also works in conjunction with the other two. As an experienced user of many RSS readers, bookmark managers, and task managers, knowing my friction points with these apps, I have always dreamed of what would be perfect-for-me versions of them. So I built those, one by one.

Thanks to Claude Code and my vision for what would make the perfect versions of each of these apps, I could build them without being constrained by not knowing Next.js, TypeScript, CSS, etc. I don’t plan to make commercial versions of these nor open-source them. There are a few, and I can tweak them as I see fit and as my needs evolve; this is where I’ll keep focusing. AI empowered me and will continue to do.

You see, the solution for me is to keep iterating and keep my subscription. Two different stories, two different outcomes. Maybe there is something that I didn’t catch in David’s experience.

Is Apple Really Working on iOS... 28?

Sun, 31 May 2026 14:25:21 -0400

If this year’s OS releases are Apple’s way of fixing its software, do these rumors still make sense if work has already started on next year’s major updates? How can Apple manage to do both and maintain them simultaneously? I understand that some features take months or even years to develop, but this doesn’t seem to fit with the rumors. Alternatively, the rumors might just be reflecting common expectations.

On Apple's Next Disruption

Sun, 31 May 2026 14:13:51 -0400

Apple AI glasses launch pushed back to late 2027, Vision Air to arrive by 2029: report — 9to5Mac

Apple believes it has a massive opportunity here in the eyewear space, and wants to potentially capture billions of people who depend on prescription glasses, casually wear sunglasses, or use glasses as a fashion accessory.

Until Apple released the iPhone, wireless providers dictated everything about the buying experience, but Apple sidelined them. Could Apple repeat a similar tour de force with prescription glasses? Imagine getting your prescription, then heading to the Apple Store to pick up your smart glasses. I do see this as Apple’s next disruption. Really.

Disconnecting for a Short While

Sun, 31 May 2026 07:22:52 -0400

Taking a short break today for a 50 KM bike ride around Montreal Island. The expected weather is cloudy and rather cold, at 12C, with a 40% chance of scattered showers. I wished for better weather, but hey… could be much worse. Have a great day. 🚴🏻‍♂️

My Reading Workflow Revealed

Sat, 30 May 2026 13:57:28 -0400

I’m getting there… by myself. I’m finally getting the reading workflow and tools that I always dreamed of. It might sound complex, but it isn’t. I can start at any reading circle level; no need to go with the smallest one (my blog roll). Seventy percent of the time is now spent in Ink⋅well. More to come.

Under the Hood

Sat, 30 May 2026 13:45:13 -0400

I don’t remember the last time I built a full automation workflow from the ground up in n8n, thanks to Claude AI and MCP support. I started manually before knowing n8n had MCP support integrated, which makes me feel more competent in understanding what’s going on. It reminds me of when I bought an iPad touch so that I could learn to build apps with Objective-C and Xcode; I like to understand what’s going on under the hood, in the digital world, at least.

Feeling Good

Sat, 30 May 2026 08:38:00 -0400

I feel like I’ve reached a stage where I’ve completed all the projects aimed at improving my digital ecosystem. The native apps I wanted to replace have been replaced, and the new apps perfectly suited to my wishes are now a reality. I’m entering a stage of sporadic fine-tuning. It’s sometimes satisfying not to always have to work on the toolbox and instead simply be in a mode of using these tools.

Archiving Micro.blog Bookmarks

Sat, 30 May 2026 07:23:11 -0400

I just completed a new workflow: automatically saving new bookmarks stored on Micro.blog to my custom-built bookmark manager web app running on Vercel. Since Micro.blog doesn’t support webhook calls, I had to resort to a scheduled n8n workflow that pulls any newly saved bookmarks via Micro.blog APIs and saves each one using a new API route on my bookmark manager web app on Vercel. It’s much more efficient than asking Claude AI to do this using a skill (which was working perfectly, by the way) to save into a Craft Collection block entry.

Food for Thought on a Rainy Friday

Fri, 29 May 2026 12:09:29 -0400

What if, as soon as we shared content on the Internet, you couldn’t remove it as soon as someone was referring to it or embedded it in some other content? I’m thinking about the open web here… would this hypothetical web be called the open web anyway? Would we be more intentional when sharing content having this rule baked in? This chain of thoughts was triggered when I came across a website with a blog post with some embedded content from YouTube. Some videos were no longer available and made the blog post more or less diminished.

Still Looking for the Killer App

Fri, 29 May 2026 10:31:09 -0400

iOS 27 might convince a lot of people to upgrade to a new iPhone — 9to5Mac

Before now, Apple Intelligence arguably hasn’t provided enough reason to motivate upgrades for most users, but in iOS 27, that could very well change.

Unless Apple hits a home run with this year’s Apple Intelligence upgrade, I tend to think that we overestimate the attractiveness of AI for ‘ordinary’ iPhone users.

So Many Questions, Still So Few Answers

Thu, 28 May 2026 12:49:57 -0400

Report: Apple Plans to Make On-Device AI a Key WWDC Focus:

The arrangement represents a noticeable departure from Apple’s original Apple Intelligence announcement, in which the company said all cloud-bound queries would be handled exclusively by its own Private Cloud Compute infrastructure running on Apple silicon. Apple is likely to retain the Private Cloud Compute branding despite the change, people familiar with the partnership told The Information.

There is much left unanswered in this article. How much of Private Cloud Compute is in use today and for what purpose? How much of this capacity will be running the new Apple Intelligence? Will Apple expand PCC into Google’s datacenters? If so, what is Apple’s own infrastructure going to serve? And how much of an improvement can we expect to run local models on our devices compared to the original Apple Intelligence model?

I'm Done With Things

Thu, 28 May 2026 07:37:30 -0400

It took me the drive, Codex and Claude Code, four days, and voilà! Things 3 is now a thing of the past; I’m using a perfect-for-me custom-built task manager web application running on Vercel/Neon. Things 4 might go subscription-only; I don’t care.

Daydreaming All The Time

Wed, 27 May 2026 17:51:48 -0400

While moving my tasks out of Things 3, I noticed that many possible projects or tasks were really just daydreams. Migration is an ideal opportunity to reevaluate everything with a fresh perspective. Then, the new digital home will host a new set of daydreaming projects and tasks that I’ll revisit with a smile and kill right off the bat.

Switching DB Backend Easily

Tue, 26 May 2026 21:26:13 -0400

After largely completing the transition from Things.app to a version built with vibe coding on Next.js and hosted on Vercel, I decided to switch from Airtable to a Postgres backend. The free-tier on Airtable only allows 1000 public API calls, which wasn’t sufficient. To avoid hitting this cap constantly, I, with the help of Codex, migrated to a Postgres database called Neon, available through Vercel’s marketplace. I already use Neon for my bookmarking web app, so the change was quite smooth. I didn’t need to move any data since I am still in the late development phase. Now returning to other fine-tuning tasks.

Making Progress

Mon, 25 May 2026 07:20:48 -0400

Well, well, well, it seems to be happening much quicker than originally thought. I’m about 70% done with this already! I still like Claude Code more, but Codex is more efficient at testing the UI in its browser than Claude Code. And the in-browser cursor, which is 100% independant than the Mac cursor, is super cool to see in action.

Burning Tokens

Sun, 24 May 2026 15:49:48 -0400

So far so good with OpenAI Codex. I prefer Claude Code’s look and feel, but Codex seems more like something Microsoft would build: plain, without soul. My data model is completed and implemented in AirTable. The basic web UI is running, but is lacking many basic operations like create, update, and delete for tasks, projects, etc. It took me less than two hours to deplete my token allotment. It’s a slower rate than with Claude Code… but still, it’s quickly gone.

Other Browsers Keep Disappointing Me

Sun, 24 May 2026 11:53:03 -0400

From time to time, I open a different browser to see if I’m missing anything. I tried the Dia Browser again, but I still don’t quite like it. I feel unsure about it. Its design doesn’t appeal to me, and it seems slower than the ARC Browser. My default choice remains Apple Safari. Oh, I want to like the Zen browser, but I don’t like it to be based on Firefox.

Now That Google Broke Its Promise to the Web, What's Next?

Sat, 23 May 2026 11:39:36 -0400

In “Google Betrayed the web”, Mike Elgan argues that Google has broken the foundational “Grand Bargain” of the internet—trading traffic to content creators in exchange for indexing their content. Google now uses creator content to train AI models and serves answers directly to users, bypassing the original sources. This shift eliminates referral traffic to publishers and independent sites while allowing Google to profit from their work twice over. Elgan calls for a post-Google internet as a response to this betrayal. His response centers on Google’s alternatives: Kagi, Perplexity, Fastmail, and Antropic. All alternatives that I personally use, except Perplexity.

Using AI to Capture My Next iPhone Upgrade Story?

Sat, 23 May 2026 11:14:58 -0400

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be upgrading my aging iPhone 15 Pro Max to the iPhone 18 Pro Max this coming September. For each upgrade, when I upgraded to the iPhone 13 Pro, and then to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, I wrote a personal take. Both are quite different, and I’d like to put another one this year. The big difference: the place AI could take to help me put this together. I have all summer to think about this. And I know what some people might be thinking about those who use AI and write about using AI to do their things.

Doctors Surprising Practice: Texting X-Rays Using WhatsApp

Fri, 22 May 2026 07:19:53 -0400

Our healthcare system does miracles, but it also relies on practices that are sometimes questionable.

Yesterday, when I went to pick up my wife from the hospital after her jaw surgery, she needed to have one last X-ray. The device is the same as at a dentist’s office, with a rotating head that can turn 360 degrees around the patient’s head. This device is connected to a PC running imaging software. Once the X-ray was taken, the doctor examined it and decided to share it with a remote specialist for a second opinion. The method used was quite surprising.

The doctor started Chrome, opened WhatsApp Web, and authenticated with his WhatsApp account on his personal phone. Then? He took a screenshot of the X-ray using Windows’ utility and sent it in a WhatsApp chat with his colleague. It’s an unusual procedure, but it stems from a flaw in the medical imaging software: the lack of a secure messaging feature. Is this approach approved? I doubt it, but I can’t blame the doctor. His action allowed all of us to save time. And what about the quality of the image on the other end? Using the Windows screenshow utility is certainly not the best way to share a detailed view of my wife’s jawbone.

Oh, and another surprise: the PC had a label with a password written on it to enable a recovery function in case of problems. I thought this practice was outdated. Apparently not.

Where Life & Tech Collide

Thu, 21 May 2026 16:34:48 -0400

I have some personal news to share.

Yesterday, my wife had a bike accident that broke her jawbone, among other injuries. She’s currently undergoing surgery, and the next few weeks will be challenging for her.

Here’s what happened:

We usually bike to work. As we were leaving the bike lane, we parted ways to head to our offices. When I arrived at my office, I received an SOS notification on my watch and iPhone. Apparently, she had hit something hard. I tried to call her back, but she couldn’t speak. I assured her I’d go back and pick her up. Using Find My, I discovered she was only 400 meters away from my office. The ambulance eventually arrived because her iPhone automatically called 911. She was quickly taken to the nearest emergency room for examination and treatment. Thankfully, she’s doing well.

Thanks to the iPhone, Apple Watch, and our mutual emergency contact setup, I was immediately notified of the accident and needed to come to her aid. It’s a testament to the power of technology when used responsibly.

The Irony of the App Store

Tue, 19 May 2026 19:52:10 -0400

Why is Inkwell stuck in review:

I submitted Inkwell for iOS to Apple for review on April 21st. It has gone through numerous rejections, code changes, resubmissions, clarifications, one phone call, and one appeal to the review board, which I’m still waiting to hear back on.

What a bizarre yet expected journey for a small developer trying hard to secure a little place in the App Store sun. I wish Manton a sooner-than-later resolution to this matter. It would be sad to see such a nice, little, and useful app not make it to the App Store. An app that can exist because of the open web, but can hardly live on a closed platform. How ironic. 😔

When Does Using Tools Become Laziness?

Tue, 19 May 2026 07:25:38 -0400

Yesterday, I was criticized for adding an AI-powered feature to my Microblog frontend. It was suggested that, since AI can generate blog post titles, I might appear lazy. I explained that I’m not a native English speaker and sometimes need help with writing. Is that really wrong? For those using spell checkers and grammar checkers, are they lazy, too? At what point do the tools we choose to develop and utilize indicate our laziness?

Bye Bye Grammarly?

Mon, 18 May 2026 22:25:23 -0400

Apple Expanding AI Writing Tools With Grammar Checker in iOS 27:

Apple is planning to introduce a dedicated AI grammar checker for Writing Tools that will work like Grammarly. When writing in Messages, Mail, and other apps there will be a translucent menu that slides up from the bottom of the iPhone’s screen, and it will show suggested revisions next to the original written text.

I feel Grammarly is a hack and offers spotty integration with apps like Craft. For something like writing and text editing, Apple has always been ahead of the pack compared to Windows. It’s time for a complete system-level solution.

Shortcuts AI

Mon, 18 May 2026 19:29:20 -0400

iOS 27 to Let Users Generate Wallpapers and Build Shortcuts With AI — MacRumors

Bloomberg says the Shortcuts app has a prompt that says “What do you want your shortcut to do?” with a text field to enter a description. Shortcuts that are created using AI are then automatically installed and immediately available for use.

If true, I can’t wait to try it out! Shortcuts are out of reach for me. Too complicated, bad editing experience. With AI, this could flip the table and make them usable for me!

AI-Powered Title Suggestions Are Now Built Into My Micro.blog Editor

Mon, 18 May 2026 14:49:55 -0400

I made a small but useful improvement to my Micro.blog frontend: I added a Suggest Title option right to the title field. The prompt sent to Antropic’s cheapest model is:

Suggest a short, compelling blog post title for the following content. Reply with only the title, no quotes, no explanation.

This blog post was created to test the feature. Worked on the first try.

Seizing Triggers to Reconsider

Mon, 18 May 2026 13:09:25 -0400

I struggle with my current AI usage because I frequently reach my token limit¹. I see two options: upgrade to a bigger plan² or use the limit as a signal to shift my approach—try something different or adopt a new strategy in real-time. A few years back, I didn’t rely on AI at all for my creative work. Now, with AI’s vast potential, I have found new creative possibilities that depend on it, so it’s hard not to upgrade or buy more.

I’m currently a Claude subscriber only, nothing else. I’m also hitting the very low free-tier limit of ChatGPT. ↩︎
Or restart my ChatGPT subscription in addition to Claude’s. I would use both for different needs. ↩︎

I Love Dashboards

Mon, 18 May 2026 09:55:01 -0400

Continuing my experiment with using my Craft Daily notes, I discovered and experimented with Claude Cowork Live Artifacts. These are interactive HTML-based dashboards that can be automatically updated on a schedule or on demand. This one is built using the Craft Daily notes data and presented inside Claude Cowork. I already have a big dashboard that I have created and hosted on Vercel, so it’s a different approach, a much more expensive approach because Claude Cowork consumes tokens after each update.

Playing With The Digital World

Mon, 18 May 2026 09:19:49 -0400

Since last year, I’ve been tracking my daily creative activities using Craft Daily Notes. Today, I tried out Claude AI and asked it to create a visual timeline for a specific day (yesterday in this case). Pretty interesting, isn’t it? Useful? I’m uncertain. I enjoy experimenting with digital tools and AI; it really elevates the experience. The challenge is to automate this and have a consistent format from day to day.

Internet in 2026: Closed Platforms

Mon, 18 May 2026 08:44:33 -0400

I experimented this weekend with the YouTube APIs to realize how much the platform limits the exposure of its features. It’s a shame and reflects what the internet has become nowadays: a collection of private gardens.

Above all that, the setup of the APIs in Google Cloud seems obscure and unintuitive to me. Luckily, I always have Claude AI nearby to help me.

On Apple AI Chat Beta

Mon, 18 May 2026 07:44:45 -0400

iOS 27: Dedicated Siri App to Include Auto-Deleting Chats Feature:

Apple in iOS 27 will include an enhanced Siri with a dedicated app that gives users options to keep conversations in memory for a limited time, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

Clearly, Gurman knows someone at Apple willing to share secret information about the upcoming AI chat app. We’re getting a pretty well-formed idea of what Apple is brewing behind closed doors. I’m looking forward to seeing how Apple will tackle memory management, if they ever decide to expose that portion to the users. Also, will the AI chat support the share extension for uploading images or sharing a website for summarization? All the types of things that we take for granted these days.

The end of the App Store as we know it?

Sat, 16 May 2026 16:03:47 -0400

Apple is blocking AI coding apps because its entire review model assumes software holds still — but AI-generated apps dissolve that assumption entirely. The real conflict isn’t regulatory; it’s ontological. The infrastructure built around static software artifacts — version numbers, review queues, bug reports — wasn’t designed for code that generates itself at runtime.

It’s fascinating, even fun, to watch models evolve and being challenged like this.

Agentic World is Cool

Sat, 16 May 2026 08:42:29 -0400

There’s something magical about submitting a request in Claude that triggers an AI agent to run while you continue working on something else. I can see a world where many AI agents work all day for me, doing all sorts of cool things.

My First ChatGPT Ads! YEAH! 😑

Sat, 16 May 2026 08:27:10 -0400

This morning, while chatting with ChatGPT to learn how to block access to one of my websites for a specific country (Russia, for example), I got my first ads in ChatGPT since I’m on the free tier. How cool is that?

Side note: I’m considering blocking access to my websites for specific hostile countries and replacing the content with a “GTFO” page. Yep, I’m like that. 💪🏻👊🏻 I’m still trying to figure that out because using DNS Proxy on Cloudflare is discouraged by Ghost and many other hosting services.

Cancelling Apple Shortcuts

Sat, 16 May 2026 07:43:03 -0400

This morning, I tidied up my to-do list. Most of my ideas or projects involving Apple Shortcuts are now cancelled because I found alternatives using Claude AI. That’s a rather positive, as I never really embraced the Shortcuts mindset.

Really?

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:58:51 -0400

Apple has won a prestigious award for iOS 26’s Liquid Glass design — 9to5Mac

The ADC (Art Directors Club) Annual Awards have recognized iOS 26’s Liquid Glass design with four honors, including a prestigious Gold Cube in the category of Interactive / UX / UI.

There is something that I don’t get.

I'm a Loyal Guy

Thu, 14 May 2026 07:27:54 -0400

Now that I am comfortable with Claude Code and the Anthropic ecosystem, I find it difficult to switch and explore Codex for developing a new web application. I know I will eventually do it, but I tend to be loyal to a platform if possible.

Can't Make It Work

Thu, 14 May 2026 07:13:09 -0400

I’ve been trying to make Claude Code work with Chrome for development purposes and failed miserably. I’m doing all the required setup, and no, nothing seems to work. Claude Code isn’t able to preview changes on my local browser. Is it because it doesn’t support the ARC Browser? I tested Codex, and it worked right from the bat! Mmmm.

Who Wants To Pay Fees In a Commodity Market?

Wed, 13 May 2026 19:47:33 -0400

Apple Working on Plan to Allow AI Agent Apps on the App Store:

Some developers are hesitant to work with Apple to integrate their apps into ‌Siri‌ because they are worried about providing new ways for Apple to collect commissions. Apple is telling some developers that it does not plan to charge commissions during the early stages of the partnership, but that fees are a possibility in the future. Apple has held talks with Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent about ‌Siri‌ integration in ‌iOS 27‌, but the companies do not want to end up paying fees to Apple.

In the early days of the App Store, every developer aspired to be part of it because it was the ultimate platform. Today, the difference is stark and disheartening. I hope some people at Apple recognize that something is amiss. Developer adoption of the Apple Vision Pro has been hesitant, mainly due to concerns about the market size. This is an area where Apple could improve by adopting new strategies. Fees and potential fees are major obstacles that Apple can easily control or eliminate, and doing so could significantly boost perceived value.

I Want To Beleive But... No, I Can't.

Wed, 13 May 2026 19:26:21 -0400

Meta AI App Gets ‘Incognito Chat’ as OpenAI Faces Lawsuits Over Stored Chat Logs:

Zuckerberg also said that Meta AI’s incognito mode is the first major AI product where there is no log of conversations stored on servers. Zuckerberg likened the feature to end-to-end encryption, and said no one will be able to read the AI conversations, not even Meta or WhatsApp.

There is nothing incognito in Meta. I don’t believe him. Do you?

iOS 26.6 Betas: No Thank You

Tue, 12 May 2026 06:15:15 -0400

Dear Apple, I don’t want to see a new round of betas, skip iOS 26.6 entirely, and focus all your energy on iOS 27. Since iOS 26.0, I’ve seen many bugs that are still not fixed, nine months later, so I guess iOS 26.6 won’t do it either. I don’t know why some glaring bugs are still among us, poor iPhone users, but it is what it is. I hope that pouring all your efforts into iOS 27 might be the best strategy if coupled with a maturing use of AI to help your engineers in their journey. Who knows. 😑

Open Web + People = ?

Mon, 11 May 2026 21:10:01 -0400

Reddit Starts Blocking Mobile Website, Pushing Users to App Instead:

Social network Reddit recently began blocking mobile visitors to its website while pushing them to download the official Reddit app, and it’s fair to say that the move is not going down well with users.

Two things come to my mind about how Reddit was even possible in the early days: the open web and people. Now, Reddit put the first part of the equation in the trash. The second part might already be happening, thanks to AI.

Test Micro.blog Native App

Mon, 11 May 2026 21:02:00 -0400

This is a test blog post from the Micro.blog app for Mac. This nifty 5 MB app, which is rather extremely small by today’s standards, keeps slowly but surely improving. Now returning to normal programming.

Where is the right balance?

Mon, 11 May 2026 07:01:16 -0400

The pace at which I prepare and send my newsletter is slower than I would like. The attractiveness of this newsletter is probably affected by that. So I get anxious about it. Conversely, if I were very consistent, my newsletter could become much more popular. In that case, I would probably also feel anxious, thinking I need to maintain this high publishing rate. There must be a right balance, where anxiety doesn’t rear its head.

Apple, Copy This!

Sun, 10 May 2026 20:03:52 -0400

Bauhaus Clock for iPhone and iPad:

Bauhaus Clock for iPhone and iPad is a design-first, utility-second sort of app. It’s simple, doing nothing more than tell the time in one or two locations. But how it tells the time — with its gasp-worthy combination of visual, haptics, and audio features — make it one of those delightful apps you’ll love to have on your device.

I wish Apple offered more stylish and easy-to-read watch faces for the Apple Watch. While the hardware has been lagging a bit, perhaps Apple could improve the watch experience through a better time-reading experience.

An Update About Me

Sun, 10 May 2026 07:51:21 -0400

Just in case you didn’t know, I maintain an extensive “Who Is Numeric Citizen” page, built with Realmac Software Elements and hosted on their hosting service, Elements IO.

In recent days, I made a lot of tweaks and updated some details about me and my digital journey. It’s a bit overwhelming, but I guess it’s reflecting what I’m doing online! 😜

Sometimes I wonder if it is a good practice to put so many details about myself online. In the age of AI, I can imagine bad actors using AI and this website to build malicious impersonation tools.

The RODECaster Video: A Downgrade?

Sat, 09 May 2026 13:54:45 -0400

Another morning spent digging into RODEcaster Video S setup and configuration. I’m starting to get a better picture of what this device will help me improve, but also what I’m leaving behind if I drop Mac-only video production. One example is the lack of flexibility in dynamically framing the Mac desktop to hide or show the Mac menu bar. High-resolution video recording (4K @ 60 FPS) is also something I must leave behind when using the RODECaster Video; it’s not a surprise, but a reality check.

Enjoying Stable Apple OSes?

Fri, 08 May 2026 18:29:43 -0400

It’s the time of the year where Apple’s operating systems are the most stable, right before the next WWDC edition. But, really, this year, it is the case? I’m not so sure. As of today, I see bugs in every OSes that Apple didn’t fix since their dot zero release. I home Apple will change course in 2026.

AirPods Ultra?

Thu, 07 May 2026 19:25:46 -0400

AirPods Pro With AI Cameras Reach ‘Advanced’ Testing Stage — MacRumors

The AirPods Pro will have built-in cameras that will feed visual information about the wearer’s surroundings to Siri. While there will be a longer stem for the camera in each AirPod, the device will otherwise look similar to the AirPods Pro 3.

I would take an AirPods upgrade over any pendant-like device for augmented reality with AI twists. I feel this is more socially acceptable than a pendant.

Inkwell + Inoreader = ❤️ ?

Wed, 06 May 2026 20:06:12 -0400

Manton Reece:

When I bulit the API for Inkwell, I decided to pattern it after Feedbin’s API instead of Google Reader. Just seemed right.

I’d like Inkwell to support Inoreader, too.

On Mac SKUs Optimization

Wed, 06 May 2026 07:31:09 -0400

Apple Cuts More Mac Studio and Mac Mini RAM Options as Memory Shortage Worsens — MacRumors

Apple has removed more desktop Macs from its online store as the global memory shortage continues. Mac mini models with 32GB and 64GB of RAM are no longer available for purchase, nor is the M3 Ultra Mac Studio with 256GB RAM.

While some RAM configurations were removed, I find it surprising that you still can configure your Mac with up to 16 TB of storage, another electronic component that is becoming scarce. Apple is, in fact, reducing CPU SKUs¹, but might also reduce storage options in the future.

RAM or system memory is on-chip. ↩︎

Read The Fuckin Manual!

Wed, 06 May 2026 07:09:11 -0400

I received this device yesterday and started experimenting with it. As someone with limited experience in video production, I find it a bit intimidating to learn and use. I tend to skip reading the manual on my first use, which is usually a good test of a device’s design. A well-designed device shouldn’t need a manual, but in this case, it does.

One surprising aspect is that while there is an online documentation, it lacks depth. Specifically, it would be helpful to have a range of production setups, from simple to complex, along with descriptions for each configuration.

I plan to use the mixer with my Mac mini (for recording my screen), my iPhone (to record myself), an external Samsung T5 SSD (for ISO recording output), my Bose QuietComfort headphones, and my RODE WirelessME pic. I might add another video input, such as my Nikon Zf or my Logitech BRIO webcam, and use my iPad as an external display.

Come On Apple, Take It!

Tue, 05 May 2026 07:06:54 -0400

Manton Reece is struggling with Apple’s efforts to publish Inkwell on the App Store. He shared some details about his recent difficult experience, and I hope he will reveal more once the app is available.

The state of the App Store is astonishing, in a bad way. I recently spent a few minutes browsing the Mac App Store to find an iPhone app and check its compatibility on a Mac. The number of poorly made apps is incredible. It appears Apple no longer recognizes when an app is genuinely well-designed and serves a real purpose.

I use the TestFlight version of Inkwell every day.

On Micro.blog's Blog Post Title Handling

Mon, 04 May 2026 22:05:44 -0400

When using Micro.blog, if a blog post has a title, once cross-posted to Bluesky (and probably Mastodon), only the title is included, with a link to the original post. If I want to include a teaser, I need to generate a text summary of the blog post that will be included in the cross-posted content. If my blog post includes an image, that image will appear, too. All this to say: I’m going to include a post title as often as possible and have a post summary generated. This blog post was more or less a test. Now returning to normal programming. Thank you for your attention to that matter.

Here is the blog post on Bluesky.

Apple Watch Face Store?

Mon, 04 May 2026 10:02:46 -0400

watchOS 27 to Offer New Watch Faces, Including ‘Modular Ultra’ Variant — MacRumors

Apple is testing multiple new faces for watchOS 27, code-named “Orchid,” with one being a “simplified take” on the Modular Ultra design.

When is Apple going to introduce a Watch Face Store? Will Apple ever do this? Beyond Apple Watch Apps, it seems Apple is missing an opportunity to make even more money, even if it is open to a select few Watch Face developers and designers…

Give It a Title or Not? That Is the Question

Mon, 04 May 2026 08:00:54 -0400

I’m still uncertain about whether I should include titles for my blog posts here. Do all posts need a title? Why do some have titles while others might not? It seems that the unwritten guideline is that long posts should have titles, whereas short ones might not require them. I like titles because they better define each post, either on the timeline or in a blog post digest. Your thoughts?

Feeling Tired of Apple Keynote?

Mon, 04 May 2026 07:13:36 -0400

Since I started making YouTube videos, I’ve used Apple Keynote to design all my thumbnails because I found it approachable, easy to work with, and capable of helping me quickly create acceptable designs. However, this morning I feel that my approach needs reevaluation. I briefly tried Canva, but the free version is too restrictive, and I dislike software with constant subscription prompts, as if I’m using a demo. I also thought about Acorn, but it never really resonated with me. For now, I plan to stick with Keynote unless someone suggests a better alternative I haven’t considered.

Trying to Define What is a Blog Home

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 13:53:00 -0400

This might be obvious for many bloggers, but these questions popped up in my mind this morning when working to enable the new visual design of my blog.

What is a blog’s home? Or is it defined? Should it be the geographical region where the blog is hosted? Or should it be the author’s regional location? Or should the author sign with his or her name followed by both, like “Numeric Citizen from Montréal, Canada, hosted on a server somewhere in the US”? And where this signature should go? At the end of each post? Or at the end of the blog’s main page?

I’m still pondering my options.

Announcing a New Blog Design

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 12:18:04 -0400

Finally, after so many years on Micro.blog, I’m excited to announce that this blog is now using my custom-built visual theme, built entirely with Claude AI, Claude Code, and a lot of my spare time. Bye-bye third-party visual plugin¹! This marks a major milestone for me, as I have always wanted to have my own design for this blog².

I was using the excellent Cards Theme. ↩︎
I’m still working out some issues that I didn’t have on my test blog before, but only occur on my production site. ↩︎

Happy 50th Anniversary, Apple!

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 07:35:48 -0400

For today’s Apple’s 50th anniversary, I didn’t write a special blog post. Maybe I should have. I kind of forgot about it, even though I wrote about it a few days ago. Anyway, a few years ago, I wrote about the root of my passion for Apple. I’m not sure this article aged well, though. Nonetheless, Apple and Steve Jobs played a major role in defining who I am today, that’s for sure.

A Little Rant about LinkedIn

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 08:54:21 -0400

Rant of the day: Why is Microsoft not caring about making the LinkedIn app a better app, a better mobile experience? Aren’t they using designers? UX specialists? Even AI? Aren’t they taking care of their brand and image? I mean, using this app on the iPad is such a displeasure.

If someone from Microsoft and / or LinkedIn responsible for this app: have tried it once for real on the iPad? Are you ok with this? Really? If you aren’t, and obviously cannot do anything about it, why are you still working there?

Rant off.

The iPad Pro on The Road for Office Work

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 06:55:39 -0400

Finally, I configured my personal iPad Pro with all my office tools. I certainly wish my job would allow me to use a Mac, but no.

The iPad is very good in this scenario with all the M365 apps (bleh). Battery life is 20 times better than my HP laptop, without the always-on noisy fans. I understand this device is way more powerful than the MacBook Neo, much more compact, three times more expensive for an inferior software experience. That is quite a paradox.

Today, I’m going to the administrative head office, a three-hour drive, using the office’s business bus, specially designed for workers on the road (sure, the Corporation wants always-productive employees!).

Life of an IT worker.

The iPhone 5 and the MacBook Neo

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 05:31:45 -0400

One of the best iPhone design, the iPhone 5, is now obsolete for Apple, which means is no longer serviceable. It was one of my favorite design of all the iPhone partly because of the tech context it was living. But iOS 6 on this was pure beauty.

As a side note, it’s funny to see reviews of the MacBook Neo where none of them mention macOS as being part of the machine. What makes a Mac is not only the hardware, but the software. I guess tech pundits had to exclude macOS from the equation. Or is it because the Neo design is so unique, so enchanting that the software story has to be sidelined?

I’m so anxious for Apple to fix macOS.

Good Job Apple, Now Back to Software?

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 22:56:50 -0400

Ok, Apple did a great job this week. A lot has already been said about Apple’s announcements. The MacBook Neo is a killer, even as an entry device. My wife is getting one. It’s the original Mac mini in a laptop shape. Apple did a great balancing act with the Neo. The only two quibbles: only 8 GB of RAM (I wanted 12 GB) and the lack of a MagSafe port.

Now, I hope Apple can do as good a job on the software as it did on the hardware. There is so much to fix.

Dim that background for me, will ya?

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 22:32:50 -0400

★ HazeOver — Mac Utility for Highlighting the Frontmost Window:

What HazeOver does is highlight the active window by dimming all background windows. That’s it. But it does this simple task with aplomb, and it makes a significant difference in the day-to-day usability of MacOS. Not just MacOS 26 Tahoe — all recent versions of MacOS suffer from a design that makes it difficult to distinguish, instantly, the frontmost (a.k.a. key) window from background windows.1 Making all background windows a little dimmer makes a notable difference.

For some reason, I forgot about this Mac utility. It was installed on my Mac mini, but disabled. It’s now installed and enabled on my MacBook Air with a 40% dimming value. Makes a big difference.

Micro.blog + RSS = ?

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 20:14:43 -0400

Micro.blog is set to launch soon what could be its most exciting new feature yet: an integrated RSS reader. If I’m not mistaken, this could significantly change how I use the service. I currently follow many Mastodon accounts from news sites, so their updates are pushed to my timeline. With a possible RSS integration, I could use the RSS feeds directly, eliminating the need to follow the Mastodon account. I don’t know how the new feature will integrate with the rest of Micro.blog features, but I’ll find out very soon. I can’t wait. Why? Because I’m a fan of Micro.blog and of RSS.

More MacBook Expectations

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 15:07:07 -0400

Here’s what I want for the upcoming entry-level MacBook:

Size and design: thin and less boxy than two iPad Pro on top of each other.
Just under 13-inch retina display.
Full-size keyboard flush with the left and right device edges.
8GB of RAM with a 12GB option available.
256 GB of fast storage (120 GB/s) with a 512GB upgrade option.
One fast USB-C port and MagSafe.
Very thin bezel around the display to minimize the overall device size. Fingers crossed for a notch-less design.
External display support (a bit far-fetched, though).
Colors similar to the current iMac desktop.

What I don’t expect:

Headphone jack
Thunderbolt support
More than one display
Nano texture option
Glowing Apple Logo on the back of the display
The return of the wedge design
Cellular option

Starting price: 599 US$.

A Short Conversation with ChatGPT About The Upcoming Entry-Level MacBook

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 21:51:52 -0400

Is the Apple A18 Pro more powerful than the Apple Silicon M1 ?

In a straight performance comparison, the Apple A18 Pro (a smartphone SoC used in the iPhone 16 Pro) and the Apple Silicon M1 (Apple’s first Mac/desktop-class chip) are closer than you might expect — but neither is strictly “more powerful” across all categories. The answer depends heavily on how you measure performance:

🔋 Architecture & Design Goals

• Apple A18 Pro

– Built on a modern 3 nm process, very high efficiency, designed for mobile devices with tight thermal/power limits.

• Apple M1

– Built on 5 nm process, designed for sustained performance in laptops/desktops with active cooling and higher thermal budgets.

🧠 CPU Performance

• Single-core:

Benchmarks show the A18 Pro often beats the M1 in single-core scores — meaning for individual tasks that don’t use all cores, the phone chip can actually be faster.

• Multi-core:

Multi-core scores are generally very close, with some tests showing A18 Pro slightly ahead and others showing the M1 slightly ahead. Overall, they are competitive in multi-core performance.

Put simply:

For peak instantaneous bursts or single-threaded tasks, the A18 Pro can edge out the M1 — but in sustained, multi-core workloads where thermal headroom matters, the M1 often matches or slightly exceeds the A18 Pro.

🎮 GPU & Graphics

Many benchmark comparisons indicate the A18 Pro’s GPU performance is on par with or even better than the M1’s integrated graphics, despite being in a phone.

⚖️ Efficiency vs Sustained Power

• A18 Pro: incredible performance per watt due to mobile design; great for short bursts and mobile workloads.

• M1: superior sustained performance overall thanks to active cooling and higher TDP in laptops/desktops.

🧠 Real-World Implication

The A18 Pro isn’t simply a “weaker” phone chip — in many benchmarks it rivals or surpasses the original M1, especially in single-core and graphics metrics. However:

• In true desktop/laptop sustained workloads (like long exports, heavy multitasking, compiles, etc.), the M1 typically has the edge because it can keep higher performance over time thanks to better cooling and more cores.

Bottom line:

💡 The A18 Pro is comparable to the M1 in raw performance, often beating it in short bursts or single-threaded tests and matching it in many multi-core scenarios. But because of power and thermal limits on phones, the M1 still wins in sustained heavy workloads.

What if I told you that Apple might build a MacBook based on the A18 Pro?

If you’re seriously suggesting Apple might put an A18 Pro in a MacBook, you’re not alone — there are credible industry rumors and code-level signs pointing exactly at that possibility for an upcoming entry-level laptop.

📰 Current Rumors Supporting the Idea

• Multiple outlets (including Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman) report Apple is planning a more affordable MacBook, possibly to be announced around March 4, 2026, and that this laptop would use an A-series chip instead of a traditional M-series Apple Silicon processor.

• Recent macOS code leaks include device drivers and codenames that suggest a MacBook powered by an A18 Pro chip is real.

• Analysts like Ming-Chi Kuo have explicitly mentioned Apple working on a MacBook using the A18 Pro in a 13-inch form factor.

• Reports speculate that, due to the A18 Pro’s strong performance (competitive with and even exceeding the original M1 in some benchmarks), it could deliver “enough” performance for everyday computing while significantly lowering cost.

💡 Why It Makes Some Sense Technically

• The A18 Pro is an ARM SoC with modern performance cores and a capable GPU, so in short bursts and single-threaded tasks it can rival or even exceed the older M1 chip — which Mazda’s report shows and users have confirmed.

• Being designed for mobile with an advanced 3 nm process, it’s extremely power-efficient — a trait that could translate into long battery life and a fanless or low-heat design in a thinner laptop.

⚠️ Important Caveats — Even if the Rumor Is True

• An A18 Pro-based MacBook would likely not match current MacBook Air/Pro performance with M-series chips, especially in sustained multi-core workloads and heavy creative tasks.

• Some hardware limitations of iPhone chips (like lack of Thunderbolt support) could impose constraints that need workarounds or design trade-offs in a laptop context.

• Because this would be a budget entry product, expect less memory, fewer ports, and lower-end displays compared to standard Air/Pro models.

📊 Strategic Angle

Apple introducing an A-series chip in a MacBook wouldn’t just be a novelty — it’s a strategic pivot aimed at lowering price barriers to macOS hardware and competing more directly with low-cost laptops.

In summary: yes — there’s credible evidence that Apple might build a MacBook powered by the A18 Pro, especially as an affordable model for mainstream users. That wouldn’t make it a performance rival to high-end Apple Silicon Macs, but for everyday computing it could feel surprisingly capable. If this pans out, it would be one of the most interesting shifts in Apple’s chip strategy in years.

What pricing do you think Apple will set for this little one?

If the rumors about an Apple A18 Pro-powered MacBook (likely unveiled at Apple’s March 4, 2026 event) are true, most leaks and industry analysis point toward a much more aggressive price point than Apple’s typical laptops — a key part of the strategy for this device.

Here’s how analysts are thinking about potential pricing:

🪙 Likely Price Range (US Retail)

• $599 USD: One of the most frequently cited figures — this would put it in direct competition with mainstream Chromebooks and very affordable Windows laptops.

• $599 – $699 USD: A common rumored range if Apple pushes slightly higher but still keeps it well under $1,000.

• Up to $799 USD: Some external commentary and speculation suggest Apple might land closer to this level (especially if the build quality and feature set are more substantial than expected).

📊 How That Compares to the Rest of the Lineup

• The current MacBook Air with Apple Silicon starts around $999 USD, so pricing the A18 Pro MacBook at $599–$799 would undercut that by 200–40 %, making it a genuinely entry-level Mac rather than a price-cut older Air model.

• It would position Apple against low-cost laptops used in education and basic consumer segments — a space traditionally dominated by sub-$500 Chromebooks.

🎯 Strategic Positioning

That price positioning makes sense for Apple’s goals here:

• Lower barrier to entry for new Mac customers (students, first-time buyers).

• A more competitive offering against cheaper laptops running Windows or ChromeOS.

• Stronger ecosystem lock-in by offering a full macOS experience at a price closer to mainstream devices.

💬 Caveats & Market Realities

• These are all leaks and analyst projections, not confirmed Apple pricing. Apple has historically kept its Mac lineup firmly in premium territory, so sub-$800 pricing would be a notable shift in strategy.

• Regional pricing outside the US (i.e., Canada, Europe) could be significantly higher once taxes and duties are applied.

In summary: based on current leaks, most credible estimates put an A18 Pro-powered MacBook somewhere in the $599–$ 799 USD range, with $699 often quoted as a realistic sweet spot — a price that would mark a genuine entry-level Mac.

As an owner of an M2 15-inch MacBook Air which I really enjoy using and of a M4 11-inch iPad Pro, convince me that the new MacBook still makes sense

You own a 15-inch MacBook Air with M2 and an 11-inch iPad Pro with M4. That’s a very balanced setup: one lightweight full Mac, one ultra-modern tablet powerhouse.

So let me try to convince you — rigorously — why an A18 Pro MacBook could still make sense.

⸻

First: The Air Isn’t “Pro-tier sustained compute”

Your M2 MacBook Air is excellent, but it’s still:

• Fanless

• Thermal-limited under long, heavy workloads

• Optimized for efficiency more than peak sustained performance

An A18 Pro MacBook would also be efficiency-focused — but that’s the point: it wouldn’t compete with your Air on brute force. It would compete on form factor, cost positioning, and use-case specialization.

⸻

The Real Question: What Would It Change?

Right now your stack looks like this:

• iPad Pro (M4) → touch-first, pencil workflows, media, travel-light

• MacBook Air (M2, 15”) → main laptop, writing, browsing, productivity, light creative work

An A18 MacBook would likely be:

• Smaller (likely 13” or even lighter chassis)

• Extremely power efficient

• Possibly thinner than current Air

• Lower RAM ceiling

• Lower cost tier

That introduces a new category:

A true “secondary Mac” that you wouldn’t hesitate to throw in a bag the way you do with an iPad.

⸻

Where It Could Actually Make Sense for You

You’re detail-oriented and you write. That means:

• Long writing sessions

• Browser tab storms

• CMS dashboards

• Photo selection / light editing

• Occasional heavier creative bursts

For 80% of that, you do not need M-series multi-core throughput.

You need:

• Instant responsiveness

• Battery longevity

• Silent operation

• Full macOS (not iPadOS constraints)

If the A18 Pro delivers M1-class single-core responsiveness (which current data suggests it can), then for writing and publishing workflows it would feel absolutely fine.

⸻

The Psychological Angle (Which Matters)

Your 15-inch Air is large and premium.

An A18 MacBook would likely feel more:

• Casual

• Portable

• “Grab-and-go”

• Less precious

That changes how you use it.

Many people with a main Mac still appreciate a smaller “companion Mac” that:

• Lives on a kitchen counter

• Travels as a low-stress machine

• Handles daily browsing without risking the main workstation

You currently use the iPad for that role — but it still runs iPadOS.

⸻

The Real Strategic Argument

The strongest argument isn’t for you personally. It’s for the ecosystem.

If Apple ships a 599-799 Mac:

• macOS gains a much larger base

• Developers target lower-tier hardware more aggressively

• The Mac platform stops being perceived as premium-only

That benefits your primary machine indirectly.

⸻

The Hard Truth

Would it replace your M2 15” Air? No.

Would it outperform it in sustained tasks Almost certainly not.

Would it duplicate your iPad? No — because it runs full macOS.

⸻

So Should You Buy It?

If I’m being precise:

• If your M2 Air already feels perfectly balanced and portable → you likely don’t need it.

• If you’ve ever wished your iPad were “just a Mac with insane battery life and instant wake” → this machine becomes interesting.

• If Apple makes it radically light and aggressively priced → it becomes a compelling secondary device.

For someone in your position, it’s not about performance. It’s about behavioral computing patterns. And Apple knows that’s where the next expansion of the Mac lies.

Me: I love ChatGPT. It was a fun conversation. 🤓😬😏 You made it to the bottom? Wow. Congrats.

About This Tempting Light MacBook

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 08:23:42 -0400

If the rumors turn out to be true, Apple will announce a new entry-level MacBook line on March 4th. Why is this relevant to me? Well, I’m really curious to see what Apple will offer in terms of technical specifications and overall design, because I might be tempted to get one. But why? I already have an M2 MacBook Air 15"!

The short answer: to use while travelling instead of bringing my M4 iPad Pro! But I’ve always said that the iPad is a perfect device to bring on trips! That’s true, but it still lacks one thing: the flexibility macOS provides. Yes, we’re back to the Mac again!

My last trip abroad confirmed that my iPad was very suitable, but I sometimes wished I had the flexibility of a MacBook for certain tasks, as well as a larger keyboard. If the new MacBook offers reasonable power, dimensions close to those of the old 12" MacBook, a lightweight, and a fair price, I might be tempted.

I owned the 11-inch MacBook Air (as explained here), and I loved it. My hope is to see a blend between the 11-inch MacBook Air and the 12-inch MacBook.

It seems like it’s been a long time since I’ve been excited about the prospects of a new Apple product.

When I Retire...

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 07:50:54 -0400

One of my nieces’ friends works in IT and recently contacted me for advice about his career in this field. This isn’t the first time I’ve received this kind of request. Over the past year, two other colleagues have also asked me for similar career advice. I have to admit, I really enjoy it. I like listening to the concerns of the younger generation and, to the best of my knowledge, advising them to help them flourish even more.

I have over 30 years of experience in IT, and I’m starting to think about retirement and what I will do once my career is over. I have to admit, offering my advice for free to younger people is something I would really love to do.

We're Making a Big Mistake

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 08:19:28 -0400

I believe that IT workers who are also passionate about gen AI are making a major misjudgment. We wrongly assume that the advances we observe in our field, such as the autonomous or semi-autonomous development of applications, also translate to sectors like medicine or law. This is a false generalization.

The field of IT heavily relies on strict formalism: the raw material consumed by LLMs. In the legal field, for example, this is not the case: it is much more complex. Laws, regulations, and judgments are generally written and presented in standardized forms, but the content is far from being as digestible formalism as lines of code written in a programming language. In my opinion, we should remember that when we share our enthusiasm for gen AI. We must be lucid while also setting the right expectations for decision-makers and lawmakers.

The Rise of Cognitive Dept

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 07:49:43 -0400

Margaret-Anne Storey introduces “cognitive debt” as a concept that may be more threatening than technical debt in AI-augmented development. Unlike technical debt (which lives in code), cognitive debt is the erosion of shared understanding that resides in developers’ minds. Drawing on Peter Naur’s concept of a program as a “theory” distributed across teams, the article argues that as AI and agentic tools push for development velocity, teams risk losing their collective understanding of why systems work the way they do. Even if AI generates technically clean code, teams can become paralyzed when no one can explain design decisions or anticipate the consequences of changes. The author calls for intentional slowdowns, collaborative practices, and serious research into measuring and mitigating this growing challenge.

“As generative and agentic AI accelerate development, protecting that shared theory of what the software does and how it can change may matter more for long-term software health than any single metric of speed or output.”

Traveling to Egypt and Jordan: Some of My Random Travel Notes

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 06:26:10 -0400

One of my favourite things while flying is seeing a plane go in the opposite direction at a distance, ideally close enough to feel the raw speed of the plane added to mine.
I loved Egypt, but the chaos of Cairo can be overwhelming and tiring. I prefer the relative calm of Jordan’s cities. I may be getting too old for some scenery.
WhatsApp is a dominant communication platform worldwide, except in North America. Too bad it is so awkward to navigate and is owned by Meta.
Taking pictures of the scene from my hublot is a good time killer and can produce fascinating images. I have so many of them.
Posted many pictures on my personal and custom-made photo-sharing website, and it worked beautifully. Of course, a selection of my photos was also posted on my Glass page. More to come in the next few weeks.
My personal custom-built RSS web app proved to be super handy when I wanted a quick overview of the news.
These notes were gathered and written using Raycast for iOS before being edited and published. Raycast > Tot, in my opinion.
I encountered several planes equipped with electronically activated polarization shields on the windows, which produce unusual lighting effects both outside and inside the cabin. Some shields do not completely block external light. Additionally, these shields are centrally controlled during flight, which can be frustrating.
Most airports remain and will always be customer-hostile and unfriendly. It seems to be getting worse every year, everywhere, as air travel continues to increase.
I brought my newly acquired Ubiquity Travel Router with me, but it was of no use; all hotel Wi-Fi, including the cruise ship, allowed many devices to connect with a single activation.
Taking a break from the intensity of the digital world is salutary. But I’m glad to be back online now.

Something Is Going On

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 08:31:24 -0400

I’m still working on this, but I’m heading in the right direction. I realize that every blog post should have a title so that my RSS flow feed looks great. 👀

I'm rebuilding Flickr!

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 22:40:06 -0400

Well, maybe not, but here’s a description of my recently created photo-sharing webapp. And I have many more ideas to improve this.

A modern, full-stack travel photo gallery built with Next.js 15, featuring intelligent photo management, interactive maps, and seamless cloud storage integration.

🌟 Highlights

Zero-Database Architecture: Uses Vercel Blob for photos and Redis (via Vercel KV) for metadata
Privacy Controls: Public, unlisted, and private album visibility options
Interactive World Map: Displays photo locations extracted from EXIF GPS data
Responsive Design: Optimized for all devices from mobile to desktop
Admin Panel: Complete photo management without leaving the browser

🎨 Public Gallery Features

Album Management

Collapsible Albums: Each travel album can be expanded or collapsed independently
Smart Defaults: Most recent album automatically expands on page load
Album Metadata: Title, description, and date for each collection
Privacy Levels:
- Public: Visible to everyone on the homepage
- Unlisted: Only accessible via direct link
- Private: Visible only to authenticated admins

Photo Display

Grid Layout Options: Three display modes to suit your preference
- Comfortable: Spacious 2-5 column grid with square thumbnails
- Compact: Dense 3-6 column grid for maximum photos per screen
- Masonry: Pinterest-style layout preserving original aspect ratios
Layout Persistence: Grid preference saved in browser localStorage
Newest First: Photos automatically sorted by upload date (newest at top-left)
Rounded Thumbnails: Modern, elegant aesthetic with subtle shadows
Hover Effects: Smooth scale and brightness animations on interaction
Upload Date Display: Shows when each photo was added (in comfortable/masonry modes)

Full-Screen Experience: Distraction-free photo viewing
Navigation Controls:
- Keyboard arrows (← →) for previous/next
- On-screen navigation buttons
- ESC key to close
Photo Captions: Optional descriptions displayed below photos
Smooth Transitions: Animated photo changes with loading states
Mobile Optimized: Touch-friendly controls and responsive sizing

Interactive Features

World Map Integration:
- Leaflet-based interactive map
- Clustered markers for photos with GPS coordinates
- Click markers to view photos from that location
- Automatic bounds fitting to show all locations
- Album information in marker popups
Random Featured Photo:
- Displays a random photo from all albums on homepage
- Changes on each page load
- Shows caption if available
Mini Thumbnails:
- Collapsed albums show preview of first 5 photos
- Smooth animation on expand/collapse
- Photo count badge for albums with 6+ photos

Content Syndication

RSS Feed: Subscribe to new photo uploads at /feed.xml
Analytics: Vercel Analytics integration for visitor tracking

🔐 Admin Panel Features

Authentication

Vercel Authentication: Secure login using your Vercel account
Protected Routes: /admin and sub-routes require authentication
Session Management: Logout functionality with redirect

Album Management

Create Albums:
- Title (required)
- Description (optional)
- Date (optional, ISO format)
- Privacy setting (public/unlisted/private)
Edit Albums:
- Update all metadata including privacy settings
- Inline editing interface
- Cancel without saving
Delete Albums:
- Confirmation dialog before deletion
- Automatically deletes all photos in album
- Removes both metadata and blob files

Photo Management

Bulk Upload:
- Multi-file selection support
- Drag-and-drop interface
- Progress tracking for each file
- Batch processing with individual status indicators
- Total size calculation before upload
Upload Features:
- Automatic EXIF extraction (GPS, camera, capture settings)
- Optional captions (for single photo uploads)
- Format support: JPG, PNG, WebP, and more
- Visual upload progress bar
- Success/error status for each file
Photo Organization:
- Clickable photo count badges link to management page
- Grid view of all photos in an album
- Displays metadata: upload date, GPS, camera info
- Empty state with call-to-action
Delete Photos:
- Individual photo deletion from management page
- Confirmation dialog with photo caption
- Removes both Vercel Blob file and metadata
- Instant UI update on successful deletion

Admin Dashboard

Album Overview:
- List of all albums (sorted by date, newest first)
- Photo count for each album
- Privacy status indicators with icons
- Quick access buttons (Edit, Upload, Manage, Delete)
Status Indicators:
- 🌍 Public: Green badge with globe icon
- 🔗 Unlisted: Yellow badge with link icon
- 🔒 Private: Red badge with lock icon
Responsive Layout: Optimized for tablet and mobile management

🛠️ Technical Architecture

Frontend

Framework: Next.js 15 with App Router
Language: TypeScript for type safety
Styling: Tailwind CSS with custom configurations
Icons: Lucide React for consistent iconography
Image Optimization: Next.js Image component with automatic optimization
State Management: React hooks (useState, useEffect)
Client-Side Rendering: Dynamic imports for map components (SSR bypass)

Backend

API Routes: Next.js server-side API endpoints
File Upload: FormData with multipart handling
EXIF Parsing: exif-parser library for metadata extraction
Image Processing: Automatic format conversion and compression

Storage & Database

Photo Storage: Vercel Blob (CDN-backed object storage)
Metadata Storage: Redis via Vercel KV Marketplace integration
Database Client: ioredis for Redis connections
Data Structure:
- Albums stored as JSON array in albums key
- Photos stored per album in photos:{albumId} keys
- No SQL database required

Deployment

Platform: Vercel
Environment:
- BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN: Vercel Blob access
- KV_REDIS_URL: Redis connection string
CDN: Automatic edge caching for photos and pages
Domain: Custom domain support with automatic SSL

📊 Data Models

Album

{
  id: string;                          // album_timestamp_random
  title: string;                       // "Japan 2025"
  description: string;                 // Trip description
  date: string;                        // ISO date "2025-01-15"
  createdAt: number;                   // Unix timestamp
  visibility: "public" | "unlisted" | "private";
}

Photo

{
  id: string;                          // photo_timestamp_random
  albumId: string;                     // Reference to album
  blobUrl: string;                     // Vercel Blob URL
  caption?: string;                    // Optional description
  uploadedAt: number;                  // Unix timestamp
  metadata?: {
    gps?: {
      latitude: number;
      longitude: number;
      altitude?: number;
    };
    camera?: {
      make?: string;                   // "Canon"
      model?: string;                  // "EOS R5"
      lens?: string;
    };
    capture?: {
      dateTaken?: string;              // When photo was taken
      exposureTime?: string;           // "1/1000"
      fNumber?: number;                // 2.8
      iso?: number;                    // 100
      focalLength?: number;            // 50mm
    };
    dimensions?: {
      width: number;
      height: number;
    };
    orientation?: number;
  };
}

🎯 User Flows

Visitor Journey

Land on homepage → See random featured photo
View interactive world map with photo locations
Browse albums (newest expanded by default)
Click photo → Open lightbox viewer
Navigate with arrows or keyboard
Subscribe to RSS feed for updates

Admin Journey

Navigate to /admin → Vercel auth redirect
View dashboard with all albums and photo counts
Create new album: Click “Create Album” → Fill form → Set privacy
Upload photos: Click “Upload Photos” → Drag files → Add captions → Upload
Manage photos: Click photo count badge → View grid → Delete unwanted photos
Edit album: Click “Edit” → Update metadata/privacy → Save
Delete album: Click “Delete” → Confirm → Album and all photos removed

🚀 Performance Optimizations

Image Optimization: Next.js automatic WebP conversion and lazy loading
CDN Caching: Vercel Edge Network caches photos globally
Code Splitting: Dynamic imports for heavy components (map)
Responsive Images: Multiple sizes served based on viewport
Minimal JavaScript: Client-side JS only where needed
Fast Page Loads: Static generation where possible
Efficient Queries: Single Redis calls for album/photo lists
LocalStorage: Grid layout preference cached client-side

🎨 Design Philosophy

Visual Design

Color Palette: Blue gradient accents with dark mode support
Typography: Clear hierarchy with responsive font sizes
Spacing: Generous whitespace for comfortable reading
Shadows: Layered depth with hover elevations
Animations: Subtle 300ms transitions throughout
Icons: Consistent Lucide icon library

User Experience

Progressive Disclosure: Collapsed albums reduce cognitive load
Keyboard Navigation: Full keyboard support in lightbox
Touch Optimization: Tap targets sized for mobile
Loading States: Spinners and skeletons during data fetches
Error Handling: User-friendly error messages
Confirmation Dialogs: Prevent accidental deletions

Accessibility

Semantic HTML: Proper heading hierarchy
Focus States: Visible keyboard focus indicators
Alt Text: Image descriptions for screen readers
Color Contrast: WCAG AA compliance
Responsive Design: Works on all screen sizes

📈 Use Cases

Personal Travel Blog

Document trips with organized photo albums
Share adventures with family and friends
Keep private memories secure with privacy controls

Photography Portfolio

Showcase work by location or project
Professional presentation with grid layouts
Metadata display for technical details

Create unlisted albums for family-only access
Easy upload from mobile devices
No complicated software required

Educational Projects

Demonstrate modern web development practices
Showcase Next.js 15 App Router patterns
Example of cloud storage integration

🔮 Future Enhancement Ideas

Photo Features

Bulk photo deletion (select multiple)
Photo reordering (drag-and-drop)
Photo editing (crop, rotate, filters)
Download full-resolution images
Print/photo book export

Search & Discovery

Full-text search across captions
Tag system for categorization
Timeline view (chronological)
Favorites/highlights collection

Photo comments system
Social media share buttons
Individual photo permalinks
Public photo embeds

Analytics

View count tracking
Popular photos dashboard
Storage usage metrics
Visitor analytics

Mobile App

Native iOS/Android apps
Offline photo viewing (PWA)
Camera integration for uploads
Push notifications for new albums

💡 Why This Architecture?

Serverless-First

No server maintenance: Vercel handles infrastructure
Auto-scaling: Handles traffic spikes automatically
Global CDN: Photos served from edge locations
Cost-effective: Pay only for usage

Modern Stack

Type Safety: TypeScript catches bugs at compile time
React 19: Latest React features and optimizations
Next.js 15: App Router for improved performance
Tailwind CSS: Utility-first styling for rapid development

Cloud Storage

Vercel Blob: Purpose-built for media storage
Redis: Fast key-value storage for metadata
No database: Simpler architecture, fewer failure points
Atomic operations: Redis ensures data consistency

📝 Technical Decisions

Why ioredis instead of @vercel/kv?

The Vercel KV Marketplace integration provides a standard Redis URL, which works better with the ioredis package. This offers more flexibility and standard Redis features.

Why client-side rendering for the homepage?

The random featured photo and map interactions require JavaScript. Client-side rendering provides the most interactive experience while keeping the codebase simple.

Why separate manage page instead of edit-in-place?

Separating photo management from display keeps each view focused and performant. The upload page stays lightweight for quick uploads, while the manage page provides detailed controls.

Why not use a traditional database?

For a photo gallery, the access patterns are simple (list albums, list photos). Redis provides sub-millisecond reads and sufficient storage for metadata, while Vercel Blob handles the large files. This eliminates the need for PostgreSQL/MySQL.

🏗️ Project Structure

voyages-photo-gallery/
├── app/
│   ├── admin/
│   │   ├── manage/[albumId]/       # Photo management page
│   │   ├── upload/[albumId]/       # Photo upload page
│   │   └── page.tsx                # Admin dashboard
│   ├── api/
│   │   ├── admin/
│   │   │   ├── albums/
│   │   │   │   ├── [albumId]/      # Update/delete album
│   │   │   │   └── route.ts        # Create album
│   │   │   ├── photos/
│   │   │   │   └── route.ts        # Delete photo
│   │   │   └── upload/
│   │   │       └── route.ts        # Upload photos
│   │   ├── albums/
│   │   │   └── route.ts            # Get all albums (public)
│   │   ├── photos/
│   │   │   └── route.ts            # Get all photos (public)
│   │   └── auth/                   # Login/logout
│   ├── feed.xml/
│   │   └── route.ts                # RSS feed generation
│   ├── layout.tsx                  # Root layout with Analytics
│   ├── page.tsx                    # Public gallery homepage
│   └── globals.css                 # Global styles
├── components/
│   ├── AlbumSection.tsx            # Collapsible album component
│   ├── GridLayoutToggle.tsx        # Layout switcher
│   ├── Lightbox.tsx                # Photo viewer
│   └── WorldMap.tsx                # Interactive map
├── lib/
│   └── db.ts                       # Redis database functions
├── types/
│   └── index.ts                    # TypeScript type definitions
├── middleware.ts                   # Auth protection
└── package.json                    # Dependencies

🎓 Learning Resources

This project demonstrates:

Next.js 15 App Router patterns
TypeScript in React applications
Tailwind CSS utility-first styling
Vercel deployment and storage
Redis data modeling
EXIF metadata extraction
Responsive design principles
File upload handling
Authentication middleware
Dynamic routing
Client/server component separation

Perfect for developers learning modern full-stack web development!

📄 License

MIT License - Feel free to use this as a learning resource or starting point for your own projects.

🤝 Contributing

Built with Claude Code - AI-assisted development for rapid prototyping and feature implementation.

Technologies: Next.js 15 • React 19 • TypeScript • Tailwind CSS • Vercel • Redis • Leaflet

Built by: AI enthusiasts exploring the intersection of modern web development and AI-assisted coding

Building A Dedicated Photo-Sharing Website in Claude Code

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 17:15:14 -0400

Thinking about the upcoming trip to Egypt, I realized I still didn’t have a good solution for sharing photos and comments beyond the usual social networks. Drawing on my experience from the past few weeks deploying web applications on Vercel, I decided to try the same by building a website for sharing and viewing photos. The additional complexity here is that the viewing portion is separate from the photo upload section. Therefore, I need to protect this feature with a password. Additionally, image storage must be optimized to minimize costs and provide a pleasant, flexible viewing experience. I’m using Vercel-only blog storage and Redis for metadata store.

In less than 2 hours, I built a fully functional application with Claude Code and Vercel. Impressive.

Apple Creator Studio - A Few Comments

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 21:42:34 -0400

On today’s announcement by Apple:

Now we know why it took so long for Apple to update Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Where is iWork? Why no iWork subscription without the pro stuff?
I don’t understand this bundling of pro apps with consumer-generalistic apps. Is Apple trying to upsell Pro Apps to consumers via a new subscription? They might be. I don’t think pros want to get Numbers or Pages, though.
Icons are utterly un-Apple, or Apple has become something I no longer relate to software-design-wise. It’s not a good sign.
Yes, Apple does look like Adobe and … Microsoft. And less, Apple.
No mention of Photomator. I believe merging Photomator into Photos is not a good idea; combining a photo browsing app with a photo editing app isn’t ideal. Currently, Photos functions more as a photo browser than as a dedicated editing tool, and both aspects risk becoming mediocre. I want a focused, serious photo-editing app that doesn’t try to rival Photoshop. Is that too much to ask? The challenge lies in Apple’s prioritization of profit over user needs, which makes it difficult to develop such an app.

What a strange start to the year.

On Scrollbars

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 21:54:59 -0400

After reading a recent Gruber article about the macOS Tahoe window-resizing issue, I found a setting in Appearance that keeps scrollbars always visible. It’s somewhat odd because of the scrollbar’s thickness. I wish Apple would make them thinner and less noticeable. I’m unsure if I’ll get used to this.

Note: On Windows 11, scrollbars are always visible by default but are less obtrusive. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Apple was once known for leading with excellent design and great visual taste, but this is less obvious nowadays.

On Apple’s Deal with Google

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:24:30 -0400

Back in November, Google announced Private AI Compute, positioning themselves to offer something like Apple’s Private Cloud Compute. It might be something that OpenAI wasn’t willing to do or didn’t see a fit in their business mission. By offering Private AI Compute, Google might have secured the business with Apple. Anyway, it’s becoming impressive how Google is taking back the lead in AI. Lastly, maybe we will see Google Gemini being added to this week’s next beta of iOS 26.3 to go side-by-side with ChatGPT?

When Things Go Wrong With AI-Generated Code

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 23:18:50 -0400

My first bad experience: the code generated by Claude Code made my dashboard unresponsive in my browser. Eventually, the data stopped updating. After a ten-minute debugging session, I asked Claude Code to revert the change, and it did so promptly. But then I started getting execution failure notices on Discord. A lot of notifications. Then I started investigating…

It appears the browser was making frequent refresh requests to one of my workflows, which depleted my Claude pay-per-use credits. Bummber. Looking at my n8n dashboard, I saw that one of my workflows was failing because of that. Logs were confirming the problem with the interaction with Claude AI. As shown on the graphs below, my instance CPU usage went through the roof. Ouch. Now I know what happened, and the problem was fixed. Now, I should find a way to rate-limit this type of behaviour. That’s for tomorrow, I guess. 😅

My Defaults as of 2026-01-10

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 10:16:00 -0400

Changes from the last edition are in bold. ✉️ Mail Client: Fastmail 📨 Mail Server: Fastmail 📝 Notes: Craft + Apple Notes ✅ To-Do: Things 3 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app 📚 Photo Management: Photos.app + Photomator 🗓️ Calendar: Calendar.app 🗄️ Cloud file storage: iCloud 📰 RSS: Reeder connected to Inoreader 📇 Contacts: Contacts 🕸️ Browser: Mobile Safari + ARC Browser on Mac + ChatGPT Atlas 🧠 AI: ChatGPT + Claude AI 🔎 Search: Kagi Search 💬 Chat: iMessage (WhatsApp when abroad) 🔖 Bookmarks: AnyBox 👓 Read It Later: Inoreader 📜 Word Processing: Ulysses, Craft 📊 Spreadsheets: Numbers 🛝 Presentations: Keynote 🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders 🧑‍🍳 Meal Planning: None 💰 Budgeting & Personal Finance: Numbers 🗞️ News: La Presse (Apple News for English news) 🎶 Music: Apple Music 🎧 Podcasts: Apple Podcasts 🔐 Password Management: iCloud Keychain & Apple Passwords 👨🏻‍💻 Blog hosting: Ghost, Micro.blog, Scribbles.page 🌐 Web Services: Cloudflare, Chillidog Hosting, DigitalOcean

On Tahoe Icons

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 09:00:04 -0400

Just finished reading “It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons”, which many UI design pundits and non-UI experts, as well as simple, passionate Mac users, have been referring to a lot recently. I appreciate the documentation effort. It’s really well done. Very convincing. But…

Designers age and are gradually replaced by a younger generation. Whether you like it or not, they bring new beliefs (justified or not), design principles (better or not), and values (questionable or not). Recently, there’s a trend where software appears much less crafted than it once was. Everything seems thrown together, flat. And still…

I like those macOS Tahoe menus with icons (🫣), but yes, there is an absolute lack of consistency.

An Important Lesson

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 22:26:12 -0400

When I started my studies in computer science over 40 years ago, we learned to read functional specifications and then translate them into machine instructions (COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal, etc.). It was the training of a programmer. I knew that one day I could become the person who writes functional specifications. I didn’t become a programmer, nor did I work in the development world.

Due to my recent experience with Claude AI, Claude Code, and Vercel to create custom applications, I realize that I have become the one who writes functional specifications, but for processing by artificial intelligence. What does this tell me about the profession of a software developer? The need to write specifications remains essential, if not more so, even with powerful tools like AI. I think it’s a valuable lesson.

On OpenRouter.ai

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 21:13:44 -0400

I just finished reading about the service openrouter.ai. I was curious to understand the purpose of this service as well as its business model. I saw several instances of this service being used in n8n workflows. The problem I see with this service is that it makes the consistency of the quality of responses from the requested LLMs even more unpredictable. Each request could be handled by LLMs with different characteristics and performance from one time to another. I’ll pass on this, but I still learned something tonight.

Launching Numeric Citizen Blog Digests

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 09:52:59 -0400

Today, I’m excited to share my latest idea and creation: a website collecting my Micro.blog posts, monthly digests. What, another website? Yup.

In case you didn’t know, Micro.blog has a newsletter capability. My blog offers readers the opportunity to subscribe to a monthly blog post digest delivered to their inboxes. Plus, each digest is also available as a webpage (here’s the index page if you are curious). It’s a great way to get a quick overview of everything I published for a specific month. Of course, the whole thing is searchable.

But one day, I tried feeding one digest into ChatGPT and started asking questions about it. It was a revelation. Eventually, I asked for a structured summary, and ChatGPT promptly complied, returning a beautifully formatted summary. I spent quite some time reading the output, and I was blown away by how accurate and complete it was. This is where the idea of creating a new website to store and share those summarized digests. I think it’s a great way to get up to speed with my blog for newcomers or for people who might have missed a few months.

So, here we are, digests.numericcitizen.me is born. For now, you’ll find the summary of last month, but each month will be added as a single article. An AI-generated summary (by Micro.blog) describes the current month, and you need to click the title to get all the content. I plan to add some other highlights to this site. Stay tuned and enjoy.

And the next n8n project is?

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 23:03:51 -0400

My next project with n8n automation is to build a replacement for Mailbrew. 🫣 I’m facing many architectural decisions:

How do I fetch content (web or RSS feeds)?
How do I extract articles for more efficient summarization?
How do I combine the results?
How do I control the size of the summary?
Do I need some form of temporary data persistence within the workflow?
How do I minimize LLM credits usage?
Should I use an n8n data table for storing data sources and loop through them one by one?
Where do I send the summary and how (Telegram, Discord, Email)?

…and probably a few more decisions to ponder!

MacUpdate Is Dead?

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 11:59:21 -0400

From MacUpdate website:

Unfortunately MacUpdater 3’s promised lifetime of “until 2026-01-01” is now over. There will be no MacUpdater 4 or any continuation of the MacUpdater product from us. Our daily maintenance has been stopped and we don’t verify updates anymore. MacUpdater 3.5 is now unsupported but free-to-use including all previous “Pro” features.

WTF?? 😩

Let's Start 2026!

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 10:45:39 -0400

This is my first post of the year on Micro.blog. Despite the overall global, political, and economic challenges that don’t seem very promising, I am personally looking forward to 2026.

Travel-wise, I have four planned: Egypt, Mexico, France & Thailand. This could also be a productive year for photography. I’m looking forward to those trips as we celebrate our 20-year relationship, my wife and I. 😊

Tech-wise, it’s the year of the iPhone upgrade. After skipping the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17, it’s time to upgrade my capable but aging iPhone 15 Pro Max. I expect to stay on the Max. It could also be the year when I replace my M2 MacBook Air with the M5 version. It will depend on the available money and other factors. Lastly, if Apple finally release a HomePod with a screen, I might get one, too. 💻

I wish you a good one!

In 2026, I’ll Keep an Eye On…

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 17:29:29 -0400

I’m already turning my attention to 2026, in no particular order:

Ghost.org next moves, now that are a better Fediverse citizen.
Plausible Analytics, which seems to be overkill for my needs but I might find a use for their service exposure via their APIs.
Craft because they finished the year with a bang and I’m super anxious to learn what’s next.
Apple because of Apple Intelligence and Siri promised updates. Will they deliver? They are the underdog right now but it could serve them well in the end. Remember the Mp3 players market before the iPod? I do. I don’t want another features rush but a bug-fix bonanza. Will they deliver? I have my doubts. What’s next for Photomator and Pixelmator?
Micro.blog might also surprise me with features like RSS reader integration. Who knows.
Anthropic and OpenAI offerings… will they keep the pace? Will they slow down? Will they surprise us? Will they crash? Is enshittification on our way?
Inoreader is also evolving at a steady pace and I wonder if it will continue in 2026.
Things to-do manager: will it turn to version 4?

So much fun is awaiting, I’m sure.

Craft & Inoreader in 2025

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 09:09:02 -0400

In 2025, two notable apps or services received numerous and meaningful updates: Craft and Inoreader.

Craft received long-awaited tag support, with APIs and MCP support added. The latter two are quite transformative, and I expect 2026 to bring many new users to the app. Personally, I’m barely scratching the surface of Craft APIs. Craft is at the center of everything that I create, and I couldn’t think of a better app to support my creative journey.

Inoreader also got a bunch of updates, many of them focused on AI-based empowerment (article summaries, podcast and video transcriptions, tag suggestions, etc.). More than ever, Inoreader is an essential part of my digital toolset.

And Now Microblog Poster Web App is Live!

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 11:58:12 -0400

It’s a web app (on Vercel) just for me to use so that I can write blog posts on the go with a clean UI. It’s my second web app on Vercel built entirely with Claude AI.

Who's Right?

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 08:13:46 -0400

Apparently, web analytics is not an exact science. Here are three web analytics versions of the same period: from November 23rd to December 23rd (Top: Ghost Analytics, Middle: Plausible Analytics, and Bottom: Tinylytics). Plausible feels conservative, with about half as many unique visitors as Ghost, while Tinylytics seems to overestimate. The patterns are barely the same, too. Who’s right?

Consuming AI Can Be Expensive

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 11:10:20 -0400

While experimenting with n8n and LLM services, I realize that using artificial intelligence can become a very costly hobby. The fact that the consumption of these services relies on two separate offerings — the subscription to the interactive service and on-demand billing for APIs — requires careful management and wise choices of providers.

Currently, I use ChatGPT and Claude AI in interactive mode, but I also need a provider to access AI via APIs. This latter mode of consumption is particularly expensive if you’re not careful.

My Learning Approach

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 17:58:43 -0400

Still exploring n8n, slowly but systematically. Because I’ll be using all sorts of external services like Craft, Micro.blog, Ghost, Inoreader, my strategy is to do individual integration tests instead of trying to build a biggy workflow and find all sorts of errors. Each of these micro experiments is forming the building blocks of something bigger. This approach is not different from the one I used for building iPhone apps and learning Objective-C and Interface Builder back in the day. I guess I’m a bottom-up kind of guy when it comes to understanding this kind of stuff.

Goodbye, IFTTT

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 22:56:25 -0400

It was a memorable, long journey. I officially shut down my IFTTT account tonight after over five years of use. It wasn’t costly, but I have the feeling that IFTTT started to trail behind competitive offerings like Zapier, Make and now n8n. It wasn’t the most user-friendly for debugging issues. Now, I’m turning my focus towards n8n. In the coming days and weeks, it will be my next digital playground for experimentation.

Learning in the Age of AI

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 09:27:29 -0400

Between 2009 and 2013, in my spare time, I was an independent developer and had three applications in the App Store. I learned on the job, as they say, and it was an adventure that required a great deal of personal investment. I learned a lot, but it was arduous. Learning a new programming language (Objective-C), APIs, and a development lifecycle to make applications available for sale in a store like the App Store was a major challenge. At the time, to deal with problems, there was no artificial intelligence. Everything relied on Google searches and countless visits to Stack Overflow to find solutions.

Today, I have another project focused on automation with n8n, hosting an instance in the cloud, and consuming APIs and artificial intelligence services to build highly customized workflows. There are many things I don’t know, but knowing that I will be able to rely on artificial intelligence to help solve my learning challenges is very reassuring. Without these possibilities, I probably would not move forward with this project.

Saved 50 Minutes

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 17:34:32 -0400

Realmac Software shared their latest dev talk video. The video title mentions conversations about future plans for Elements. I was curious because I want to know where they are going with the CMS and RSS. I headed to YouTube and asked AI the following question: did they mention CMS? In a few seconds, I got my answer: yes, and they also talked about better support for RSS, which is something I’ve been waiting for. I didn’t watch the video; I already had the information I wanted. I saved 50 minutes of my time.

Now, one question: how is this good for Google? We’re so accustomed to being manipulated by platforms designed to increase our engagement with them; with this AI feature, it’s the opposite—I’m less engaged. Is this another subversive move by Google, part of a master plan that escapes my awareness?

On Tony Fadell For Apple's New CEO

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 10:18:59 -0400

Parker Ortolani on taking a chance of Tony Fadell to replace Tim Cook. At first, Tony Fadell seems like the obvious candidate, but I worry that we may be under the spell of a certain nostalgia in thinking he would be the perfect choice, as Parker points out. The world is no longer what it was in the days of Steve Jobs and his close collaborators. Apple is no longer what it once was either, and that is partly what many people criticize the company for. John Ternus is a product engineer, not a designer, and putting design back at the center of the process as it was in the Steve Jobs era may be a more restorative idea—and in that sense, yes, perhaps Fadell would be a good choice.

Think Different

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 14:49:57 -0400

I understand the enthusiasm for AI among certain groups of workers, especially in the field of information technology and more specifically software development. However, I believe that caution is necessary for most other categories of employment. Enthusiasm cannot simply be transferred systematically and literally to every domain, whether technological or not. Contexts differ greatly, professions are highly diverse, and even small variations in requirements can reduce the applicability of AI to nearly zero. We should remain critical of this overflow of passion and the promised revolution; by doing so, we might help avoid the potential bubble that increasingly seems to be forming right under our noses.

Algorithms, Platforms, and the Personal Web Space

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 22:49:10 -0400

The piece) from Disassociated about being “freed from personal websites” thanks to algorithms and timelines really resonated with me. I’ve long believed that platforms are killing the web; they are not the web.

I recently asked my son if he had ever considered having his own personal website—a blog, having a place outside the usual platforms. His immediate response was, “But what about discoverability?” Why I think that everything comes down to that: It’s always about beating the algorithms (hello SEO) so that we are “discovered”. I always believed about my own existence without the need of any algorithm. Same with my wife: she knows about my websites but rarely visit them. She’s always talking about discoverability too, thinking that there is no future if I’m not one those platforms. She couldn’t be more wrong. And yet… Platforms have obscured the open web, plain and simple.

This led me to a question that keeps circling in my mind: if we go back 50 years, how accurately did newspapers reflect reality? And how different is our situation today? Yes, the speed and reach of information are radically different now, but consider people who read only one newspaper—like my father did when I was young. Weren’t they also shaped, if not manipulated, by that publication’s editorial line?

Disclaimer: I feel my feelings are well reflected in those few words… it’s complicated.

Three Years Already

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 19:14:45 -0400

Three years of ChatGPT. Time flies. A few thoughts on that are mandatory it seems. ChatGPT certainly turned things upside down not only for me as a writer but for many creators. The entire software industry also was turned things even more upside down. It’s hard to imagine what would have been software roadmaps or new features pipelines without generative AI. See? We almost forgot about what it was like before ChatGPT. Can’t imagine where things are going. Generative AI integration into apps and user experience is the next frontier where things will be interesting to watch.

AnyBox

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 23:01:17 -0400

I’ve been a long time user of AnyBox, after leaving Raindrop.io, and Pocket, but I was a light user until recently. I revisited the app thoroughly and now it’s sitting at the center of my newsletter preparation workflow. I love this app so much; it feels native, fully-featured, and offers the right information density. The only missing thing would be to have a cloud-based version…

Paperlike 3 take 2

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 22:50:01 -0400

Bought the Paperlike 3 for my M4 iPad Pro except that it was for a 2018 iPad Pro. Ordered the wrong one. 🫤 Asked my wife if I could give it to her and install it on her iPad. Initially, she said no. 😔 She eventually abided to my offer. I ordered a new one for my iPad. Reason: there is a small scratch on the screen that I want to hide. 🤦🏻‍♂️

I had the first edition of the Paperlike for my previous 2018 iPad Pro and really liked it. The installation process was very different from today’s version. While the new process is more complicated, it allows for a more controlled installation that minimizes dust and bubbles. The surface texture of the film is also much finer. I’ll have to wait for another week before getting mine.

Apple Home?

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 19:43:29 -0400

I want this from Apple. Extracted from this surprising video about a fake Apple Event happening next Spring. This would be called Apple Home. I don’t like the name, but I do like the device. It is reminiscent of older Apple designs during the Apple //c and Macintosh era.

iPadOS 26.2 with External Display: Are We There Yet?

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 20:44:47 -0400

I’m giving the iPad Pro with external display another try (under 26.2 b3). As far as I can see, it’s not all Apple’s fault if there are many paper cuts: third-party apps support with external display is lacking. Make no mistake: iPadOS 26.2 as come a long way… but iPad-only rules still make the iPad a bit too far from the macOS experience. Borderless-windows in dark mode makes it hard to distinguish which app is which.

Long story short: no.

Bye Bye Zapier, IFTTT, Still a Keeper

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 22:23:52 -0400

I have finally deleted my Zapier account after a few years of inactivity. It’s significantly more complicated than IFTTT and much more expensive. IFTTT is far from perfect. It seems to be stagnant even. But, for my needs, it’s ok. I have two applets: 1) Save all posts on my RSS superfeed into a **Day One **journal, 2) Save a link into a Google sheet of a YouTube video that I like. The latter could probably be eliminated.

Google and Apple - A Convenient Wedding?

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 13:52:11 -0400

Apparently, if rumors are any indication, Apple’s next AI provider for integration into Apple Intelligence is Google’s Gemini, or a derivative of it. It would go along with Apple’s own LLM models running on Private Cloud Compute.

I wonder if Google’s contribution is free for Apple or part of a larger deal, tied to the Google search agreement, where Google is the default search engine on the iPhone.

Imagine that¹, Apple probably said: “You know what, I’ll reduce your cost for this search deal, but you accept to build a specific version of Gemini LLM for use on Private Cloud Compute and develop a conduit for Gemini on-device that integrates with Apple Intelligence.”

Matters are probably more complex than that. ↩︎

Building a 'Relationship' With Corporations

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 07:08:43 -0400

I tend to be super loyal. I’ve been an Apple fan forever (read “The Roots of my Passion for Apple”), even though there are things that put me off (too many to list here). The same is slowly happening with OpenAI. I’ve tested alternative services but always come back to OpenAI’s offerings. They’re far from perfect—just like Apple—both from a corporate point of view and in terms of products and services. And yet, I’m increasingly hooked on ChatGPT, Atlas, and their LLM “personality.” The conversation memory in ChatGPT and the browser memories are helping build this relationship on the knowledge OpenAI is slowly building on me. It’s scary.

ChatGPT Atlas is for?

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 07:40:23 -0400

I’ve been testing the ChatGPT Atlas browser heavily in recent days. It’s already controversial, but I’m in the camp that likes it. Of course, this is Chromium with a ChatGPT button bolted on. But that’s the point: helping eliminate app switching that I was constantly doing anyway. Of course, it’s not the real web experience, but who said OpenAI was pretending to offer the classic web as we’ve known it over the last 30 years? Those years are already behind us, you like it or not. One thing I do is summarize my browsing activities, focusing on reading my RSS feeds in Inoreader. It’s very impressively done, complete with a back link to each Inoreader article. I’m not using, and don’t plan to use, agentic browsing activities due to their apparent lack of maturity and highly questionable security issues.

Speaking of Inoreader: the service allows you to summarize a bunch of selected articles using AI, but it’s an extra that costs more! With ChatGPT Atlas, a simple prompt while browsing an RSS feed or a group of RSS feeds does the job wonderfully.

More to come soon.

Hot Take on ChatGPT Atlas - More Thoughts

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 22:09:13 -0400

The original ChatGPT Mac client is now mostly integrated into this new web browser. Chrome extensions are supported. My use of the Mac client might decrease significantly over time. Having ChatGPT inside the browser has big implications for my reading and information workflows. Processing YouTube videos is easy; everything happens within the same app. Thought: Google’s cautious AI integration in its browser (Gemini) might stem from a fear of conflicting with its business model, which involves tracking users to sell ads. How do you sell ads within AI-generated content? I could try using ChatGPT Atlas as my main desktop browser for a few days to see if it truly makes a difference.

Hot Take on ChatGPT Atlas

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 20:58:29 -0400

From the initial download, install up to a few visited websites and prompts. Here’s my hot take. Nice icon. Nice onboarding, but with a few typical sets of questions (default browser, import current bookmarks). Minimalistic browser window. Just like Dia! Another Chromium wrapper? It better be good. I like the integration with ChatGPT and the browser memory. I wonder if it is linked to my ChatGPT memory. It seems yes! I wonder if ChatGPT Atlas could replace the ChatGPT client altogether because all my past conversations are available in a collapsible left sidebar. The integration of ChatGPT’s past conversation, memory, and current browser context seems a powerful combination. Bye-bye, Dia, please, return to developing the ARC Browser. More to come soon.

The Illusion of Decline: Apple, Complexity, and the Myth of Falling Quality

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 19:49:07 -0400

Reading The Great Software Quality Collapse by Denis Stetskov reminded me of a recurring conversation in the Apple community: that Apple’s software quality isn’t what it used to be. Every release cycle brings the same chorus—bugs, regressions, performance oddities—and the sense that the polish once synonymous with Apple is fading. But Stetskov’s essay helped me reframe that perception. Modern software isn’t just “worse”; it’s exponentially more complex. Apple now maintains multiple platforms—macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, visionOS—each with deep integrations and overlapping technologies. What once felt like craftsmanship at the scale of a single ecosystem is now a sprawling web of dependencies that even Apple struggles to tame.

So, maybe the cracks we see aren’t evidence of negligence but of scale. Perfection doesn’t scale well. The discipline that Stetskov calls “boring engineering” still exists within Apple, but it’s buried under layers of ambition, abstraction, and velocity. His piece is a reminder that our expectations of elegance must evolve alongside the complexity of what we ask these systems to do. The problem isn’t just that software breaks—it’s that we’ve forgotten how miraculous it is that it works at all.

Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #5

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 17:05:32 -0400

One of the most frustrating and hard-to-understand behaviours in the new iPadOS 26 multitasking is when iPadOS, for some reason, breaks all the running apps and window arrangements. I often find myself in need of relaunching the apps and doing window placement to my liking. Again, iPadOS 26 is exhausting to use. I think this happens if I disconnect the external display. Restoring computing state is a basic principle in UI and UX design. Am I demanding too much?

Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #4

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 10:54:42 -0400

Locking the iPad while the iPad is using an external display is brutal. Dragging an app from the built in display to an external display is also brutal, forcing a full app content redraw, nothing compared to the Mac experience. I couldn’t record the experience with screen recording, so I used my iPhone.

Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #3

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 10:30:30 -0400

Doing serious work on the iPad now feels… exhausting. The efforts that you have to deploy to avoid the too many paper cuts is exhausting. I don’t know who, at Apple, is working on Files.app but the team should get in touch with those who work (if they are still there) on the Mac Finder. I ended up doing many of the files management tasks on… the Mac.

Photomator doesn’t work well with files located on a remote SMB share, apparently. After granting permission to the root folder as requested, Photomator is stacked in a “Processing…” loop. Not good.

Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #2

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 09:55:31 -0400

The iPad running Files.app with two windows, side-by-wide for easier file management.

Working with Files.app is still very frustrating and unpredictable. For some reason, I cannot drag & drop a file from my iPad downloads folder to a specific folder (on my Synology). The only way to get around this is to go up in the folder hierarchy, drop it there then later move it inside the intended target folder. Also experienced one crash with numerous “Content Unavailable” conditions like shown on this screenshot. So far, no file management done. WTF? Let’s try harder.

Using My M4 iPad Pro (iPadOS 26.1b1) With An External Display - Observation #1

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 09:28:29 -0400

My current iPad desktop on the external display.

I just started a one-hour work session with my M4 iPad Pro connected to an external display (LG 5K Ultra Fine) running iPad OS 26.1 beta 1. I should probably update this article I wrote more than a year ago: “Using the iPad With an External Display — Space Oddities”. Let’s see how it goes.

First issue: I started writing this blog post in Micro.blog client. Sadly, Micro.blog’s iPad app is buggy with an external display: I cannot set the blog post category… the little gear icon is missing and iPadOS 26 menus aren’t supported, yet. My fallback plan: Ulysses. Works great. Next step: doing some files management with Files.app using an SMB share on my Synology NAS. Let’s see how it goes. Oh, and ShareShot works… but not without strange visual issues.

AI Unsuspected Collaterals

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 20:56:59 -0400

Accenture reportedly laid off over 11,000 employees, citing a lack of demand for workers without the necessary AI skills. Additionally, Accenture warns that further layoffs could occur if remaining employees cannot quickly acquire AI skills in a rapidly evolving world. I believe we should look beyond the headlines and question the real motives. What were the laid-off employees doing? What value did they bring to Accenture’s clients? Or is it simply because there is less demand for consulting services? Is it more appropriate to frame the layoffs as linked to “AI”? If you’re aware of some AI limitations in a complex business environment, where layoffs are supposedly driven by AI replacing workers, I would argue that they didn’t significantly impact the company initially. Alternatively, framing AI as a questionable strategy is a dubious approach. And it’s only the beginning.

The Future of Technical Training According to Microsoft

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 06:44:50 -0400

Today, I’m completing a four-day course from Microsoft (AS-104 if you are curious). It’s all virtual, of course, through Microsoft Teams, and instructor-led. We’re a group of 50 people from all around the world, primarily from the US, from what I can see. The one fascinating thing is how pushy the instructors are for us to use… Copilot. They use it all the time to answer questions and paste the answers in the group chat. They offer ways to utilize Copilot to prepare for the certification exam. Etc. Copilot is really their assistant, the undergraduate who’s doing the dirty job, the gopher, if you will. The course is so strictly structured and formatted that I’m seeing a future where there won’t be any instructors. Only Copilot. 😳

Journaling While Traveling - A Third Option?

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 06:49:39 -0400

Journaling and documenting my experiences while travelling has always been something that I wish I could do effectively, without too much friction. I did it in Italy in 2022 using Craft and again this past summer with Apple Journal. Two different kinds of vacations, totally different solutions. I’m still not satisfied with either of these options. Next time, maybe I should consider using the real deal: Day One?

Impressive, But I'll Pass

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 20:32:34 -0400

Finished watching the Awe Dropping infomercial from Apple. Quick thoughts. Impressive video production quality as usual. Apple Watch personal stories were touching. iPhone Air (not iPhone 17 Air) looks impressive without too many compromises. This iPhone 17 Pro Orange colour looks gorgeous, can’t wait to see that in person. Am I getting tired of Apple Headquarters shots? The jury is still out on that one. The AirPods Pro 3 is much better than rumours were predicting. I liked the new voice-overs for the iPhone Air design showcase as well as the iPhone 17 Pro. Somewhat similar to Jony Ive’s tone. Unibody for the iPhone 17 Pro, a first. Many features announced today are also available to previous-generation devices (hypertension for Apple Watch Series 11 is also available to Series 10). Cool. Same price as last year’s? Apparently, for a double the starting memory size configuration. Not bad. Who said Apple is greedy? Yet, I’ll probably pass this year and wait for next year. Thanks to Tim Cook’s relationship with some of the US government representatives.

Going Apple TV-Only?

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 06:40:34 -0400

Based on our experience earlier this year with Apple TV as the only way to watch TV content, along with rising costs and an unstable service, we are seriously considering cutting our cable service and keeping only our Internet service. Even though the apps on Apple TV are far from perfect, they generally allow us to replace cable service. Rumors suggest that Apple is working on a new iteration of the Apple TV, which could make the timing even more favorable.

Why All This?

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 20:14:39 -0400

Read later services (Readwise, Pocket, Readwise, Inoreader, etc.), bookmarking apps and services (Anybox, Raindrop, etc.), downloading, summarizing, and tagging—whether used together or separately—the issue remains the same: I rarely revisit content. Content quickly becomes outdated and loses relevance. This pattern reflects a common challenge in digital content management. Despite the ease of saving and organizing information for future reference, the practical use of these saved digital tidbits often diminishes over time. As new information emerges and contexts change, what once seemed valuable or interesting can fade into obscurity, making the effort of saving feel less worthwhile. This raises questions about the effectiveness of these tools and whether they truly serve my long-term informational needs.

Something Is Wrong

Sat, 23 Aug 2025 07:52:51 -0400

We’re getting close to the end of August and moving into September, which means Apple’s usual rush of new product launches. We already know quite a bit about Apple’s upcoming iPhone. We also know that Apple’s unifying Liquid Glass is likely to cause major issues when it encounters hundreds of millions of devices. We can probably expect Apple to be in damage control again. And I’ll probably have to explain why Apple did this to my friends and colleagues.

Usually, around this time of year, I would have one or two articles ready to publish about all this. But not this year. I won’t upgrade to the iPhone 17 Pro Max, even though I normally would every two iPhone generations. I’m voting with my dollars by skipping this year, because I disagree with Tim Cook’s (and Apple’s) stance on the orange clown.

Something is wrong.

AI as a Complementary Tool

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 20:23:15 -0400

One of my rules for using generative AI is to avoid starting a creative project with AI prompts. Today, someone at the office challenged this rule, arguing that beginning with AI can effectively kick-start the creative journey. While that may be true, I prefer to keep the human touch at the center and use AI as a complement to the process. Starting with AI risks making us lazy in the long run.

A Strange & Frustrating Mac App Store Issue

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 08:02:44 -0400

Here’s a strange and frustrating issue with the Mac App Store on macOS Tahoe: I cannot re-download an app after testing it through TestFlight. This first occurred with Craft, which I tested this summer. When the version I was testing became official, I tried to download it, but the download froze at the end. Quitting the Mac App Store and rebooting my machine did not resolve the problem. Now, I am facing the same issue with Reeder. I tested the beta a few months ago, only to discover that the developer removed the build from TestFlight. When I went to the Mac App Store to download the official version, the download froze again and never completed. Now I’m unable to use an app for which I’m paying for. Submitted a feedback to Apple. Beta6 doesn’t fix the issue. I’m really hoping for a fix soon. See the behavior here.

Bye Bye (Again) Medium

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 08:25:00 -0400

My Medium membership is up for renewal on August 17th. I returned to Medium last year to share a special set of articles about my potential career pivot to freelancing. I wrote over a dozen articles on this topic, believing Medium was a suitable platform for personal and career-focused content. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Despite following all the SEO tricks, I earned only $1.64 in revenue, which I won’t receive since the minimum payout is $10. 😳 I expected my earnings to at least cover the cost of my Medium membership, but that didn’t happen. I also intended to read more content on the platform, but I didn’t. I thought I would gain more followers, but that didn’t occur either. I understand now that I need to move on¹, ².

Goodbye, Medium. It was one of my numerous experiments³. I’ll keep my account active but won’t write or share anything further.

The vibe on Medium feels strange. The presence of generative AI often lingers in my mind while reading content there. ↩︎
I aim to focus my creative energy on the right things; doing less often leads to a more sustainable and enjoyable journey. ↩︎
Write.as, Substack were other experiments, too. ↩︎

The Apple Intelligence Story Nobody Wants to Talk About

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 07:31:12 -0400

When I read the news about Apple Intelligence, it is most often related to the perception that Apple is way behind their competitors in the field of artificial intelligence¹. It is rarely about what sets Apple Intelligence apart from its competitors: privacy protection. It’s as if this is not important to the majority of users or the tech press. However, it is an important differentiating factor that I believe will work in Apple’s favor in the long term. Fortunately, some articles highlight this fact, such as this article from 9to5Mac.

One could argue, including myself, that it’s not entirely true when you step back and see the whole pictures. People tend to compare to ChatGPT conversational interaction model. Apple do use a lot of AI technologies in their operating systems and has been doing so for many years. Apple is not good at addressing this perception problem. ↩︎

Who Knew This Was Still a Challenge These Days

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 19:05:13 -0400

I took a trip earlier this year, and my sister, a seasoned amateur photographer, asked when she could see my photos. Even if I’m on Glass and Pixelfed, I’m sure those two platforms aren’t what she would like to use to browse my photos. To makes things more complicated, I do use iCloud Photos where I could share an album but also depend on file-based organization for RAW photos. I need a place to combine my best photos and share as a website that could be put together quickly and easily while having a great design and look. One possible solution is to use Fastmail Files, which will allow me to upload files easily and build the static website automagically. More on that soon.

Bye Bye Grammarly?

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 08:14:13 -0400

I received a reminder this morning about my upcoming Grammarly renewal. After reviewing past invoices, I decided to cancel my subscription on a whim. It’s an expensive service. As I’m planning some changes on other areas of my digital presence, I’ll reallocate the money to that instead.

For the next new weeks, my subscription ends on August 14th, I’ll be turning off Grammarly and see how things goes. I might use AI service from Raycast, ChatGPT or even Apple Intelligence Writing Tools to compensate. I do use the free version of LanguageTool, too. I’ll report my conclusions in due time.

What, You Have a Blog? Really?

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 21:39:55 -0400

I overheard people at the office talking about their weekend activities. I wasn’t in the conversation, but I’m always prepared for those. I never talk about my writing hobby or the many websites I maintain. Most people would find this strange. They’d say things like, “What, you have a blog? Really?” Yes, that’s right. I prefer to skip all that and talk about a walk in the park, in the forest, and maybe about photography. Blogging is like people collecting stamps back in the day. Sad.

Micro.blog Question Challenge

Sun, 22 Jun 2025 14:48:39 -0400

Jim Mitchell, on his blog:

As is customary after posting my own, I’m extending the challenge to Numeric Citizen (@numericcitizen) and David Johnson (@crossingthethreshold) to answer the same questions:

Here are my answers!

Why did you start a blog in the first place? It was when Apple had iWeb, part of MobileMe. It was a family thing only. iWeb died, so did my blog. Eventually, I returned to blogging on Blogger, now part of Google, while developing iPhone apps in 2009. It lasted until 2013. Then it all died. I returned to blogging in 2015, using WordPress, then migrated to Ghost and Micro.blog; both serve different purposes. The rest is history.
Have you blogged on other platforms before? Yes, all in all, I experimented with iWeb, Blogger, WordPress, Micro.blog, Write.as, Substack, Medium. Am I missing one? Oh yeah, Scribble.pages! Sorry, Vincent!
Why did you choose Micro.blog? Back in 2018, when it launched. Initially, I wasn’t sure about it and viewed it as an experiment (I shared some thoughts about this). I went all in during COVID. Couldn’t be happier.
Do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another application? It depends. Most of the time, I wrote on the web editor, but with recent updates to the Mac app, I do it more and more on the Mac app. Oh, MarsEdit is also one app that I use, from time to time.
When do you feel most inspired to write? All the time, mainly in the mornings when my head is still pristine (can’t tell if this is something we can write!)
Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft? Most of the time, I write and then publish, especially on Micro.blog. For longer posts, I let it simmer for a while.
What’s your favorite post on your blog? So hard to tell because what I write is so short. The whole thing is what I’m most proud of: having the time and the gut to think and write about anything away from big platforms, it’s something to be proud of IMO.
Any future plans for your blog? Since last year, I decided to focus more on what I already have. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. So, Micro.blog forever! For now. I recently launched “Who Is Numeric Citizen?” website with the idea to replace another website built using Craft. 🤭

Thanks for calling me out on that, @jimmitchell ! How about @abc ? Will he catch the call?

Directly from... Raycast!

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 13:59:46 -0400

Heeeeeeere’s Johnny!! Just kidding, I’m testing a blog post from Raycast. Sounds cool, right? Yes, it is!

I'm Already Feeling The Upcoming Loss

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 14:24:17 -0400

The last time I used a Windows PC was with Windows 10 sometimes around 2020. Since then, Windows 11 came out with a few major releases along with it. I’ll have to relearn so many small things to flex my muscles memory. Also, and it’s probably the biggest lost: so many small utilities like Raycast, CleanShot X, Paste, PopClip and so many more that were making me much more productive are gone with Windows 11. Am I going to survive?

Ten Years of... Bad Watch Faces?

Wed, 07 May 2025 21:52:57 -0400

David Sparks from MacSparky expresses his disappointment with the usability of Apple Watch faces since the original model was released in 2015. This resonates with me a lot. Using the Series 10 and I use essentially the same watch face, all the time: utility, because it’s the most readable. A possible solution to this conundrum? David Sparks’ suggestion:

Even better would be an Apple Watch Face Store, where classic watch makers and indie designers can sell digital versions of their iconic dials. Apple could take a cut, we’d get endless variety, and everyone would win.

I think this could help move the needle with sales of the Apple Watch while taking a cut, something Apple is well-known for… 😒

On Managing Digital Good Purchases

Wed, 07 May 2025 21:21:38 -0400

I just spent some time trying to find the payment provider for a specific app that charged me the wrong amount (paddle.net, which I won’t name). I realized I used different emails for different apps, so my purchases are scattered across those addresses. It’s a mess and hard to manage. The Apple App Store has many questionable rules, but having one place to manage purchases and subscriptions is invaluable.

Five Years Ago - Confinement

Tue, 06 May 2025 16:49:29 -0400

Five years ago. COVID was hitting hard after two months of confinement. Distant memories already. Hard to believe. I still wear emotional injuries from that time. It wasn’t easy, and nothing really returned to normal since then. With current geopolitical events, things seems different and somewhat worse to some degree. Difficult times, indeed.

Bring What Device on My Next Trip?

Fri, 02 May 2025 12:41:13 -0400

I’m going for a trip in southern Europe at the end of next week for two weeks. I’ll visit Italy and Spain from a cruise ship and the many stops that are planned. I’m still undecided as to what device should I bring: my iPad or my MacBook Air? The former is highly portable and much lighter, but the latter would allow me to spend more time learning Elements during flight time. I may be overestimating how much free time I’ll have to use these things… 🥴🤷🏻‍♂️

Thinking Outside

Fri, 02 May 2025 12:35:09 -0400

Thinking right now: people love to consume content the closest to their platform of choice. People on Substack wants to consume content over there, people on Medium, the same, on Medium. That’s why the idea of manually cross-posting my newsletter to Substack often comes back haunting me. This newsletter is currently only available from Ghost (and RSS + email, of course).

Incoming: AI subscription fatigue...

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 10:50:13 -0400

ChatGPT. ChatGPT APIs. Notion AI. Inoreader Intelligence Reports. Raycast AI. Perplexity AI. I may have forgotten a few others¹.

In bold: those I’m currently subscribing. ↩︎

Simply THE Best

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 09:13:47 -0400

Just spent 10 minutes on Glass, just browsing and glancing at other people’s work, and I was blown away by the quality of photos that you can find there. I discovered many great photographers this morning that will brighten my view of the world. I would argue that Glass is probably THE best and most successful photo-sharing service of all that I experienced in my life.

My Next YouTube Video About Micro.blog

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 10:09:40 -0400

I finally found the subject and inspiration for my next YouTube video: how people can interact with Micro.blog users. In it, I’ll explain how posts can be cross-posted to other platforms and how people can reply to them, keeping the discussion ongoing even from seemingly different platforms.

My Current Incomplete and Troubled Bucket List

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 08:12:23 -0400

While revisiting my writing projects pipeline, I found this unfinished blog post. It’s a bucket list. It was inspired by Manton Reece’s Revisiting 43 Things blog post. Recent comments in italic.

Rent a country house for the whole summer, outside Canada — I would have been in the US, but this plan is on hold, because of Trump’s America.
Get my house renovated — Completed!
Do another trip with my two sons — TBD.
Return to California to see the new Apple headquarters — This plan is on hold, because of Trump’s America.
Visit Chicago — This plan is on hold, because of Trump’s America.
See the launch of a rocket from Space X — Fuck Elon Musk.
Return to Iceland — Most probable.

Given the current political environment, I must carefully reconsider each item on this list and remove the ones that will not happen.

Dear ChatGPT, Describe Me Based on All Our Chats

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 07:01:02 -0400

“👋 I’m a tech veteran by trade, creative by heart. With 30+ years in IT — from data centers to cloud, storage, and security — I help businesses build smarter, more resilient infrastructures. But when the day job ends, my creative side kicks in.

I’m a lifelong Apple fan, blogger, photographer, and content creator who loves blending tech with design. Whether I’m exploring the latest in cybersecurity, testing new apps, or writing about digital privacy, I bring a thoughtful eye and a creative edge.

I believe staying curious — and staying creative — is the best way to thrive in a tech-driven world.”

Not bad.

Must Have Features in a Read Later Service

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 07:30:47 -0400

Read later service for me should have these features and attributes.

Be cloud-based to enable access and syncing across different devices and platforms.
Support metadata (tags, folders & description).
Offer a well-designed share sheet implementation on iOS and iPadOS.
Offer a great browser extension.
Offer a native mobile application.
It should work well with my go-to RSS reader, Inoreader.
Be good at data mobility. In other words, it offers a data export option.
Support article summarization with generative AI.
Should be free if possible.
It must support all Apple platforms.

Inoreader check them all.

Can you say Chaps?

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 06:36:10 -0400

Intriguing new product coming from the makers of Craft: Chaps. It seems to be a conversational service where users can build their own AI-based agents. Not integrated with Craft in any way, at least for now. The demonstrated UI seems polished as we can expect from them, but sadly we don’t get to see how those agents are built. I think “Ch_apps_” would have been a better name than “Chaps”, though. I hope they don’t get too much distracted from Craft because it still needs a lot of work and long-lasting issues are yet to be addressed.

That Question That Keeps Coming Back

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 08:06:44 -0400

For some time now, I’ve had a question that keeps coming back to my mind because I often use Bluesky to express my distress or frustration against Trump, Musk, and the entire little clique of authoritarians at the head of the United States. If, in the near future, the situation in the U.S. deteriorates to the point where government groups start hunting down activists like me, who openly denounce Trump’s authoritarian policies and his inner circle, should I censor myself to avoid any form of persecution when I decide to return to the United States?

I fear the day when bloggers will be hunted down to silence them—or worse, to have them arrested in the name of disrespecting the American presidency. Is it precisely the presidency’s game to instill fear so they can continue their authoritarian actions by manipulating people like me?

A Canadian Discovered the iPad Fold Prototype!

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 21:02:32 -0400

BREAKING NEWS: a foldable iPad prototype was found on a table… at an IKEA store in Canada. The prototype was turned on and was running a special version of macOS Touch™. Tim Cook wants it back, but the guy who found set two conditions: you must resign because of Apple Intelligence fiasco, but before you must ask Trump to remove tariffs against Canada. Canadians can be nasty, too.

Questioning Apple Intelligence Improvements

Sat, 15 Mar 2025 17:20:23 -0400

Here is an observation about Apple Intelligence (yet another one you might say?): Image Playground was announced at WWDC2024. It finally made its debut with iOS 18.2, in December 2024. Since then, we got iOS 18.3, now iOS 18.4 is in beta. Did Image Playground improved? A new image style was introduced, in 18.3, I think. Does it provide better results? Not really. Is it easier to use? Nope. On this subject, I must confess that I personally find Image Playground not to be the best UX Apple ever created. I find it clunky and not always intuitive to use. After two releases, Image Playground is basically the same. Isn’t it surprising, coming from a company who’s playing catch up in AI space? The same questions could apply to Writing Tools. I didn’t test text proofing with each release of Apple Intelligence, but I would bet that it didn’t really improve. Strange.

What Are They Gonna Do Now? What a Waste!

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 20:28:05 -0400

One quick question tonight: those people who worked for a government agency in the US and got laid-off by DOGE or anyone close to them or because of them, what are they doing now? Where will they find their purpose? I’m thinking about the scientists, social workers, phycologists, Are they going to work for the private sector or simply increase the unemployment rate? I mean, there are so many human dramas unfolding right now.

Tim Has to Go - Part Deux

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 20:59:41 -0400

I’ve been an Apple fan since 1983, and everyone I know—my friends, colleagues, and family—understands my enthusiasm for the brand. Recently, they’ve been calling me more than ever to ask about my thoughts on Tim Cook’s support for Trump. “Apple is becoming like the others; what do you think?” they all inquire. I struggle to express my sadness about this situation. Tim’s poor judgment in supporting the Trump presidency is disappointing. I hope he regrets his decision. Until then, I want him to step down. It’s as simple as that.

It's Time for Tim to Go

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 20:43:02 -0400

The latest post from @gruber@mastodon.social about the delay of Apple Intelligence and the ongoing fiasco serves as a reminder that Apple needs to change soon. It’s another big red flag something is rotten at Apple. Should I mention that Tim Cook’s financial support for the Trump presidential inauguration, whether personal or not, was another mistake? Apple could have and should have acted differently than Meta, Amazon, and others. They did not. We had all the warning signs regarding Trump, and now Tim is associated with this nonsense. There is no possible excuse. It was a poor decision on Tim’s part.

I believe it’s time for Tim Cook to take responsibility and step down.

Another Frustrating Thing with 2024 iPad Pro

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 15:33:54 -0400

I love my 2024 iPad Pro, but there is a clear regression in hardware+software for palm rest detection. Each time I put my hand on the screen when taking notes using the Apple Pencil in Apple Notes, the content scrolls up, sometimes not by much, but sometimes quite a lot… I always need to lift my hand, reposition the content and try again. This is utterly frustrating; this is something that I never experienced with my 2018 iPad Pro… this is something that Apple used to be good at.

My Updated Defaults as of 2025-03-12

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 07:20:55 -0400

So many things changed since my previous update.

✉️ Mail Client: Fastmail
📨 Mail Server: Fastmail
📝 Notes: Craft + Apple Notes
✅ To-Do: Things 3
📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app
📚 Photo Management: Photos.app + Photomator
🗓️ Calendar: Calendar.app (Personal Life) + Fantastical.app (Work Life)
🗄️ Cloud file storage: iCloud
📰 RSS: Reeder connected to Inoreader
📇 Contacts: Contacts
🕸️ Browser: Mobile Safari + ARC Browser on Mac
🧠 AI: ChatGPT + Perplexity
🔎 Search: Kagi Search
💬 Chat: iMessage (WhatsApp when abroad)
🔖 Bookmarks: AnyBox
👓 Read It Later: Inoreader
📜 Word Processing: Ulysses, Craft
📊 Spreadsheets: Numbers
🛝 Presentations: Keynote
🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders
🧑‍🍳 Meal Planning: None
💰 Budgeting & Personal Finance: Numbers
🗞️ News: La Presse (Apple News for English news)
🎶 Music: Apple Music
🎧 Podcasts: Apple Podcasts
🔐 Password Management: iCloud Keychain & Apple Passwords

The Unexpected Challenge of Moving a Custom Domain From iCloud+ to Fastmail

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 08:54:09 -0400

Did you know that you can use iCloud+ with a custom email domain? Yep, that’s right. This is what I was doing for hello @ numericcitizen.me until this week when I started my migration to Fastmail. But there is one challenge that I didn’t expect: I wanted to bring this custom email to Fastmail, too. Custom email domains with iCloud+ is managed only on the iCloud website.

Having Apple Advanced Data Protection (ADP) is cool and nice but can make managing iCloud+ Custom domains a pain. As a reminder, to use ADP, you must turn off iCloud web access. I’m not really sure why. As soon as this is turned off, you can no longer manage your custom email domains that you might have configured for use with iCloud+. To complete my migration to Fastmail, so that I could write and respond from that custom email address from Fastmail, I first had to remove that domain from iCloud+, but it’s only possible on the iCloud website. To do that, ADP must be turned off. Once done, you can re-enable iCloud website access, then remove the custom email domain. After some cleaning up of Apple-related DNS records, you can re-enable ADP and disable iCloud website. Only then I can go on Fastmail Settings and configure my custom email domain.

Now you know.

Migration to Fastmail Going FAST

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 08:34:14 -0400

Spent a few hours in Fastmail to get it ready to fully replace my HEY Mail subscription. Got my new email domain name set up in Cloudflare. The Screener functionality that I liked in HEY is now fully operational and is based on a Contacts Group. The Paper Trail is also set up and based on another Contacts group. Basically, if an email uses a contact not in the Screener, it will be moved in The Screener label. The same happens for the Paper trail. If I want a specific email to go to the Paper Trail, the contact is created and added to the right contacts group. One email account (Gmail) has been configured for Fastmail to pull content from it (no need to use email forwarding, so everything is configured from Fastmail. My Gmail account is a low-volume account so that I can tweak things before connecting my primary email accounts (both are Apple-provided).

Emails Shuffle

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 07:52:31 -0400

I’m making progress in cleaning up my email mess. I closed my Yahoo Mail account, which I only used for Flickr when the authentication backend moved from Flickr to Yahoo¹. I closed two Gmail accounts: one of the two was used when I was developing iPhone apps between 2009 and 2013. This means I have three fewer email redirections for HEY Mail. Most of my newsletter subscriptions are now redirected to Inoreader, which is another dependency removed from HEY Mail.

So, what’s left in HEY Mail? Two email redirections: one .me email account¹ and my primary iCloud mail account. These are my biggest email accounts. Of course, I also have my HEY Mail account that I use in a few dozen places. That’s the last part to move out. The question is: which email account should I use instead of my HEY Mail? Is this where Fastmail comes into play? Or should I merge them into one of my Apple-hosted mail accounts? If I choose the latter, I don’t see the point of using Fastmail unless I want to replicate the Paper Trail functionality of HEY Mail. Even then, Apple’s latest updates to Mail offer something similar. I should probably try the latest betas on my Mac and see how well it performs. Stay tuned for the next update on my emails shuffle.

I also officially closed my Flickr account. ↩︎ ↩︎

If Only I Had Gen AI Back in the Day

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 11:17:10 -0400

I acquired the skill of programming in Objective-C and developed iPhone applications between 2009 and 2013. Since I had learned programming concepts during my Computer Science degree, I didn’t have to begin from scratch. However, with the advent of generative AI, I can’t help but wonder how my learning experience would have unfolded differently. I think that it would have been significantly expedited while exploring creating different apps beyond the one I was developing.

Bye Bye Readwise?

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 12:48:49 -0400

Just got a reminder to close my Readwise account, probably because the subscription renewal is coming soon. That’s not a cheap one. Beyond serving as a repo for text highlights from Micro.blog and Inoreader, I don’t really have a meaningful use for it. I don’t use the Readwise Reader either. I export highlights into Bear from time to time as markdown files. I almost never search them. Sometimes I’ll read a few highlights with amusement or nostalgia, but nothing more. Why am I doing all this, then? 🧐🤷🏻‍♂️

Beyond ChatGPT And OpenAI

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 07:46:46 -0400

I’m a frequent user of generative AI, primarily for my work, but also to assist with my activities as a blogger and content creator. I subscribe to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and mainly limit my generative AI use to this service. I realize that OpenAI is becoming my new Apple, as I prefer to concentrate on one service to maximize the benefits of my subscription. I appreciate what they offer, including their services and apps.

However, OpenAI is not the only option, and I should explore other services as well. I don’t want to use Meta’s or Google’s offerings. What else is available? Perplexity? I started using it this morning and I like their offerings, but I’m still on a free plan. Do you have any suggestions besides Perplexity? What about Claude? I’m curious about their respective market shares.

Testing OpenAI Deep Research

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 08:18:26 -0400

I’m currently testing OpenAI Deep Research on two very specific subjects. So far, I’m quite impressed, not only about the end-results but also with the progress status report during the researching phase. It’s a great way to start looking into specific domains, and it gives many hints as to what to look for. Coupled with OpenAI Canvas, this is a powerful tool for a writer like me.

What a great time to be alive to test those things and see how I can take advantage of all this to be a better human.

Paying Attention

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 08:40:48 -0400

I’m likely spending an excessive amount of time reading the news through various channels and sources. However, given the numerous events unfolding right now that will significantly shape our lives over the next few decades, I believe it’s crucial to pay close attention to them. Regardless of the method, one day, these events will undoubtedly have a clear and immediate impact on me and my loved ones.

Mostly Unexcited

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 17:49:21 -0400

Tomorrow, Apple is introducing a new family member. It’s not expected to be a new HomePod with a screen, nor a lower-priced version of the Apple Vision Pro. It’s rather a low-but-wisely-priced iPhone. It’s the next iPhone trick to keep the money printing machine humming. The only thing that I’m curious about is the future cellular modem benchmarks. Supposedly made by Apple to eventually kick out Qualcomm, this modem will be under the microscope of many to see how it performs.

The other thing maybe that we could see at the same time: the next round of betas for iOS 18.4 and Apple Intelligence. But I’m not holding my breath for that one. I prefer to set my expectations very low, near zero actually, just to be sure.

Musing About Journaling Goals

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 17:08:03 -0400

I maintain a daily journal at work where I jot down the day’s highlights. I write about what went well, the current challenges I’m facing, and any opportunities to do something different. I also note the clients I spoke to and the reasons behind it. I’ve been doing this for a while now, but I never refer to the journal once it’s written. It’s just a dump of my thoughts.

I wonder why I’m doing this. I think the act of writing it down is the ultimate goal, not the end results. It’s the same with my personal journal. I rarely write in it, but I do occasionally. I rarely, if ever, refer to it. Why is that?

Now, let’s talk about blogging. Why is all that? Is there a pattern here?

How Do You Feel About That?

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 08:18:29 -0400

I don’t know how many Americans will read this post, but I feel the need to get the message out by amplifying this post from a Ukrainian soldier. How do you feel about Trump wanting to talk to the enemy, because this is exactly what he is? I find the link with 9/11 especially right on. The only difference, there as been hundreds if not thousands of 9/11 in Ukraine since February 2022. And it goes on, and on, and on. Wake the fuck up.

Netflix vs Apple: Who's the Dumbest?

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 14:37:47 -0400

While Netflix is sorry for making their product too convenient by showing up on Apple TV app for a few hours to a few users, Apple is making Apple TV app available anywhere, including Android more recently. Netflix seems run by stupid guys. Apple? I prefer not to answer that one. It’s tricky and complicated when looking at the big picture (pun intended).

Testing Summaries - Part Deux

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 22:48:55 -0400

I understand this is only the beginning, but I find it strange that summaries aren’t available at post time, only at edit time, after the initial post publication. It’s like a backward rollout. For my first test, I used the AI-generated version. For this one, I’ll write it manually. The first part of my experiment is available here.

Testing Summaries

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 22:32:44 -0400

I’m testing the new blog post summary feature of Micro.blog. For now, according to my assessment, the summary field is only available while editing an existing post, which seems a bit strange. It’s a work-in progress and a few updates should help complete the full vision of blog post summaries. If AI support was disabled, the feature isn’t available. More info here.

It's Time to Vote With My Money

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 07:40:20 -0400

DHH at 37 Signals praising Musk for his business (and now) government spending management is yet another red flag and a no-go for me. I won’t link to this post. I’m going to vote with my money and cancel my HEY Mail subscription this fall when my subscription is expiring. If Musk buys ChatGPT, I’ll again vote with my money and cancel my ChatGPT subscription in due time. As Trump is imposing 25% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, I’ll vote with my money and cancel my yearly business trip to the US this fall. Some of these changes are a pain to implement but resisting is never an easy thing.

And the Winner Is...

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 10:24:04 -0400

Three apps, three different designs. On the left, Tapestry, in the middle Reeder (new), on the right Reeder (old). For me, the winner is the new Reeder which offers a much cleaner design. I’ll keep an eye on Tapestry, but I don’t see how its design could change much.

Non-Optimized for the iPad

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 20:50:03 -0400

Apple told the developers that building an iPad was a matter of clicking a checkbox (more or less). Now, why is Apple Sports, Apple Journal and more recently, Apple Invites are not optimized for the iPad? 🤨🤷🏻‍♂️

Finally!

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:46:22 -0400

I’m finally enjoying this moment where I can show the title field while writing a blog post on Micro.blog.

Where Tapestry and Reeder Fail

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 09:39:43 -0400

Thought on the morning: I think that apps like Tapestry and Reeder¹ are failing at one thing: a single timeline where content converge is enough. It isn’t. I came to realize that the world is complex and requires many angles of content consumption. Another problem is the diversity in feed velocity. If one feed takes over the timeline, it’s crash the whole thing. Until they add multi-timelines and find a way to moderate high-volume feeds, I’ll refrain from adding these apps into my daily routine.

Update #1: I stand corrected by one of the founders of the Iconfactory: you can have multiple timelines within the app and switch across them at will. As a backup of Tapestry on Kickstarter, I should have known better. Sorry about that one.

The new generation, not the old one. ↩︎

In Support of Greg Morris' Micro Social App

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 23:09:56 -0400

I just realized that my face was on a few screenshots of Micro Social, an app currently being developed by Greg Morris. He shared an article today on his blog where he talks about the timeline feature. That’s cool. What is even cooler is that I decided to support him with a $1 a month subscription via his “Buy me a coffee” page. Can’t wait to test this myself.

Voting With My Money

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 08:23:42 -0400

Three reasons why I might not upgrade my iPhone 15 Pro Max this year, as expected.

If Donald Trump imposes tariffs on Canadian goods. I'm questioning my support of an American company like Apple.
Because of Tim Cook's contribution to Donald Trump inauguration which is in contradiction to many Apple values and Tim Cook's personal stance on some social issues.
If Apple makes a single change to their support for DEI program, following Trump's executive orders.

Use Disable Delete - Bye

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 08:27:42 -0400

I tend to disable my accounts instead of deleting them permanently. It’s the case with Facebook and Twitter. This weekend, I’m going to say goodbye to Twitter for real by deleting it. I imported my tweets archive a long time ago, thanks to Micro.blog’s import capabilities. I’m not sure why I kept it for so long… because when I see someone who’s sharing something on X, I simply ignore that. Oh well. Time to move on for real this time.

Dear, Will You Read My Blog?

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 16:10:46 -0400

Me: “My new French blog is nearly ready to go live. Will you read it?"

Her: “Well, yeah, sure, but how will I know there is something new to read?"

Me: “Well, you just have to go to the website, just like you read the news."

Her: “Mmm, but it’s not the same. I have to remember the website’s address. Can you send notifications instead?"

Me: “Well, I’m not sure this would fit the idea of a blog, but you just need to save it as a bookmark. Also, I can show you a great RSS reader?"

Her: “🤔"

Me: “It’s an app where you can read blog posts. There are many great ones for your iPhone or iPad."

Her: “Well, yeah, but I must remember to open it just to see if something is new?"

Me: “Yes, exactly, just like when you open up your favourite news website or when you just tap on the Facebook icon on your iPad…"

Her: “🤨"

Me: “If there was a weekly newsletter, would it be ok for you to read it?"

Her: “That would be better, for sure, but… you know… I already get so many emails!"

Me: “M’ok, but my hosting service doesn’t provide a newsletter feature. Maybe I could just tell you: there is something new on my blog that you might find interesting because I wrote a story about you."

Her: “👩🏻‍💻"

The challenges a blogger may face can be unpredictable.

Micro.one is the seed for something bigger

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 21:40:25 -0400

Today, I think I finally found a real use case for Micro.one. I bought my domain and set up my account. It was rather quick and easy. If I had let Micro.one set up my domain name for me, it would have been even easier.

I think the ingredients of Micro.one are all there for an accessible solution for those who want to get out of Meta or other silos and start owning their little space on the web, free of tracking, free of ads, and built on open software technologies. Of course, Micro.one isn’t the only service of its kind. But it does offer the right feature set to be an open and federated web citizen.

I feel an overwhelming desire to explore and savor this type of web content even further. I believe that sharing my passion for this subject matter could potentially ignite a similar level of enthusiasm in those around me. Even if it doesn’t, if people are genuinely curious enough to inquire about the reasons behind my enthusiasm, it’s a positive development, potentially marking the beginning of something more substantial. After all, who knows what the future holds?

I’ll share more in the near future.

The Medium Mirage

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 08:05:05 -0400

Medium seems to suffer from another problem: AI-generated content and fake account for fake engagement to generate revenues. According to their recent article (Paywall might be enforced to read this), many accounts under the Partner Program were suspended recently to stop this fraud.

I’ve returned to Medium last fall (read my comments about the reading and writing experience over there) and found that content quality has gone down compared to what we used to read there. The revenue program is much less generous than it used to be. I published 18 stories since my return and earned less than a dollar! We don’t know how these revenues are calculated, but it is a bit insulting or at least discouraging. At this rate, I won’t recover the Partner Program subscription cost in the first year which makes my presence there questionable. This should have been a no-cost journey which it’s not. Still seven months to go…

Putting Something Out There

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 14:23:27 -0400

I’m about to start a recording session for my next video about Craft and the PARA method. I wonder: why am I doing this? Is it because it might help Craft users to better take advantage of the app features? Is it because I just like being in a creative process? Is it because I love working on the Mac using different apps together to put something out there? Is it all the reasons above? Or is it simply because it provides a subtle reminder of being human is being creative and putting something out there? Maybe I’m asking myself too many questions.

Hell On Earth - Los Angeles & Ukraine

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 12:27:37 -0400

I don’t want to offend anyone here, but what is happening right now in Los Angeles is certainly devastating. It’s really looking like hell on earth. At the same time, we can easily find the exact same hell in Ukraine and many more people are displaced or killed by a totalitarian and evil regime. It’s hard to fight climate change, but we can and must fight what Russia¹ in its current form and to for what it brings to this world. Two images, two tragedies.

the US does a lot already, but sadly that is not enough bot in money and speed. ↩︎

Who's Right? Apple Intelligence or Grammarly

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 08:19:50 -0400

While working on the next edition of the Ephemeral Scrapbook newsletter, I wanted to proofread and rewrite some text portions. I first started with Apple Intelligence Writing Tools then pasted the results into Craft. Grammarly instantly took the ball and verified the pasted text, highlighting everything wrong that needed some attention. Is Apple Writing Tools sloppy or Grammarly too picky? Writing in English is not an easy thing for me to do. And it’s not easy for generative AI either, apparently. From what I understand, Grammarly tries to be less wordy and is very iterative in its text proofing execution.

Here is the final tweaked version:

1️⃣ First and foremost, I want to extend my warmest wishes for a prosperous and fulfilling new year. I genuinely hope you find success and happiness in your professional and personal endeavors. 2️⃣ Secondly, this marks the inaugural edition of this newsletter for 2025, and I’ve decided to introduce a few changes. Firstly, I’ve decided to eliminate the summary at the beginning of each newsletter. This section provided an overview of the number of blog posts, photos, and other content I’ve shared since the previous edition. While I appreciate the interest in these statistics, I believe it’s unnecessary to brag about them, and it takes a significant amount of time to maintain and update this information. I’ve also officially decided to retire the podcasts section from my newsletter. While I enjoy podcasts, I don’t find them particularly relevant to my current content creation schedule, and I believe it’s not worth dedicating time and resources to them.

I’m Getting Old Apparently

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 18:12:49 -0400

I old enough to be one of those who witnessed the birth of MTV and music videos… but I rarely watch those these days… but today, I decided to spend some time watching what’s « hot ». A few observations are in order: video duration is short (less than 3 min), hyper-short scenes abuse (less than two seconds in duration), 4:3 screen ratio is strange (is this a thing now?)… I barely can stand this shit now. I’m getting old, I guess.

Where The Social Web Fails

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 14:12:34 -0400

Dislike buttons on YouTube, or elsewhere for that matter, should come with a mandatory “here’s why I don’t like this” explanation text field. In this specific case, 2 people out of 18 didn’t like my video. Why? How can I improve myself if you don’t tell me what’s wrong? This is the part of social web that I feel doesn’t work.

On Header Images and Creative Liberty

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:43:36 -0400

Manuel Moreale link posting on the subject of header images on blog posts:

“I’ll go one step further Nelson, I have a growing hatred towards pointless images in blog posts in general, I don’t even care if they’re AI-generated or not. If they’re there as part of the content then by all means use them but if you’re just adding a stock image from unsplash to make the page “feel” more interesting then you’re just part of the broader problem that’s plaguing the web.”

Header images do add to the page load times, yes I do use AI-generated images from time to time, like in this post where I wanted to make a point, and I use many of my personal photos… like in this edition of the Ephemeral Scrapbook newsletter. Yes, I prefer header images on that specific blog because it is part of its visual theme. So then what? That’s MY corner of the web. I do what I find cool and creative and whatever.

I’m guessing he’s reading none of my blogs because of this, among other reasons?

On iPhone 16 Pro Camera Control

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:37:22 -0400

I’ve played a bit with my wife’s iPhone 16 Pro Camera Control. I think it is cool but not practical. It is the best case of feature or functions overloading on a single control. I think it’s hard to compete against discrete on-screen camera controls because these are much quicker to invoke and the error rate is low. I don’t see the Camera Control to live for a long time as I can’t see a single way of improving it and fixing this usability issue.

Craft & Gumroad - A Match in Heaven?

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 08:41:49 -0400

I’be been trying to build a small business around Craft using Gumroad in the last 18 months. So far, it’s a hit or miss. I’m currently having paying 20 subscribers for The Craft Bible¹. I sold quite a few Craft templates, too. I have many more ideas for 2025 to continue to grow this offering. Yet, it won’t replace my day job.

I like Gumroad as a selling platform but also for writing articles and sharing them with my customers. This is not something that I planned on doing when I started, but I must admit that it’s fun to build a small community around an app like Craft, away from the public scrutiny of Reddit and Slack. Today, I shared a long op-ed article on my feelings about Craft. It’s a long piece that I took quite some time to write. I’m quite happy with the results. I can’t wait for user reactions and feedback.

I’m currently running a promotion until the end of December where new subscribers to The Craft Bible get a one-week trial. To my surprise, It is not attracting more subscriptions. I must be doing something wrong. ↩︎

My Apple Intelligence Writing Tools Mixed Experience

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 08:51:18 -0400

My experience with Apple Intelligence’s Writing Tools is mixed. One significant issue is the absence of a feature to compare the original text with the revised version. In contrast, Grammarly excels in this regard, as its suggestions are contextual. Additionally, the constant need to select text to “feed” the Writing Tools becomes tedious. Another challenge arises when using Writing Tools with markdown content or links. These get mangled in the revised version. Finally, speed is also an issue. Even for simple text to process, it can take quite some time to get a response.

For now, Grammarly remains my preferred writing assistant, and I have no intention of switching to Apple Intelligence’s Writing Tools anytime soon.

Photo Sharing, The Web and Museums

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 22:07:07 -0400

Here is a thought about recent tweaks to RSS importer on Micro.blog. For example, now it’s possible to import photos in the RSS feed published by Glass. With this, when I publish a photo on Glass, it gets posted on my blog too. The same photo on two platforms. As much as I like the POSSE principle for writing, it doesn’t fit well with my desire to share photos on special places, like a photo-dedicated service. Glass is such a special place, just like Pixelfed. What would be the point of having a single photo spread out on other platforms? I see places like Glass like museums. Pieces of art hanged on the wall of a museum are unique to this place. It makes the place unique. I’m still thinking about all this.

Selling to the Devil?

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 13:12:30 -0400

So I put my M1 Mac mini for sale this weekend on Facebook Marketplace. 🤢 Got an offer for 50% of my asking price. I said, no, nice try . Got a second offer from someone else with a slightly reduced priced. I said ok. I went poking his Facebook profile page just to see if I’m being scammed👀🤨🧐. From the buyer’s profile and posts I can infer the following: he believes in conspiracies, he is an anti-vaccine, he is a proud pro-Trump, and the icing on the cake: he is pro-Russian. 🤮

I came close to cancel the deal… but I didn’t. Just give the money and GTFO.

Migrating From M1 Mac mini to M4 Mac mini - A Flawless Migration

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 07:30:49 -0400

Got my M4 Mac mini yesterday and completed the migration off the old M1 Mac mini. The process took me about 2.5 hours, where about 1.25 hours for data migration only using the Apple Migration Assistant¹. Upon first login, I got only a handful of security-related popups, much less than I was expecting. Many apps like Microsoft OneDrive, Synology Drive client, worked perfectly with minimum reconfiguration, which was a pleasant surprise. A few app licenses to reconfigure and hop I’m ready to go!

This is the first time that I’m using a two-monitor setup at home (Apple Studio Display + LG UltraFine 4K). It’s quite a setup upgrade. Today will be my first full work day with this setup, I’ll report back later for more impressions.

I used a Thunderbolt 4 cable between the two machines. Actually transfer speed were between 100 MB/s & 600 MB/S, while being rated at more than 900 MB/s. ↩︎

Paying to Be a Beta Tester? Really?

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 09:45:06 -0400

Paying to be a beta tester: is this a new trend? Glass Series was available to patron subscribers only while being in beta testing. RealMac Software offers Elements in beta as a subscription but at a reduced price. Active beta testers are actually paying of their time to use a software still being debugged and refined. Isn’t that enough? I understand that building software is hard and requires resources… but paying to be a beta tester seems to cross a line here.

Bye Bye Omnivore, It Was a Short Nice Run

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 08:28:29 -0400

Omnivore’s future is not looking good, following the announcement received by email yesterday night, by one of the founder himself. Omnivore was the best read-later service after Matter and Pocket, two services I didn’t really like or were too expansive. But now, with Omnivore’s future and slow demise, I’m getting fed up with those one-man-shop open-source projects. Pixelfed is another one that I’m getting tired of¹. So, I’m going to refocus on Inoreader for read-later functionality and text highlights. Following their recent redesign, which is actually much better than the previous iteration, I’m more than ever committing to Inoreader.

More of that Pixelfed fatigue in a later post. ↩︎

Bye Bye 1Password, Hello Apple Passwords.

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 07:10:07 -0400

I’ve finally completed the arduous migration from 1Password and canceled my subscription. I didn’t encounter any issues with 1Password transitioning to an Electron-based application. While it was an excellent and overkill solution for managing my passwords and secrets, I generally prefer integrated solutions for fundamental products or features like password management. Is Apple Passwords the perfect solution? No, but it’s more than adequate for my needs. One positive outcome of this migration is an enhanced security posture, as I had to revisit many credentials and enable two-factor authentication for numerous services.

On Using Notion AI

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 15:47:43 -0400

Today I decided to give a serious try to Notion AI to support my study of some Microsoft Azure materials. So far, I’m liking it a lot. Basic workflow goes like this: I visit the webpage, save it to Notion using a browser extension, then upon archival of the content, I ask Notion AI for a summary that is inserted at the beginning of the page. I read it then I read the actual original content. I’ll highlight some words or phrases and I might add some inline comments while reading. It’s a great study experience.

My Five Minutes Experience With the Camera Control Button

Sat, 21 Sep 2024 19:47:03 -0400

I like the physical design, but it is too flush with the iPhone flat edge for my taste. It is easier to use with my thumb while the iPhone is in portrait mode. The required pressure to take a photo makes me shake¹ which is not always good when taking a photo in low light conditions. I kind of “Digg” the UI which feels organic just like for the Dynamic Island but using multi-purposes buttons requires some time to get used to and learn the numerous modes. Apple is still working off the half-pressure mode for taking pictures and I wonder how it will affect the general use… will it make it even harder to use?

Might be age-related issue, I know. ↩︎

Dear Apple, Think Differently, Again.

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 14:32:53 -0400

Tomorrow is Apple keynote. I want to be surprised. I want something different. I want to see Apple push harder, differently. I want this “one more thing”. I want to see Apple think outside the box. I want them to show the way, the right way. I want them to not be afraid, and do it differently. I want them to stop looking at their past successes. Think like the underdog. Think Differently, again.

Hello Again, Facebook!

Sat, 31 Aug 2024 14:36:50 -0400

Today, I posted something on Facebook; and honestly, it felt weird. I can’t remember exactly when I last wrote on Facebook. I also had this symptom of missing out on things from my old colleagues and friends just by glancing at my timeline for a few minutes. It felt heavy. My post was about telling my “Facebook friends” about the two sites where I share my photos online: Glass and Pixelfed. I don’t know if people will take time off their busy lives to visit or even bookmark the sites. I shouldn’t care about that. Those who pay attention might even notice a link to my digital hub, where I share all my other sites. Because I’m curious, I’ll return back to Facebook in a few days to see if I got some comments. I’ll report back here in any case.

I'll Never Buy a GM Car in My Life

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 20:05:30 -0400

GM didn’t want to carry CarPlay (and Android Auto!) in their cars because they were dimmed as unsafe. Was GM in fact hoping to open up these, instead, but why? Apple didn’t want to open their platform. Now we have a better idea as to why. In other news, GM is laying off hundreds of software engineers. I guess GM learned that doing software is hard. Well, fuck them.

Hard Times Are Sometimes Needed

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 12:36:55 -0400

When things go wrong at work, when numbers don’t add up to meet high sales expectations, only then people starts to question things. It’s only in these harder days that we can really start to find new ways, reimagine how we do business. Those hard times are sometimes necessary for a company to evolve.

Looking at you Apple¹.

I’m also referring to the company I work for presently. ↩︎

If Apple Were Consistently Listening

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 12:11:53 -0400

Recently some people complained about Apple’s latest ad in the « The Underdogs » series to be offensive, and Apple « promptly » said sorry and removed the ad.

If only Apple showed a similar attitude towards developers who are more than fed up with their App Store practices and voiced their complaints so many times in so many ways… many people are noticing and find this shit show exhausting and damaging.

The Mac Mini Needs a Redesign

Thu, 08 Aug 2024 13:08:54 -0400

Rumors suggest a “finally” moment, with Apple on the verge of completing the redesign of the newest generation of the Mac mini, this time featuring an M4 chip. This could result in the smallest Mac ever.

The current Mac mini design dates back to 2010, when Apple was still using more power-hungry and larger Intel chips. The only change over the years has been the back portion to accommodate a variety of port offerings. When Apple transitioned to Apple Silicon chips, right after the Apple Silicon Dev Kit was made available, I expected a redesign and saw the Dev Kit as a transitional step, simply because the chip is smaller, more power-efficient, and requires much less cooling. To me, this was the right time to do so. However, they did not.

If you look inside an M1 Mac mini, thanks to this teardown guide from iFixit you can see that there is some empty space. Coupled with what Apple can do with the M4 iPad Pro, and the environmental pressure to be more efficient in resource consumption (power, materials, etc.), it is clear that the Mac mini must be rethought from the ground up. Will Apple go with an external PSU for this? I don’t expect this to be the case.

One more thing: I’ve been a satisfied user of the M1 Mac mini since 2020, but I’m increasingly considering an upgrade, either to the Mac Studio or a more powerful Mac mini. I’ll be sure to pay close attention to my options.

On ARM Laptops, Windows And... The Usual Stuff Needed With Windows...

Sat, 03 Aug 2024 09:43:27 -0400

I always enjoy MKBHD’s videos, and this one about the Microsoft Surface ARM laptop is no exception. His views are well-balanced and feel honest. Now, about this specific lap, supposedly being fast with long battery life, great built quality and… a touch screen, certainly feels like a leap beyond Apple’s offerings, but… it’s running Windows. And that, is the problem. I wouldn’t buy one of these for the simple reason that running Windows required running a bunch of security-related software to keep it secure. How much processing power these apps takes out of the base configuration? Certainly a few percentage points, but for me, it’s ruining the whole thing. And that, MKBHD don’t mention anything about it.

Memories

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 13:29:44 -0400

Today is my mother’s 91st birthday. She passed away 18 months ago, but the memories of her remain vivid. This morning, my iPhone suggested a video memory highlighting cherished moments with her, which nearly brought me to tears. Time may have flown by, but my affection for her endures, even though I wasn’t that close to her, not has much as I would have liked. One of my last photos of her. 😔

Apple Is Telling Half the Story

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 13:35:59 -0400

There is something incomplete in how Apple is portraying Safari as a way to stay private when surfing the web. The ad is certainly visually striking, with surveillance cameras flying over people as they browse the web on their non-iPhone devices. It’s a compelling analogy. It reminds me of another Apple ad where a person is in a similar situation, being watched and followed by a group of people who want to know their online whereabouts.

But you know, Apple is mum about its deal with Google as being the default search engine in Safari. The last time I checked, Google isn’t the type of privacy-protection company you might think they are.

Trying to Find Comforting Thoughts

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 07:02:39 -0400

Manuel Moreale reflecting on one hundred people who took the time to sign his guestbook (I did):

It’s the number of people who have taken a few minutes out of their busy lives to write something on my guestbook. One hundred doesn’t seem a lot in the grand scheme of things, especially on the web. If you have one hundred followers you might as well have zero. One hundred views on a YouTube video? That’s nothing. You need at least one hundred thousand to be part of the conversation. And yet, I find one hundred signatures in a guestbook to be a lot. Can you imagine having one hundred people in front of you, all saying something to you, one after the other? It would feel overwhelming.

I often think about this. Just like Manuel, I have a blog, a YouTube channel, a podcast (sort of). Globally, my follower counts are very low (even lower than Manuel’s) when looked through the Internet scale lens, but if those people were in front of me, in the same room, that would be quite something else. I find this thought to be comforting.

But Techies Will Be Happy

Mon, 15 Jul 2024 07:04:30 -0400

Google Chrome, Along With Other Popular Chromium Browsers, Grants System Monitoring Privileges to *.google.com Domains

But speaking of the DMA, Chromium is, far and away, the most popular browser engine that the DMA compels Apple to allow on iOS. There are legitimate reasons to wish that Apple allowed third-party browser engines on iOS. But there are also legitimate reasons why Apple doesn’t allow them. Chrome really is bad. Better to let the market decide than let clueless regulators decide.

I’m on the side of Gruber here. Governments are usually not very good at tech. We should always be on the doubters side when they want to regulate. Opening up the iPhone will make it weaker than today, not better. I would even argue that the vast majority of users will lose more than they gain. But some techies will be happy.

Yep, Fucking Guns

Sun, 14 Jul 2024 21:15:16 -0400

Great take by Gruber on this week sad but highly predictable events. The US is a sick country. Sidenote: on my last few trips, all Americans that I met told me after presenting themselves as Americans: “I know, we’re one of those stupid Americans…”. I reserve this thought mostly to Trump supporters which I never met personally, thanks god.

Travel update #13: Bye Bye Split, Let’s Do Another Cruise to Dubrovnik!

Sat, 06 Jul 2024 15:50:24 -0400

Today was our last day in Split, Croatia. We strolled through the streets of Split once again and had breakfast at the “Bepa” restaurant, which is accessible from one of the public squares. Once again, we ate very well. However, the prices for food are even higher than we expected. We’re coming to the conclusion that traveling in Croatia is almost as expensive as traveling in countries like Italy!

Today also marks the beginning of a short cruise that will allow us to visit the islands of Korčula and Mljet before arriving in Dubrovnik, our last stop before returning to Canada. We still have many beautiful things to discover, fortunately. I don’t know if it’s a good sign or not, but the early experiences from the beginning of our trip already feel distant.

Travel update #12: Visiting Hvar, Bisevo, Vis Islands, Croatia

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 11:56:30 -0400

Once again, with a bit of delay, I’m sharing a new update on my trip to Croatia. Yesterday, the day was primarily spent on the waters in front of the city of Split. We took a small speedboat cruise to visit three beautiful large islands. The tour lasted more than ten hours. We also passed through the popular Blue Lagoon and visited a cave located on the island of Bisevo, where the turquoise water offers a surreal setting. It was absolutely magnificent. We had a mini lunch in Hvar and spent two lovely hours there, strolling and enjoying this beautiful place. A fishing village welcomed us. Fishing is still practiced there, but tourism is by far the largest economic activity. The architecture of the buildings is similar to what is found throughout the Croatian coast, with light stone buildings and terracotta-tiled roofs in shades of orange. This is also similar to what you find in Italy, by the way. We had a quite bumpy return to the coast as the sea was much more agitated than in early morning. It was quite an experience. Thankfully, the boat operator was experimented.

Regarding food, restaurant offerings mostly consist of grilled dishes, mainly fish and meat. Tuna salads, Niçoise, and Greek salads are also on the menu. Some restaurants feature typical Croatian dishes like goulashes. The sale of ice cream and gelato is very common in southern villages, where it’s warmer. I succumbed a few times, actually. The brightness on clear days here is absolutely perfect, just like everywhere on the Côte d’Azur.

We are halfway through our stay in this beautiful country. Tomorrow, we will embark on a small cruise for a few days to visit other islands, ultimately leading us to our final destination: Dubrovnik, where we will spend a few days. I’m really looking forward to it.

Travel update #11: From Sibenik to Split, Croatia

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 12:45:07 -0400

Yesterday, I didn’t have time to write the daily update because it was a transition day by car to our next destination: Split in Croatia. Of course, we took advantage of our route to stop in Trogir to visit and have lunch there. It was our last stop by car as we had to leave it at the airport in the suburbs of Trogir. From now on, we will take a boat. More details to come on that.

Our journey continued to Split, taking a taxi via Uber. The trip took a little over half an hour. Once there, we went to drop off our luggage at our apartment and took some time to explore the surroundings. What a strange but beautiful urban environment. Our apartment is located inside the old palace of Split. Accessing it is not easy as there are winding corridors and numerous stairs to climb. We felt like we were living within the walls of a medina like those found in Morocco. It’s lovely.

I took advantage of the late afternoon light to take some photos. What a beautiful city. I already know that I won’t have enough time to see everything and try to capture photos that are off the beaten path. I’ll do my best, and it will serve as an excuse to wish to return someday.

Travel update #10: Sibenik Take #2, Croatia

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 13:12:13 -0400

Once again, what a beautiful day we had in Sibenik. The main objective today was to visit the three forts of the city, which offer a splendid view of the town and the islands off the coast. The weather was magnificent even though storm cells were threatening the region. Fortunately, we were spared from rain and lightning!

We visited the three forts, which were overall interesting but are mainly worth visiting for the views they offer. We took advantage of the occasion to have a picnic at lunchtime while the wind was blowing moderately across the area. It was pleasant to hear the wind rustling through the trees, mostly mature pines.

After visiting the forts, we descended back into the city, this time making sure to choose a parking spot on the west side of town so we could walk along the long promenade by the docks. We ended up in the old part of the city to revisit and complete our tour from yesterday, which was merely a preview. This time, I had the good camera in hand, and I took the opportunity to capture new perspectives different from those taken yesterday.

We were back at the apartment around 6:30 PM to freshen up before heading out to a small neighboring village of Vodice, i.e., Tribunj. I can’t wait to see this little village.

I can’t wait to share some of my best pictures.

On My Writing Style As a Traveler

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 02:46:15 -0400

As you probably know, I’ve been writing and sharing my travel notes since the beginning of my trip to Croatia. I’m proud of maintaining the regularity to post each day, but not as proud of my writing itself. I can’t quite describe the quality of my writing, but when I read it back, it feels rather superficial. Why do I feel this way?

Well, my writing tends to list the places I visited and whether I liked them. But I almost always fail to explain why I loved visiting them. Take yesterday’s travel update, for example: I wrote that I fell in love with Sibenik and shared a photo of banners adorned with children’s drawings. What exactly resonated with me in this place? What were my emotions when I entered the narrow streets of the village and first saw the banners everywhere? It was surprising—the children’s drawings added a contrast to the old buildings’ walls, giving the city a sense of humanity. And you know what? It was the children’s festival! It’s a great way to celebrate humanity.

Part of my problem is that I’m not a native English speaker, but a French speaker. I don’t have the same level of vocabulary to describe feelings or physical places. I’m wondering if I could first write a version of my travel update in French and then ask ChatGPT to translate it into English. For today’s travel update, that’s what I’m going to do. We’ll see how it comes out this time. Let me know if you notice a difference.

Disclaimer: this text was first written in English (yes, in English!) and I asked ChatGPT to improve to the writing. It made a big difference, trust me, but I still have this feeling of owning the ideas and the final results.

Travel update #9: Krka National Park & Sibenik, Croatia

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 16:05:51 -0400

It’s been a day with ups and downs. We left the apartment at around 10:30 AM in direction of the Krka National Park, 45-minute drive to see some other waterfalls and translucide lakes. The first part of the visit was really nice because it was like a repeat of the other visit to the national park that we visited earlier in the week with great waterfalls and gorgeous lakes with transparent blue water. Unlike the first national park, this time, it was much more crowded to a point of being unpleasant at some point because we had to wait for people to finish their selfies. 🤨

We left to see another part of the park where a bigger waterfall was expected and was located further in the park, but we couldn’t locate it and wasted our time waiting for the bus to get us back to the parking lot. The last stop was to visit a secluded church rather hard to locate on the maps. We eventually ended up at the entrance and couldn’t buy any tickets to visit the area but a priest did let us anyway visit the monastery and the areas with a little smile on his face. It was a welcomed gesture.

Next up, we had to return to the apartment to exchange my pair of glasses otherwise I would have been enable to drive at night when coming back to the apartment. For dinner, we decided to go to Sibenik, a great little village near Vodice. Oh boy I instantly fell in love with it. I didn’t have my main camera so I was left with my iPhone to take as many pictures as I could. We decided to come back tomorrow and this time, I’ll bring my other big camera. I can’t wait for this.

Travel update #8: Kornati Islands, Croatia

Sun, 30 Jun 2024 13:33:17 -0400

Here’s today’s travel update. What a wonderful day we had, thanks to this day-cruise around the Kornati Islands, starting from Vodice’s port at 9 AM. We had lunch at around 11:30 AM, right before a 3-hour stop at one of the island (can’t remember the name!) where we could spend some time swimming at the beach or in a very salty small interior lake. I decided to go for the trail around the lake instead, a 2.2KM quick trekking. While the temperature at the village was expected to reach 33C during the day, weather on the sea was cooler and very nice, with very little wind, except in the trail where the temperature probably reached more than 30C with partially shaded trail sections, thanks to tall pine trees. A bit scary discovery: while walking the trail in the forest, I encountered many big spider nets at about fifteen feet high each with a gigantic spider standing right in the middle, waiting for the next prey. It was a bit scary and disgusting, not my favourite thing to see. Overall, it was a great day.

I took my telephoto lens with me this time around and it was a judicious decision. I started editing my travel photos and I must say that without Adobe Lightroom’s built in catalog, it’s a bit cumbersome. I often get this error in Photomator as seen below. It’s a bit frustrating. I think it’s more of an iPadOS instabilities than a problem with Photomator.

Travel update #7: Vodice’s Beaches, Croatia

Sat, 29 Jun 2024 13:08:30 -0400

We didn’t do much today: taking our time early in the morning when preparing and having breakfast and then spending time on the beach and relaxing. I did some writing too, from my iPhone while sitting on my sunbathing chair. It’s far from being ideal for writing longer posts but it is what it is. I had some thoughts to share about AI, generative AI more specifically (like this thought, this one and that one).

We came back to the apartment after having a drink at a beach club nearby. Then, again, we were quietly spending time online before getting ready to prepare the meal for dinner. Our plans for the rest of the day is to return in the village’s center to feel the village’s night life. It’s only a ten-minute walk from where we stay. It’s very convenient.

Thanks for reading.

Pressure Might Be Mounting on Apple with Apple Intelligence in Unexpected Ways

Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:48:41 -0400

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.

Could Generative AI Content Usage Be THE Biggest Problem?

Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:26:07 -0400

I’m wondering if the way someone elects to use generated content from generative AI models is way more potentially problematic and subject to debate than anything related to models training using content from the open web.

Also: generative AI content used to train generative AI models is also source of concerns to me. I call that process “knowledge desinfection” or “knowledge toxification” or even better “knowledge asphyxiation”. Or should I replace “knowledge” with “intelligence”?

One more thing: the more I think about generative AI training, the less I think it should be considered plagiarism. More on that one soon.

Maybe We Should Stop Crying Fool: We’ve Been Trained Ourselves!

Sat, 29 Jun 2024 08:58:40 -0400

Thinking out loud about generative models training.

In a way, we’ve all been trained ourselves in our life by the books we read, the movies we saw, the music we listened. Some people have been trained on very specific knowledge bodies, in very specific fields. People use this accumulated “training” also forming “culture” to create new things and produce new content. Some people might be trained on a specific music style or dancing style. We’ve been trained by teachers. As “trained” creators, do we ask a permission when writing something new or writing music using our training data? Now because it happens at a large scale by large (and “nasty”?) corporations to create products, we cry foul?! Where is the line to be drawn here? I don’t know.

Travel update #6: Zadar + Vodice, Croatia

Fri, 28 Jun 2024 12:17:43 -0400

Today we left for Zadar and Vodice where we will stay for five days in a small apartment. We arrived at noon in Zadar and had a nice picnic in a small park, under the shade of big trees. It was a quiet place and we wondered about how few tourists seem to be present since we arrived in Croatia. It might not be peak season just yet. We spent nearly three hours in Zadar, a great coastal city of Croatia, to walk in the city’s small streets behind the fortified perimeter. It felt a bit hot even for a coastal city, yet the weather was splendid. We saw (and heard) the sea organ and we were pleased by the sound of it.

We left Zadar for Vodice at 3PM, a one-hour drive on a coastal road. As we drove away from Zadar we saw the surroundings slowly change in appearance. Vodice is a small village where we can find great places to have dinner and visit the marina surrounded by typical summer houses and beach clubs. Tomorrow I should have more to say about this small village.

Thanks for reading my short travel updates!

Travel update #5: Rastoke, Croatia

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 11:54:00 -0400

Earlier this morning, the weather was better than yesterday, so we decided to revisit Plitvicka Jezera National Park. The improved lighting allowed us to better appreciate the lake’s renowned blue and green hues, and there were fewer tourists. However, we didn’t stay as long as our previous visit because we wanted to explore a small village called Rastoke. This village, known for its charming houses and numerous waterfalls, was highly recommended by our host. We enjoyed a picnic there before exploring, and we were not disappointed; the place was delightful.

On our way back, we stopped to see the river’s source near the road. To our surprise, we found several old, barely standing buildings, which made for great photography. However, a thunderstorm was forming nearby, forcing us to cut our visit short. After checking the local radar, we realized we had just enough time to escape and return to our car.

And we were back at our B&B at four fifty. It’s another great day in Croatia. Now loading up a new batch of photos into my iPad.

Travel update #4: Plitvicka Jezera Nation Park, Croatia

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 12:02:49 -0400

We left Zagreb today to go visit the Plitvicka Jezera national park. it was a two hour drive from Zagreb. After a nice and smooth ride we arrived at around 11:15 AM in the park ready to tackle the 4-6 hour circuit. Boy this place is wonderful! It took us about four hours. We had a rain shower or two but each time we were lucky to be at the right place either on the boat or in the forest so we didn’t get wet! Lucky me because I wasn’t ready for rain with my unprotected photo equipment. Speaking of photography, I don’t know how many shots I did but I’m pretty sure there are a few quite impressive with such natural surroundings. I can’t wait to process those images.

Tonight, we’re going to have dinner at a house near our B&B in Grabovac, a very small village be close to the national park. They served grilled fish and meat. It supposed to be really good. We’ll see, but I trust the Croatians so far!

Travel update #3: Zagreb, Croatia

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 15:49:23 -0400

We went for another walking session in Zagreb after the rain finally went on pause in the second half of the afternoon. We visited another portion of the city before ending up near the restaurant where we planned to have dinner, a Sri Lanka restaurant called “Curry Bowl” which again was rated five stars. It was absolutely delicious. But just before going for the dinner we stopped at a little bar because the rain started again. It was “apéro time”. All in all we enjoyed Zagreb: a nice, relativelyely quiet European city where we always felt in safe.

Tomorrow heading off to Plitvice Lakes National Park for two days. It will be quite a different environment.

Travel update #2: Zagreb, Croatia

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 10:08:44 -0400

I’m currently writing this from our room as there are some heavy showers outside. We had a chance to walk a lot since morning in Zagreb and had a great lunch at the restaurant called “Heritage” which is close to our B&B. It’s a very small place where only maybe ten people can have lunch at the same timee (counting those 3 tables outside!). They make absolutely great sandwiches with Croatian ingredients (ham, truffle spread, local cheese, etc.). We also all a great walnuts salad and a drink. Eating is our great pleasure when visiting a place like Zagreb. This place has five stars and is not that expansive.

Back to our room, I’m writing this post after I imported my first batch of images (62 in all) and started to tag which one I would process. All this is done on my iPad, Files and Photomator. Works great so far. The only thing is that I forgot to change the time zone so my pictures got the wrong time stamp. Not that big of a deal. If the internet speed was better, I would have included an image to this post, but that’s not the case. Too bad.

Travel update #1: Zagreb, Croatia

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 03:31:28 -0400

First full day in Croatia. It is the morning here in Zagreb. Yesterday, we arrived and spent the first few hours wandering in the city center where all the night life is happening. It was the time to spot the places that we were to revisit later (today). We were tired following our two flights by night.

There was a soccer match at 9PM and people were quite excited and were looking forward to it. It ended end up in a tie 1-1 Croatia against Italia. I don’t care too much about soccer but Croatian do quite a lot!

I didn’t take my camera with me as I felt my iPhone would be enough. It was a good call anyway because it was rather late in the evening. We had dinner at a restaurant and had goulash and beer. It was a typical plate for Croatian apparently. We came back to the B&B exhausted by our air travelling. I do feel the jet lag this morning but I expect thing to improve in the next two to three days.

This blog post was a writing exercise to practice my daily journaling while traveling abroad.

When Will IT Support Guys Learn?

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 16:14:01 -0400

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. After a few tries, he finally got the “real” reasons: iPhone aren’t supported officially and weakening the security posture of the whole company, he should get an Android. What a shitload of bullshit, which is often typical from IT guys who don’t understand or know Apple devices. I’m so tired of this, after all those decades.

Back to my call with my CEO, after trying to understand the situation and find a sound explanation, I told him that the type of answers he got was unacceptable. We are an IT company for god’s sake! He was shy of admitting the same and surprised by this nonsense. He is the CEO, a smart guy. We should do better.

The iPhone is not weakening the security posture of the company, some IT support guys are¹.

I don’t want to generalize but this type of support from unknowledgeable IT guys is still way too much prevalent these days. ↩︎

Pondering

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 17:18:04 -0400

In a week, I’ll be preparing to fly to Croatia for a three-week vacation with my wife. I’m still considering several aspects of the trip. How much blogging should I do during this time? Should I stay quiet and focus entirely on my vacation and photography? What camera equipment should I bring? Should I bring my MacBook Air in addition to my iPad Pro?

I need to decide the right balance between being present in the moment and documenting the journey through my blog. While I enjoy sharing my experiences, I also want to fully immerse myself in the trip without the constant pressure of content creation. As for the camera gear, I’ll need to carefully assess what I’ll actually use versus what I might pack just in case. The MacBook Air could be helpful for editing photos on the go, but the iPad Pro is a more compact and convenient option. Ultimately, I want to travel light and focus on making the most of this vacation with my wife.

I still have a week to figure this out.

Apple Private Cloud Compute Curiosities

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 07:26:08 -0400

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. It’s worth noting that there was no update to the Mac Studio this year. Is Apple diverting M3 Max or M3 Ultra production to build its Private Cloud Compute data centers (which currently feature 32 Neural Engine cores in the M2 Ultra)?
What type of case design is Apple using for the servers? Are they modified versions of the Mac mini, or are they using a rack-mount variant of the Mac Studio?
Is Apple deploying data centers only in the United States or across multiple continents? I suspect the latter, for the sake of redundancy and capacity.

I expect that sometime in the future, perhaps at WWDC 2025, Apple may reveal details about the first year of Apple Intelligence in a short video. We’ll have to wait and see.

Two Highly Different Approaches

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 07:12:54 -0400

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? I’m excited for Apple Intelligence, but I appreciate the time it will take to make it right.

Apple Intelligence & Current Apple Silicon

Sun, 09 Jun 2024 14:35:32 -0400

If Apple Intelligence¹ requires a new generation of hardware to be fully appreciated, I would be surprised and be a little sad. My expectation would be that last year’s generation of hardware should be, at the minimum, enough. Otherwise, it might send a wrong message that even current Apple Silicon isn’t enough to power generative AI-based experience. How could this be, after all, Apple always brag about its silicon superiority. Tim Cook said that their silicon was their current competitive edge… but was he referring to future chips only? I hope not.

Provided it’s the real name. ↩︎

Apple's AI Push at WWDC 2024

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 14:50:59 -0400

“Apple will put a major emphasis on AI at its upcoming WWDC, as the company aims to catch up to competitors in this rapidly evolving space. While Apple’s approach has been more measured, the pressure is on to provide a clear growth narrative, which its AI initiatives may struggle to directly deliver. Unlike Microsoft and NVIDIA, Apple does not have an obvious path to monetize AI, instead focusing on using the technology to enhance its existing products and services.” — ChatGPT summarizing this article from M.G. Siegler.

I’m more than ok that Apple doesn’t try to monetize their AI journey.

Here's Why I Hate Template In Office Work

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 11:32:38 -0400

Using templates in office work can sometimes be counterproductive, leading to less original thinking, reduced engagement, and fewer creative problem-solving opportunities. Templates can make it easy to fall into a routine of just filling in blanks, resulting in more generic outputs and a checkbox mentality. This reliance on templates can also make it challenging to adapt and innovate when a task doesn’t fit the template. To keep creativity and innovation alive, it’s helpful to use templates as a starting point while encouraging team members to think critically and adapt as needed.

Some of my colleagues are highly dependant on them, I’m not. I’m staying away from them. It’s a creative thinking killer.

The M4 iPad Pro Regression Nobody is Talking About

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 12:13:03 -0400

The new M4 iPad Pro, with its repositioned FaceID camera, feels like a step backward compared to the 2018 iPad Pro. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but I frequently receive prompts to enter my PIN due to failed FaceID attempts. Swiping up to unlock the device momentarily covers the camera and sensors, disrupting the process. While Apple may have enhanced the FaceTime experience, the unlocking experience has become more frustrating. In my opinion, this is a significant regression.

This is an Audiocast — A Narrated Blog Post

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 08:22:49 -0400

This is my second narrated blog post on Micro.blog. It seems to me that writing for sharing as a text-only post triggers different strings for me than writing for a narrated text post. It feels strange because this isn’t a podcast episode. There is no introduction, no conclusion. No background music either. Yet, I find this cool because this is going to be available also to my podcast subscribers. Because of that, I call this an audiocast since the textual transcription (the writing) is done before the audio recording. Audiocast: this word doesn’t exist, isn’t it? Remember that you read it, and heard it here first.

Dear Apple, No New Hardware Please

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 21:36:00 -0400

Mac computers are fast and have impressive battery life. Mac Studio with the M4 Ultra ship can wait. The iPad is fast too, potentially surpassing the performance of many Mac computers. It is thin also. Really thin. We get it. The iPhone is fast, light, thin and features excellent camera capabilities. Enough of incremental updates. That is why I do not want new Apple hardware at the upcoming WWDC conference, even if it was a home router, a la AirPort.

Instead, I think Apple’s software in general requires attention and improvement.

For instance, the iPadOS user interface could benefit from refinements to enhance the overall user experience. Similarly, the macOS notifications center and the iPhone Control Center may need rethinking to improve their functionality and usability. Additionally, the macOS Settings app could undergo further enhancements to provide users with a more streamlined and intuitive interface. These are examples of user-facing interfaces that could benefit from further enhancements to better meet the needs and expectations of Apple’s customers. Oh, and Siri needs even more works to become the real intelligent assistant we are all waiting for. That’s the story I wish for WWDC this year.

No new hardware, please. Thanks you.

Windows 11 AI Recall Recalled?

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 21:24:51 -0400

The upcoming Windows 11 AI ‘Recall’ feature, which is designed to take regular screenshots of a user’s PC content to help them find past information, has been called a security disaster by a security researcher. According to the expert, Kevin Beaumont, the Recall feature is essentially an “infostealer” that can be exploited by hackers to access sensitive data, such as user interactions, text messages, passwords, and websites visited. Despite Microsoft’s attempts to improve the security of Recall, the researcher claims the feature will “set cybersecurity back a decade by empowering cybercriminals” as the underlying database can be accessed through malware-infected PCs.

I wonder how differently Apple would fare if it implemented something similar. Would it be better?

First Narrated Blog Post Experiment

Sun, 02 Jun 2024 14:50:13 -0400

Hi everyone. I might be late to the party, but I finally sat down for a few minutes to test Micro.blog’s new feature: narrated blog posts. It is strange because this is my first use and I cannot write a full review because as I’m writing this, my audio recording is still not done, and I don’t know how is the audio attachment and processing will actually work. It might be similar to when I post a new podcast episode. In any case, I think this is a clever addition to an already useful and enjoyable blogging service. Thanks to @Manton for this. Now, should I say, “have a great day and see you for another blog post?” Probably not.

[Update #1]: It seems the play button doesn’t show up. Probably a bug with the Cards theme. Investigation started. [Update #2]: I found out that narrated blog posts come out as podcast episodes on Podcasts. I’m not sure this is what I want.

Experiencing A Serious Bug With M4 iPad Pro

Sun, 19 May 2024 12:56:06 -0400

I’m experiencing an rather frustrating issue with my M4 iPad Pro: I’m experimenting with an external displayy (LG 4K UltraFine) with a thunderbolt cable. Everything works fine until the iPad starts acting up and disable the external display. It’s like if the cable was being disconnected and reconnected every few seconds. A restart of the iPad fixes the issue for a little while. Very frustrating to say the least. Probably a bug with iPadOS 17.5. I was hoping to test the external display but I’ll have to wait a little bit more.

Skipping Nano-Texture Display on iPad — Why?

Thu, 16 May 2024 21:34:47 -0400

After spending half an hour in the Apple Store comparing iPads with and without the nano-texture display, I came to the conclusion to skip the nano-texture display and here are the reasons why:

The display doesn’t provide a paper-like sensation when using the Apple Pencil.
There is a subtle difference in image sharpness.
The blacks are less complete blacks, which cancels the OLED screen advantage.
The contrast seems to be a little bit lower on the nano-texture display.

The corollary of this decision is:

a) I’m saving some money.

b) Since I’m settling on the 512GB of storage, I’ll get only 8GB of system memory.

c) This iPad is a little bit less future-proof.

So, that’s it for the decision about this display finish!

Finally

Thu, 16 May 2024 21:12:09 -0400

Finally got the new iPad Pro: 11-inch, 512GB of storage, which means “only” 8GB of system RAM and no nano-texture display. I made the decision after spending 45 minutes testing the new iPad. The nano-texture display is super nice to the touch, but it does reduce image crispiness. With the Apple Pencil, that texture doesn’t really reproduce a paper-like feeling. That, I could add that later with Paperlike for iPad when it becomes available. Plus, I saved a lot of money. There is a limit to what I can and wish to spend on Apple hardware. 🤷🏻‍♂️ More details, like a mini-review, soon.

Mind Blown Again

Mon, 13 May 2024 20:35:03 -0400

I really liked the OpenAI short keynote, especially the few jabs at Google. What OpenAI is doing is simply mind-blowing. I’m still trying to wrap my head around all this. What isn’t clear, though, is as a paying member of ChatGPT, why would I continue to subscribe if I don’t use the live translation? One last thing: Siri looks like a prehistoric bot. Apple has to do something about this, and fast.

About the Super Greedy Broadcom Company

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 17:28:49 -0400

VMware is no longer synonym of IT innovations. Now, it has because the new Microsoft of the nineties: it is about licensing costs and tricks. Let me elaborate a little bit more.

The EU is going after Apple and Google and Meta these days with fierce energy and determination. It’s all good¹. But what is currently happening right now in IT world with the Broadcom merger with VMware is absolutely criminal². Broadcom is doing some massive cleanup in the VMware house and the the list of SKU who was completely replaced with new bundles and licensing mode. For many big organisations (governmental for example), subscriptions price are simply going sky high. Many government agencies are now facing something like 3 to 10 times what they used to pay for about the same features set. It is criminal and if anything, this is something that should be looked into with more scrutiny. It is one thing that a bank is paying much more for something, but when it comes to government services, it is tax payers money. That’s quite different. We have to call it out publicly.

I wish we would talk about this more in the general press, not only in the tech field.

It depends to whom you talk to. ↩︎
Broadcom is well-known for their past merger with Symantec and Computer Associates. It was ugly. Apparently, it was a nothing to what we are seeing with VMware acquisition. ↩︎

On AI Pin, Rabbit R1 and Apple Vision Pro.

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 07:36:45 -0400

From what I’m reading and seeing, the AI Pin and Rabbit R1 are terrible devices for potentially great AI use cases, while the Apple Vision Pro is a technology marvel device with weak use cases. The former are probably DOA because they risk lacking funding to keep the show going, while Apple’s massive resources might save the Apple Vision Pro from a complete failure.

Security Is Hard for Everyone

Sun, 28 Apr 2024 08:27:03 -0400

This morning, my wife picked up her iPhone and tried to unlock it¹. She couldn’t after a few try². She tried a few times with a slight variation, but the iPhone refused to unlock itself, now showing a 15-minute delay on the lock screen. Her passcode is a complex one as per corporate security rules. She knows it by heart, she told me. She doesn’t know what to do, and she is in deep doubt now. Eventually, she asked me for help, but I told her I cannot do much about it³.

At first, I thought it was the infamous Apple ID being locked out, but it’s not the case. As a reminder: the passcode used to unlock your iPhone has little to do with your Apple ID. But, when using 2FA, the iPhone is required to get access to the Apple ID and must be unlocked for this to work. Maybe this is why people think they are both linked together. It’s not the case.

As I finish writing this up, my wife tried again to unlock her iPhone and it worked. All is good now. But it’s a reminder that, for most people, security is hard. It’s hard to experience. It’s hard to explain. It’s hard to get over it.

Face ID requires using the passcode to unlock the device after a period of time. ↩︎
She couldn’t tell me how many times she tried. ↩︎
Eventually, without the passcode, an iPhone needs to be fully erased to be able to use it again. It’s a security measure. It’s by design, in case you didn’t know. ↩︎

Overrated x 1000

Fri, 26 Apr 2024 10:17:36 -0400

Microsoft 365 or Office 365, if you prefer, is so overrated. Microsoft is the master of selling licenses but when it comes down to doing real serious collaborative work with Teams and the rest of the software suite it falls apart really quickly. For example: trying to collaborated on a Word document, creating comments and assigning a task toi someone… nobody knows really where the task is actually saved! And no one seems to get a notification… or nobody cares to look at the activity tab in Teams because it is so overwhelming! Oh and don’t get me started with Microsoft Loop, a pale copycat of Notion. And should we talk about Visio? I prefer not.

I’m so fed up of working in an IT field where everyone is short sighted with Microsoft. I mean, there are so much more powerful collaborative apps out there.

/rantoff

Ghost and ActivityPub Support - We All Win

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 21:17:26 -0400

I’m a bit late to the game but I just read the announcement by Ghost about their ActivityPub support that is coming to their platform. I find this development super exciting; one of my site is on Ghost. Having people subscribe to my content via their favorite Mastodon client is super cool. But what is cooler is that people will be able to reply to my articles right from here on Micro.blog and get their reply published right under my articles, just like on Micro.blog. I think this is a good way to offer a reduced friction experience compared to having to log in to post a reply, which is the standard way to interact with a Ghost blog post. Can’t wait to see this coming this year.

On Comfort Zones

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 07:06:34 -0400

Today, I’ll bring my camera to the office¹, as I’m declaring myself as the official photographer for the two-day yearly sales kickoff event. I’ll take photos of humans, which is not my cup of tea, but I need to try it more and get out of my comfort zone. Usually my problem while photographing humans is anticipation and timing. Some people are very good at it, but I’m not. So, I need to practice. Comfort zones are killing creativity and learning.

My iPhone will stay in my pocket, I’ll use my Nikon Zf with the 40mm F2 lens. ↩︎

Design Is Hard

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 10:31:41 -0400

I’ve been discussing a lot about design in general with my wife recently regarding our home improvement project. Design is hard. The process of redesigning a 3D space (a room, a bathroom) is not trivial but I think we should always try to start from a minimalistic concept from which we can build on step by step later. Also, not everyone has the same ability to visualize something in 3D without first seeing it for real, even with 3D computer assisted design. It will be a long journey.

Now ☀️9 °C - 🌡️2 °C - 🌧️29%

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 07:02:35 -0400

Today, I wanted to try something different and write this post on Micro.blog instead of Scribbles. Since the Micro.blog editor is so far behind Scribbles’, I’m using Ulysses for this experiment. Sadly, people won’t be able to reply using a contact form because my blog on Micro.blog doesn’t offer one. In any case, say hello@numericcitizen.me!
Today is a special day—video recording day! I’m excited to share more about my creator dashboard, a project I’ve been passionately building in Craft.
I’ve been editing photos with Photomator recently and discovered that for some photos, Photomator would create a sidecar file which is more than 100 MB in size, while for other photos, the sidecar file is only around a hundred kilobytes, under similar editing workflows.
I find Grammarly to be overly iterative when suggesting corrections. After applying a suggestion, it will iterate and suggest something else that it could have figured out in the first place. They are transitioning to AI, and I think it will help. Oh, and Grammarly considers markdown formatting marks to be corrected.
Yesterday, after watching this video, I wondered if I should switch to FinalCut Pro for my video production. There are things that I find super cool and useful in FCP that I don’t have in Screenflow like Gling.ai.
It took me 22 minutes to write this post.
Maybe I could alternate between Scribbles and Micro.blog for this /Now post. What do you think? Don’t miss previous /Now posts on Scribbles.
This is a photo that I processed yesterday night. A better version will soon be available on my Glass page, though.

In Search of a New and Optimized Photo Processing Workflow

Sat, 13 Apr 2024 15:08:04 -0400

Now that I’m no longer in Adobe’s ecosystem for my photo processing needs, I depend on Photomator and Synology Photos. I need to create an optimized workflow: upload photos to Synology¹, browse and tag the pictures I want to process using Synology Photos tags, then edit them in Photomator. This is the last is a challenge: RAW images need to be converted to a DNG format², and then edited in Photomator before exporting the end results in JPEG. I need to download RAW images manually out of Synology Photos then import them in Photomator for processing. Processed images should then be imported into Apple Photos for easy access.

Done automatically over wifi from the camera to the Synology NAS. ↩︎
As of 2024-04, Nikon Zf RAW image format is not supported natively by macOS or iPadOS on which Photomator depends. This conversion process is cumbersome. ↩︎

Feeling Undecided — Thinking Out Loud

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 21:20:00 -0400

Believe it or not, I’m still undecided about what to use for my summer travel journal. My options are 1) A new dedicated blog with Micro.blog, 2) Scribbles, 3) Pixelfed, 4) None of the above. I’m also undecided about how much effort I want to put into this. Micro.blog’s image handling concerns me¹. Scribbles is in a similar position². This leaves me with Pixelfed. Yet, this question is fundamental to my decision: it is more about images or words. It’s the former. I might end up with Pixelfed. Or with a bit of everything³. Decision. Decision. Decision.

This is highly dependent on my visual theme selection. ↩︎
Posting on Scribbles is limited to a browser. Preparing posts offline is a must here. ↩︎
Isn’t the case right now, anyway? ↩︎

Logging My Intentional Actions

Sat, 30 Mar 2024 08:47:31 -0400

I log quite a lot of things I do online using Things 3 Logbook feature to use this in my weekly creative summaries. I log what I do intentionally, of course, otherwise this would be way too noisy. One example is watching this video about Siegfried Hansen, a respected street photographer¹. Reading an article in Omnivore is another intentional action that I want to log.

The process is simple: I have many pending tasks in Things 3, in a project called “To Read, Watch, Listen & Process.” I do select a task, do it, then mark it as completed. It then goes into Things 3 Logbook. It’s cool.²³

If you are interested in street photographer, it’s a great interview with lots of great photos. ↩︎
I wonder if there is a name for people who log the things they do on a daily basis. ↩︎
I’m not sure why I do log these actions. ↩︎

DOS vs Apple - Am I Getting Too Old?

Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:47:41 -0400

I’m unsure if I’m getting too old, but topics like DOJ vs Apple and everything preceding it are too complex for me to dive into. It may be a vital part of Apple’s current history, but I struggle to grasp it. I appreciate the efforts of non-professional tech pundits and Apple enthusiasts who delve deep into this and share their perspectives tirelessly. I’m not reading all the comments and takes on this, again because there as way too many. I do understand too that the course of the iPhone experience might see an inflection point in the coming years, if what is currently happening in the EU is any indication. I think it’s sad because the bases for this aren’t forming a consensus; something probably unachievable.

This all explain my indecision about who’s right, who’s wrong. I don’t trust governments’ capabilities in understanding our tech world, that’s for sure, which means I’m not optimistic about the future of this particular case. Apple is big. So is Google. Facebook. And the like. They are the fruit of the “American way”. I guess that at some point, we prefer mediocrity in the name of “open markets” and to give an “equal” chance to all who wold like to compete.

On Writing Inline Links

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 06:50:09 -0400

Each time I write a sentence with an inline link to something else, I’m hesitating. Here are two examples.

V1: When I read this article I simply couldn’t believe it.

V2: When I read Gurman: No iPad Announcement Planned for March 26, I simply couldn’t believe it.

Which version makes better sense? Which version will trigger a click to visit the link? Linking from within sentences (inline) gives great explanations on how to do the latter¹. Right now, I’m 99% of the time using the version 1 but I consider changing my writing style to go with version 2 as often as possible.

It’s a great use of inline link right there! And I think it works great. ↩︎

On Stage Manager - Again

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 19:46:12 -0400

So, I don’t miss Stage Manager on macOS and my M2 15-inch MacBook Air, apparently. I realized today that I disabled Stage Manager a while ago and forgot to reenable it. Speaking of Stage Manager, it is permanently turned off on my 2018 iPad Pro because it isn’t usable, but this is something that I’m looking forward to reenabling on the new iPad Pro and plugging my iPad into my LG UltraFine 4K display, and see, maybe, a new iPad experience since a long time¹. I can’t wait to try that.

That was a long one, I know. Some thoughts are better shared in one long stretch! ↩︎

Not Everything Should Be "Timeless"

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 11:27:47 -0400

Today, I came across a blog via someone’s else blogroll, and to my surprise, while browsing the blog’s content, I couldn’t find a single post with a publication date. So, let me be clear: I’m not feeling at ease when visiting a blog that don’t display publication date for each post. I can of understand the idea of “timeless” content, but I feel at lost with the author’s decision. I need time references in my digital life so I can better understand the content and the context. Call me old school if you want. I’m ok with this.

On Presenting

Tue, 19 Mar 2024 12:38:10 -0400

Just completed a one hour customer presentation this morning. It was the culmination of a six-week project that shoud lead to bigger opportunities. I love doing presentations and I’m really comfortable doing so in front of people, especially when it is directly related to my field of expertise.

Each time I prepare such presentations, I always think about Steve Jobs keynotes. Always. He was a model for me. And still is. There is a little bit of his way into my presentation delivery: setting the stage, telling a story, and a « one more thing » whenever possible.

On Craft for iPhone

Sat, 16 Mar 2024 11:51:51 -0400

Craft on iPhone is so much different than on the iPad. It feels like a totally different app. If I were an iPhone-only user I wouldn’t buy a Craft subscription because the iPhone version is so bad. Thankfully the iPad version is much more workable and the Mac version is probably the best Catalyst-based app out there. It wasn’t always like that btw. Was much better before version 2.7. I don’t know when that situation will change.

Never Tamper Someone's Desire for Creative Tools

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 10:12:17 -0400

My wife gave me a surprisingly mildly negative reaction this morning when I shared with her my intention of getting a Nikon Zf mirrorless camera before going to Croatia this summer. Not because it’s not the best camera for this situation, no, because I already own an iPhone 15 Pro Max and a Nikon D750. 😩 But, I could get rid of my D750 or keep it but bring the Zf with me instead. I find it a bit sad that someone can put a break on someone else’s desire for creative tools. I’ll talk to her tonight after work.

The Fascinating Game of Moving Between Hosting Platforms

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 17:02:53 -0400

I find those stories always fascinating when I read about a blogger moving from one platform to another. It is as if every hosting solution cannot have it all. There is always too much friction, or something is simply lacking, which prompts us, content creators, to drop one service and search for something else. One service can have a great visual design¹yet lacking from the analytics side. One platform can be well-designed but very hard to keep up and running². Another solution that can be dead simple to publish lacks visual design flexibility³. Can we have it all? I sense a business opportunity here.

I’m permanently questioning my current options. Right now, I’m fine with my hosting solutions, but one never knows when something no longer fits my needs.

Note: this article is a modified version of the original text published elsewhere on 2021-03-05 under my other metablog website using Craft.

I’m looking at you, Squarespace. ↩︎
I’m looking at you, Ghost. ↩︎
I’m looking at you, Micro.blog. ↩︎

AI Training: Ethics or Coverage?

Mon, 04 Mar 2024 08:00:27 -0400

Some authors on the internet are against using their content without permission to train the models behind generative AI. As a blogger, this question often comes to my mind. On one hand, I believe that training without permission poses an ethical issue. I am unsure if we have genuinely addressed this question as a society. On the other hand, I question the danger of many authors wanting to silence their voices by blocking the training process to access their online content. Now more than ever, I feel that all voices are essential in ensuring that model training reflects our diversity as much as possible. I don’t want bots and haters to win the race. We, as authors, need to offer resistance. I’m not sure how this challenge will be solved, if ever.

One Big Regret of My Digital Life

Sun, 03 Mar 2024 21:03:07 -0400

One of the things I regret the most is not having had the idea of creating a blog in the 90s (and keeping it until today). Surprisingly, I learned about HTML, web servers like Apache and Netscape when it became popular¹. I didn’t click with the idea of owning a small portion of the Internet to share what I was becoming at that time. What a missed opportunity.

It’s not exactly true. I used to have and maintain a website about a subject that I still find fascinating: meteorology, circa 1994. ↩︎

On Single-Purpose Device Attractiveness

Sat, 02 Mar 2024 10:33:56 -0400

This week during a work meeting with my office colleagues, one of them was using a “remarkable” tablet to take notes. I was sitting right next to him and could see the tablet in action. I must say I was impressed. It’s certain that a “remarkable” tablet offers very limited functionality compared to an iPad, but it raises the following question: Should Apple consider going back to creating single-purpose devices? For example, the iPhone killed the iPod, but I think if Apple re-entered the market with a new line of iPods, it would be very popular. And I think the same would be true for a note-taking tablet.

On Apple Car Project Cancellation - It Did Make Any Sense Anyway

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 18:13:06 -0400

This whole Apple Car didn’t make any sense to me. It’s not Apple. A car is not a personal device. A personal device is a phone. A computer. Or a bike. One positive byproduct of this car journey is probably the birth of CarPlay 2.0, which was probably worked within the Apple Car project. But then, what else? AI? Maybe. I’m reading that the AI portion of the project will be folded into the other AI team(s) within Apple. It’s good because Apple needs all it can get in AI to stay relevant in that field and imagine the future beyond Siri.

A Metablog That You Can Follow via RSS

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 20:24:42 -0400

💡 Today, I want to share the newest addition to my digital publishing space: my metablog, hosted on Micro.blog. This isn’t entirely new; another version is already in place, but it is hosted as a series of Craft-shared documents. What I’m sharing today is hosted on Micro.blog using the recently introduced increase in the number of blogs you can have with a single premium account¹. From this migration, my metablog will gain RSS feed support, enable POSSE, and be closer to my online community here on Micro.blog, but also on Mastodon and Bluesky.

One last thing: this is a work-in-progress, a build-in-public thing. I’m slowly transposing most of my content to this new home, one post at a time. You’ll know it because of cross-posting and the RSS feed provided that you subscribe. 👈🏻 Some posts date back to 2020, but you might be surprised by discovering a few gems.

I’m using two, and I’ll probably stop there. I promise. ↩︎

Finalizing This Week's Creative Summary — Plus: An Idea

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 08:38:01 -0400

It’s Sunday, and you know the drill: it’s time to share my latest edition of the weekly creative summary. It’s mostly complete, so this week’s edition partially follows the “build in public” movement. I wonder if I should start sharing the document at the beginning of the process so that you can see the whole creation process as I’m working on the current edition. What do you think?

I’ve been doing these summaries since last September and enjoy putting them together. It’s issue number 22. Enjoy. The email version is coming out later today.

Built with care and love on 100% recycled electrons.

Two Years Already

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 09:44:54 -0400

We let Putin’s regime invade Ukraine in 2014, and we did nothing. In 2022, Ukraine and the world, to a certain degree, paid the price of our inaction by letting Putin’s criminals do it again, but on a much larger scale. Today marks a sad anniversary and reminds us how costly our hesitation in providing what Ukraine really needs to make a dent in this conflict. I feel sorry for the Ukrainians, and I feel frustrated by our slow and timid reactions. I know that we, the West, did spend quite a lot to help, but we need to do much more than that to kick out those criminals and to make the Russian regime think again the next time they envision invading a free country.

Finally, the prospect of the Trump return as a president makes the future look even darker. The United States influence in the political and diplomatic space around the world looks to be diminishing like the snow under the sun. Trump won’t reverse this trend. Who’s taking over?

From an Idea to Blips

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 21:47:12 -0400

As I wrote earlier today, I’ve been wondering about a possible use case for Scribbles¹. It took me about 5 minutes to get my idea, and it is called Blips, Numeric Citizen Blips, to be more precise². Blips will enable me to share… short blips of my digital life. I should be fun, noisy at times. But not too much. Enjoy. Or not. 🙃

Straightforward blogging service that is absolutely a joy to use. Nothing fancy, but mighty. ↩︎
Blips sound digital; it’s a concept perfectly fitting the “Numeric Citizen” branding. ↩︎

About This Permanent State of Being Undecided With Apps

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 09:25:41 -0400

I have been a happy user of Apple Safari for the last decade. If possible, I prefer using Apple’s browser, thanks to its privacy protection and features. If something doesn’t work in Safari, I will try Firefox. I’ll do everything possible to skip Google Chrome. I use Microsoft Edge because of its integration with Microsoft 365 at work. But Safari is never too far, just in case. It’s now my fall-back plan. Why this change? Because of the Arc Browser, which is now my main browser.

I’m the type of user who always tries to find a use case for an app that I really like, even if it is superseded with a better one. I love Craft. I always use it in my creative hobbies, but I found a great use case for Notion at work. I like Apple Reminder for family-related tasks but use Things 3 for my creative hobbies. I like Apple Calendar for my personal life but prefer Fantastical for the office. I keep both. I like HEY mail but must use Outlook at the office.

This constant duality in my choices about which app to use sometimes looks like psychological trouble. 😬🤷🏻‍♂️

A Powerful Ecosystem of Tech

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 10:57:56 -0400

When I look at the Apple Vision Pro, I see a device with many software and hardware technologies that Apple took years to create, develop and refine. They did it in plain sight with the iPhone, the iPad and the Mac. Each of these devices played a significant role as a test bed for what would come next, a portion of what we can find in the Vision Pro. I can see many examples: windows management introduced on the iPad via the Stage Manager paved the way for window management on the Vision Pro, Three-dimensional and object placement in an augmented reality view in the Apple Store app when placing a virtual Mac on a physical desk, LiDAR Scanner with FaceID paved the way to Personas, continuity on all Apple OSes, and so much more set the playground for a robust ecosystem that takes all its meaning in the Vision Pro. And there are probably hundreds of more technologies that I cannot see. I guess the Apple Vision Pro was in development for a decade at Apple, and with each new feature Apple put into their devices, the headset benefitted from it.

The Next One Is My Best

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 13:02:16 -0400

I just completed recording my next YouTube video (my YouTube channel), which will come out early next week. It’s probably the one I’m the most proud of at many levels. The release will match the release of a new version of an app that I like a lot 🤫. Technically, the sound is good. I’me using Bezels to demo the app on the iPad and the iPhone, a first for me. The video structure seems logical and should help the viewers in learning new things. Can’t wait to share that one. I hope it will get the attention I’m hoping for. 🤞🏻

I'm Sorry but Apple Vision Pro Is Another VR Headset, or Is It?

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 12:58:47 -0400

Of all people who reviewed or are now active users of the Apple Vision Pro, some are mentioning, rightfully, that this is not about AR¹ but 95% about VR². Apple doesn’t want to admit it, but this is a VR headset. Why is that? Is is because it is “easier”³ to recreate something from the ground up (the virtual world enabled by visionOS) than taking the reality and adding meaningful and useful stuff to it? I see much more limited use case for augmented reality than for virtual reality. It might change in the future, now that people are now exposed to it through other people using the headset sharing their experience.

Augmented Reality. ↩︎
Virtual Reality. ↩︎
It’s not an easy feat to do what visionOS is doing. ↩︎

Imagining Micro.blog’s Next Big Offering — I Think I Cracked It!

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 12:58:11 -0400

I’m wondering about this upcoming Micro.blog “big new feature” quite often. What new feature could require its own section on the left sidebar? What could mandate the release of companion apps on iOS and Android? Let’s try to think about it for a minute.

So, MB already covers text (as blog posts), more generic content (as pages), photos, books, newsletters, and podcasts. What’s missing here? Videos? Movies? Something else? Could Podcast be more explicitly exposed where the Transcript section becomes Podcast? Is MB building its own podcasting player app? Or a podcast recorder? Can AI play a role in this new feature?

But what else is missing from Micro.blog? Instant messaging? I own a Wavelength group of Micro.blog users. The group is currently hosting 50 users. Here’s the invite link. Near real-time interactions are something I wish Micro.blog had for supporting discussions about specific events¹. Frankly, instant messaging is probably the closest thing I can think of that would require a dedicated section and a dedicated set of apps on mobile devices.

Your thoughts? Please join in! 🙏🏻

Like Apple Events, sports events, etc. ↩︎

Technologies At Play in a "Compact" Device

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 13:51:03 -0400

I have this thought right now as I’m watching the first reviews of the Apple Vision Pro: it is utterly fascinating to see all the basic technological elements (both hardware and software¹) that are at play here and put together in this headset. Besides a product still looking for its use cases, I find this product to be the most ambitious one to be launched by Apple to date. Bravo for trying. And I’m pretty sure it’s only the beginning. You bet Apple is going to iterate on this for quite some time. I feel excited for this thing.

Handoff, Continuity, Digital Crown, 3D modelling, etc. ↩︎

A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a One-Page Site on Micro.blog

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 08:33:45 -0400

Choose your subdomain name¹. 2) Create a CNAME pointing to it². 3) Switch to your full custom domain. 4) Write content³. 5) Install a few plugins⁴. 6) Create pages in the navigation structure to organize content⁵. 7) Create page footer⁶. Voilà. 🔥

abc.micro.blog (must be unique to Micro.blog). ↩︎
Done on your Domain name provider, not on Micro.blog. Must point to abc.micro.blog. ↩︎
Markdown supported. Insert images using Uploads and “Copy HTML” option, then paste into page. ↩︎
Visual theme plugin (optional, if you don’t like the default theme), Analytics (Plausible, Tinylytics, etc.). ↩︎
Optional but is a great addition. ↩︎
Optional. Use footer editor to insert your content. ↩︎

Apple, Generative AI and the iPhone Revenues

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 22:04:12 -0400

Numerous applications and services now incorporate AI features. For instance, consider Notion Q&A or Raycast AI. Companies view this as an opportunity to boost revenue by offering these additional features for a fee. However, I recently pondered the possibility that if Apple integrates generative AI into Siri, as rumored for iOS 18, they may not charge for it. This could give Apple a significant advantage, as the revenue from iPhone sales could cover the associated costs. This could become an enormous advantage for Apple.

Avoiding Vendors Lock-in

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 12:14:05 -0400

The notion of “avoiding vendors lock-in” in information technology is interesting. I would argue that it’s impossible to completely be without some sort of vendor lock-in¹. At some point, there is always a required commitment level. You commit to open-source software. You commit to a cloud vendor. You commit to a platform. I often give the example of a company building an application internally with a team of developers. In that scenario, the company is committing to something: the application, the data tied to it and its operational model. Applications are hard to replace in many environments. When you decide to invest in software development, you commit to the end product for many years, if not decades, until the organization decides it’s time to transform the application into something else². There is this concept of “security by design” and of “portable by design,” which should apply to any technical or application architecture. The rest is marketing nonsense.

I do understand data portability concepts and loose coupling principles, though. ↩︎
When it’s time to adopt new architecture paradigms like the cloud is imposing. ↩︎

Micro.Blog — How Can I Help?

Sun, 14 Jan 2024 15:10:02 -0400

A serene yet dynamic sky filled with a blend of fluffy cumulus and towering cumulonimbus clouds, illuminated by a soft, diffused sunlight.

Following the publication of “What If” by Maique, an avid blogger on Micro.blog, his post prompted me to write my own. But before, here’s a summary of his post (thanks ChatGPT):

Micro.blog has been hosting maique.eu for years, but there have been some technical issues. Despite some annoyances, the community and features make it worth the cost. However, there are also cons such as lack of proper notifications and support. Moving away would be a hassle.

I do share most of his views on the current state of Micro.blog because I did experience some issues with the service myself. I won’t repeat it here. That being said, I love Micro.blog, and I certainly want it to thrive. I’m a believer. I’m a supporter of the ideas behind the service. I subscribe to the premium tier. I love it so much that I created a series of videos about Micro.blog so that others can take full advantage of its features set. But I want to do more. In fact, I can do more. How can I help? Where do I enlist?

As an IT guy for more than 30 years, I know how hard it can be to run such a service. I don’t know the technologies behind it, but Micro.blog seems to need constant nurturing. Sadly, I cannot help here. I’m not a full-stack developer in any way.

But there this help.micro.blog support site. I did tech support in the past. I do pay a visit from time to time to gather the mood and the subjects that people care enough to submit posts. Maybe I could help there? I don’t know. Could I do a first screening of the posts and direct level-2 requests to Manton for further investigation? He would be freed somewhat from glancing at all the incoming requests and focus on the hardest ones. I don’t know. Oh, and this feature requests topic contains more than a hundred of them. I could create a real Micro.blog feature requests board, like this one I built from scratch for Craft?

Then, there is this Discover section: I do pay a visit from time to time. I’m not sure how it is being maintained or how often. Can I help there? I don’t know.

What else? I could do podcasting, too! Maybe I could help Jean to revive the highly respected Micro Monday podcast! I have my own podcast; I’m not too bad because I have eight listeners, according to Podcasts Connect!

As you can probably see, I have many ideas. I’m creative. I do have some time to spare for my passions. Micro.blog is one of them. But, as much as I want to help, it means nothing if the doors are closed. I’m not saying that I received a “no thank you” from Manton or Jean. I didn’t ask, actually. Now, I’m officially asking: how can I help?

GuruShots Is Still a Thing, Apparently

Sun, 14 Jan 2024 14:03:23 -0400

I just visited the photography challenge site GuruShots, where I used to play quite a lot a few years ago. I even wrote a few articles about this game ("GuruShots Tips, Tricks and Cheat Sheet","Tips & Tricks 2021 Edition, Part 1", “Tips & Tricks 2021 Edition, Part 2” and “How to Become a Guru at GuruShots”). I had a friend who was playing with me. He still does. Apparently, he is so advanced that there is only one explanation: he has a serious addiction. Personally, I stopped playing because it was too time-consuming. I wish I could update my articles because the game evolved quite a bit with new features. But, no, I don’t have that time at my disposal.

Is Buying a Car Easier Than Buying an Apple Vision Pro?

Sun, 14 Jan 2024 10:43:02 -0400

If Mark Gurman is correct, the rumored sale process for the Apple Vision Pro is rather complex and lengthy. Watching a 20-minute video to learn about a product indicates many things: Apple is nervous, and the product has a novel approach requiring potential customers’ education or training so that they fully “get the experience” before deciding to put the money on the table. Also, I guess someone willing to pay the high price merits some special attention, too.

I’ll have to update my calculations on how many demos can be run in the first 10 days.

How Many Apple Vision Pro Scheduled Demos Can Apple Provide in the First 10 Days?

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 18:15:46 -0400

As reported by MacRumors, Apple will have 80K Apple Vision Pro available on day one. Now, how many scheduled demos can Apple provide to customers in the first ten days of the availability of the Apple Vision Pro? Let’s try to find out. 243 Apple Store will have the headset. Let’s say there are 6 six guys in the store dedicated to supervising scheduled demonstrations. Could be more, could be less and might vary from store to store. Let’s say each demo takes 15 minutes, which allows for 4 demos per hour per supervisor. Let’s set at 8 hours per day of demonstration availability per store. Could be more. Could be less. This translates to 192 Apple Vision Pro demo slots available per store. If we think about the first 10 days of availability, Apple could potentially deliver more than 466K demos.

Is Apple TV Really Improving With tvOS 17?

Mon, 08 Jan 2024 08:18:15 -0400

I’ve extensively used Apple TV (the physical device), Apple TV+ and the Apple TV app during the holidays to play music, videos, movies and series. One thing is clear: tvOS 17 is a regression in terms of usability, for me anyway. I especially don’t like the new left sidebar in the TV app. Navigating back to the home screen is cumbersome, requiring too many “<” back clicks. I often wonder if I’m in the Apple TV app or the Apple TV+ service. Up Next queue is intertwined with the rest of the content, it feels less obvious, to me. Content promotion (while starting a new episode, ending a series, etc.) is annoying. Apple feels like Amazon. Apple isn’t quite there after so many years of iterative updates.

Hey Calendar First Impressions

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 09:41:27 -0400

HEY Calendar is being rolled out to a limited set of users. It will be free, and a separate app will be released for the Calendar in the near future. It’s not as controversial a take as the email counterpart. Day view and week view only, by design¹. I’m not sure if this is a deal-breaker for many.

Time tracking seems limited and cannot replace Toggl / Timery in my workflow. Data can be exported as a CSV file. I wonder if it can be really useful in its current form. The jury is still out on that one.

Interesting habit tracking support: simple enough to be useful. Limited icon selection, though. No iOS app just yet, only web and desktop. No Microsoft Office 365 support yet. iCloud calendars can be integrated, but they must be made public to get an iCal URL that HEY Calender subscribes to. Same for Google calendars. Some tasks are managed as things to do eventually in the week, appear at the bottom, and move to the next week if not completed.

My initial impressions of HEY Calendar are neutral. That’s it for now.

This could be controversial. ↩︎

Is GenAI a Product or a Feature?

Tue, 26 Dec 2023 21:58:44 -0400

Just like Steve Jobs once said that Dropbox is not a product but a feature, I wonder if the way we consume GenAI today makes it look like a product, but it’s actually a feature. Don’t get me wrong, GenAI is utterly important and a game changer, but I feel that in the future, there will be something bigger that will encompass GenAI that will actually be THE product.

About blog.numericcitizen.me visitors for 2023

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 10:24:36 -0400

Visitors to blog.numericcitizen.me increased significantly compared to the previous year. Leaving Twitter at the end of 2022 probably explains why. Embracing the POSSE model and my adoption of Mastodon and Bluesky also explains why more people visited my blog. It’s been a great year on Micro.blog, and I’m really looking forward to 2024!

About numericcitizen.me visitors for 2023

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 10:17:05 -0400

My main blog stats show a slight increase in visitors, especially in the last three months of 2023¹. The switch from WordPress.com to Ghost.org positively influenced the trend. The next post will be about the “blog.numericcitizen.me” site where the story is quite different.

It’s related to the launch of my weekly creative summary. ↩︎

Episode 06 — Wrapping Up 2023

Sat, 16 Dec 2023 11:43:35 -0400

It’s time to wrap up 2023! In this last podcast episode for the year😌, I reflect on twelve months of creative work. It was a busy year😅👨🏻‍💻, and I’m grateful for all of it.🙏🏻

Links to some of the things I’m referring to:

Transcript

Strike One

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 09:26:05 -0400

After publishing more than 70 YouTube videos on my channel, today I got my first content violation warning for sharing a review about Play 2.0, a video manager for YouTube that facilitates downloading YouTube content for free. Oopsy.🫥 I did the highly recommended training by Google.

If you are a serious YouTube video consumer, consider using Play 2.0. That is all.🤫¹

I wonder if I could make my video available elsewhere…🤔 ↩︎

HEY, what about Improving Newsletters Reading Experience?

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 12:18:51 -0400

As a paying subscriber to HEY mail, I find it strange that the newsletter consumption feature has never been updated since its initial release¹. A product is rarely perfect on its first try. For example: newsletters are presented in a semi-expanded form, but I wish I could display them as “newsletter titles only”. Also, there is no integration whatsoever with third-party read-later service to easily send a newsletter to Omnivore, for example². Once expanded, it’s not obvious our to return to the list of newsletters sitting in the bin to read the next one.

The Feed is the feature I’m referring to here. ↩︎
I know that we can forward the newsletter to a custom email @ omnivore, but It’s not exactly what I would refer to as “an integration with a third-party service”. ↩︎

My First Genuine Ah Ah Moment With Generative AI

Sat, 02 Dec 2023 10:04:00 -0400

Here is a quick recount of my “Ah ah moment” this morning, involving generative AI in a simple workflow. I’m still in awe about it.

If I stumble on a long and chatty YouTube video that might be interesting, I’ll use this workflow to quickly get the gist out of it. First, I use Downie (a Mac utility) to download it on my M2 MacBook Air. Then, I use the Whisper Transcription Mac app to transcribe the spoken discussion into text that I export in a PDF¹. Next, I open ChatGPT, upload the PDF file and let ChatGPT ingest the content. Finally, I prompt ChatGPT with things like: what is the subject of this discussion? Are there any apps mentioned in the discussion? Who is talking? Is this a controversial subject? Generate a title for this discussion. Generate a summary in less than 300 words. Etc. It’s very effective. You can use the GPT I created for this². Oh, and I guess you can use the same workflow for a podcast episode!

This workflow was also documented in “My Micro-Workflows Explained” mini website.

Because I like the formatting used instead of plain text. ↩︎
ChatGPT paid subscription required. ↩︎

The Danger of POSSE

Sat, 18 Nov 2023 08:23:04 -0400

A recently published article on The Verge discusses POSSE and the Fediverse: “Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.” This content strategy emphasizes the importance of owning the content you create by publishing it on your own platform, like a personal blog or website, and then syndicating or sharing that content on other platforms, such as social media or content aggregators.

The main idea behind POSSE is to ensure that creators maintain control over their content. By publishing first on their own platform, creators can establish a primary source for their work that remains under their control. They can then share or syndicate this content to other platforms to reach a wider audience, drive traffic back to their own site, and engage with communities on those platforms.

This strategy is particularly relevant in the digital age, where content creators often face the dilemma of reaching large audiences on popular platforms (like social media networks) while also wanting to maintain ownership and control over their work. POSSE offers a balanced approach, allowing creators to leverage larger platforms’ reach without sacrificing their own site’s autonomy.

I’m practicing POSSE myself; all my online setup is built around it. I depend on two publishing poles: Micro.blog and Ghost¹. Some find this setup time-consuming and don’t want to be held responsible for replying or engaging on each branch (Mastodon, Bluesky, etc.). My take on this is yes, it might be time-consuming, but I like to engage on each platform because each brings a different type of community. I find it a bit frustrating to reply to someone who systematically shares content from his blog with Mastodon without any reply or acknowledgment. I understand that some posters are very popular and can’t reply to everyone. You can see if someone is replying from time to time. It’s a good idea to check before judging. The danger here is to act like bots if there is no engagement at all.

Micro.blog is responsible for the cross-posting magic. ↩︎

Apple’s Siri, AI and Next’s Year’s OS Releases

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 19:20:41 -0400

I don’t know if Apple is working on LLM stuff; they probably do, they probably do work on improving Siri, too, if such a thing is possible in the current incarnation of its fundamentals. But, judging by the rapidity of other companies introducing AI features mainly based on LLM models, I don’t expect it would be so hard for Apple to do the same with Siri. But only if Apple accepts to work with CharGPT-back end for a short-term solution. This could be a transitory path in my mind. Because Apple being Apple, they probably would want to put their twist on this: better privacy protection, for example. They like to control the whole stack. That’s perhaps why they are, apparently, investing massively in their one training infrastructure, which would be they accept the fact that on-device training is too limited, even with powerful Apple silicon. It could prove to be a long journey. I don’t expect too much for next year’s OSes. It will be interesting to see where Apple is headed with this AI thing next year.

Meanwhile, when I’m asking Siri queries today, I cannot help but feel the tech is antiquated compared to what we can do with Whisper and the like today.

Image: Dall-E.

What Happened to the Shortcuts Editor?

Sat, 11 Nov 2023 09:43:02 -0400

I’ve been working with Apple Shortcuts editor recently¹, on my iPhone and on my iPad, and boy, what a shocking experience! This editor is nearly unworkable, thanks to scrolling sluggishness, object ordering bugs, object variables becoming empty, constant freezes, keyboard masking input fields, changes not being saved and plain and simple editor crashes. 😤 What is happening with this, Apple?² I can’t believe Viticci is able to endure this for all his work around shortcuts.

I’m working on something new, involving Plausible APIs, Charty for iPhone, and Apple Shortcuts. Stay tuned for that one. ↩︎
I don’t expect a response from Apple, of course. ↩︎

These Are My Entry Points to AI Usage

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 07:40:34 -0400

I’m working on something related to using AI in my creative work. I came up with this. AI is used through these front-end clients within my creative workflows:

- ChatGPT website
- Raycast AI Chat
- MidJourney
- Whisper
- Micro.blog podcast episode transcription
- Audio Hijack Transcription block
- Kagi Summarize Results, Summary Document, Ask Questions
- Craft Assistant
- Grammarly

And I expect this list to grow in the coming months.

NSUserDefaults defaults = [NSUserDefaults NumericCitizenDefaults];

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 07:36:28 -0400

Following the episode (#097) of Hemispheric Views, it’s my turn, I guess, with a little twist for the post title. 😜

✉️ Mail Client: HEY mail
📨 Mail Server: HEY mail + iCloud Custom Email Domain
📝 Notes: Craft + Apple Notes
✅ To-Do: Things 3
📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app + Halide.app (for travel)
📚 Photo Management: Photos.app + Adobe Cloud
🗓️ Calendar: Calendar.app (Personal Life) + Fantastical.app (Work Life)
🗄️ Cloud file storage: iCloud
📰 RSS: Reeder connected to Inoreader
📇 Contacts: Contacts
🕸️ Browser: Safari (more and more using Kagi for searching)
💬 Chat: iMessage (WhatsApp when abroad)
🔖 Bookmarks: AnyBox
👓 Read It Later: Omnivore
📜 Word Processing: Ulysses
📊 Spreadsheets: Numbers
🛝 Presentations: Keynote
🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders
🧑‍🍳 Meal Planning: None
💰 Budgeting & Personal Finance: Numbers
🗞️ News: La Presse (Apple News for English news)
🎶 Music: Apple Music
🎧 Podcasts: PocketCast
🔐 Password Management: iCloud Keychain (also 1Password, I should merge with default)

Another Case of Abandonware

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 08:43:27 -0400

I recently wrote about software is never really finished¹. Here’s an example: Keysmith. I bought this utility in February 2021. I forgot to re-install it on my M2 MacBook Air. I just did. But under macOS Sonoma, it has some glitches which make it useless. The app hasn’t been updated for quite a while, same with the app website. Now what?²

The title should have been “Software Should Never Be Finished”. ↩︎
Alternatives are Keyboard Maestro & Alfred. ↩︎

In Search of Augmented Capabilities Using AI

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 07:15:52 -0400

I want to augment my creative capabilities¹. I’m considering the best way to pay for Augmented Intelligence (AI) services². I’m currently subscribing to MidJourney for imagery. ChatGPT with GPT-4 is not cheap at 20 $US a month, but I get Dall.E 3. Raycast enables GPT-4 for 8 $US on top of my 8 $US, totalling 16 $US monthly, but I don’t get Dall.E 3. I prefer MidJourney over Dall.E 3 as it seems to allow more diversity in requests. And there is the ChatGPT client to consider. Raycast is one of them. MacGPT is another one. Even Grammarly and Craft are ChatGPT clients³. I need to continue my analysis. Ideas? Suggestions?

Go faster, go further, explore better creative ways. ↩︎
Yes, I’m okay with taking advantage of modern tools like AI, just like I was okay with using a spell checker in Microsoft Word 1.0. ↩︎
But you cannot configure Grammarly to use the GPT-4 model. ↩︎

Shot on iPhone. Edited on Mac.

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 21:32:46 -0400

This short behind-the-scenes look at Apple’s “Scary Fast” event is the highlight of a marketing masterpiece.

First, Apple, a highly-respected company for producing top-quality new product announcements, released new iPhones capable of high-quality filming in September. Next, in October, the company made another top-notch production and announced the first M3-based Macs. Not to be missed, and that is the key here, they slip the following at the very last moment of the presentation:

This event was shot on iPhone and edited on Mac.

What better way to make a point? Brilliant. Well done, Apple.

I love my iPhone 15 Pro Max. I feel that the creative world is at my fingertips. I feel empowered.

Looking for a Useful and Secure Search Engine

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 06:38:56 -0400

I’m fed up of Google’s search capabilities and business model. Search results quality has gone downhill in recent years. I don’t like the visual design of Google’s online products in general, especially Google Search results formatting. What search engine are you using? Are you willing to pay for using one, if yes, which one? 🤔

Hello, Again, Mac?

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 07:00:59 -0400

Surprised by this late-October Apple event (“Scary Fast”). Could this be about Mac gaming? Is this for the Apple Silicon M3? The timing is weird, in my opinion. What about the iMac with M2 and a new iMac Pro with M3? The latter wouldn’t make too much sense as Pros prefer more flexibility than an all-in-one Mac. But using the Mac happy face really points to a Mac-only event. And boy, do I like this animation that I’m including here for my own pleasure¹.

I always found that Apple is not using the Mac happy face enough in their marketing. They could have tied this face to Siri too. ↩︎

Glass Opens Up a Little Bit More

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 06:51:37 -0400

Glass feels right at home in Capture One. Long adored as one of the best platforms for editing and managing a photography workflow, we’re thrilled to include publishing to Glass in Capture One. The final step in the creative process is sharing the work you’ve made — making that as easy and frictionless as possible is what we’re both all about. Source: Capture One x Glass — Glass

I like where Glass is going. The choice of Capture One as the first to take advantage of Glass’s APIs is telling and sending a message. How long before Publish to Glass support is added to Adobe Lightroom? Months? Years? Ever? How long before we get Fediverse support?

Some Must-Needed Changes to My (Too Many) About Pages

Sat, 21 Oct 2023 11:19:39 -0400

Today, I’m removing my digital garden content. The most valuable parts were moved to my About Page, and the rest has been dropped. Both of these pages are created and maintained in Craft. I like the idea of Digital Gardens, but it’s not practical for me to maintain on top of this blog and my other websites. Again, it’s time to focus.

Next up, should I get rid of my Linktr.ee page?¹,² 🤔 And, why does my Micro.blog about page is empty? 🤨

I know what you think. I have probably way too many websites. And I would respond: yeah, you are right. ↩︎
Linktr.ee offers great design tools and useful analytics. I’m not ready to drop those. ↩︎

404 - Page Not Found

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 07:37:27 -0400

I have an issue with Short.io. I want to contact their support to find a solution to something that partially works, but no contact information is available in the /Support section. The /Blog section shows a small “Contact Us” button leading to a page not found error. There is no mail address either. They ask for $ 250 / year for a “Personal” subscription plan. How can I trust them if I cannot contact them for support?¹🤔

The problem: not all links are leading to the destination page under the go.numericcitizen.me domain name. Why? This used to work for all links, but it’s no longer true. Why? Exhibit one: this link works. This one won’t.

Instead of 404 - Page Not Found, this should be 404 - Support Not Available 😔

Update: I got my answer after chatting with tech support through their chatbox on their website, which wasn’t initially showing because of content blocking in Safari. 🤦🏻‍♂️ All is fine now.

Their Twitter account is a ghost town; the last tweet was posted in 2021. ↩︎

A Definitive Solution to a Simple Problem

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 17:33:58 -0400

I finally found the right setup to definitively fix my audio record quality. The problem triggering this endless trial-and-error journey is that the Blue Yeti microphone can be too sensitive and pick up too much background noise¹. On paper, the macOS Voice Isolation recording should fix this. However, ScreenFlow 10.0.9 has issues with audio recording from a USB microphone while Voice Isolation is active².

The solution? Use Audio Highjack³ to record from the USB microphone with Voice Isolation active and output to the ScreenFlow audio capture driver. When recording, I start the Audio Hijack session, then switch to ScreenFlow and hit record. Voilà. I do use Adobe Podcast Audio Enhancer too. The results are quite good! You can hear it in my latest podcast episode. A screenshot of my Audio Hijack workflow is included so you can look at it⁴.

People in the house don’t always pay attention when I’m recording my stuff. We could hear them quite easily. ↩︎
The sound is highly distorted. It’s a known issue, apparently. ↩︎
Audio Hijack is a superb piece of software if you ask me. ↩︎
More tiles are included so I can make sure there are no lingering background noises after Voice Isolation makes its magic. ↩︎

Episode 05 — Sometimes It’s Better to Say No

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 16:55:55 -0400

The timing was right, and the target was well-defined, but the potential traction was far from guaranteed. Would this project be worth all the effort? Someone said: for every yes, there are a thousand no. After many weeks of thought and pondering, I decided against doing a unique project.

Link: The Apple Rumors Hub

Transcript

My (Really) Short Experience With a RODE NT-USB Microphone

Mon, 02 Oct 2023 19:46:36 -0400

Objective: find a replacement for my lightning-based Finch Lavalier microphone¹. Did my research for a USB-C microphone. RODE microphones came up quite often. They received good reviews. I ordered the NT-USB model. It was hard to see which type of USB port it came with—I got the microphone². It comes with USB-A. Shit. It was tested on my Mac mini. Background noises are too easily picked up. Screenflow cannot use voice isolation³. It was tested on my iPhone 15 Pro Max with a USB-A to USB-C adaptor and Ferrite. Voice isolation isn’t possible, either. Not good. I tried to use the RODE companion app for Mac so I could adjust the microphone operating parameters. I downloaded and installed it but didn’t recognize the microphone when plugged in. Not good. It’s an expansive microphone, barely better than my Blue Yeti. Not good. After testing Screenflow, my iPhone connected via USB-C to my Mac, and with voice isolation activated once again⁴, I decided to return the product. It’s way better, close to what I had with my Finch microphone. Problem solved.

No longer works with my iPhone 15 Pro Max USB-C port. ↩︎
I couldn’t confirm it from the spec sheet on Amazon nor could I on the RODE website. ↩︎
I opened a support case with Telestream. It’s a known issue, still being investigated. ↩︎
This configuration works, but not with a USB-C microphone only. It seems the iPhone with voice isolation one is the only configuration that works with Screenflow. Really strange. ↩︎

Announcing "My Reading Workflow Explained"

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 07:46:30 -0400

I’m finally publishing the details surrounding my reading workflow. It’s been long in the making. More than a year. The reason? Because this workflow was full of moving parts. One example: is the read-later service. First, it was Pocket, then came Matter, Readwise, to finally settle on Omnivore. All the details are here on the Numeric Citizen I/O metablog. Feel free to comment or ask questions! 😊

Peak Design Case Issue With iPhone 15 Pro Action Button

Sat, 30 Sep 2023 10:22:34 -0400

For those looking to buy a Peak Design case for the iPhone 15 Pro Max, just like I did. I love the case but… here’s the kicker; the action button is really hard to press with this case, the cutout should have a button instead which would press the action button, just like for the other buttons integrated into the case. They plan to fix this. Check out this video to learn more.

Update: The way the company is handling this issue is a prime example of how customer satisfaction should be handled. Bravo.

What a Strange iCloud Drive Bug!

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:28:24 -0400

I have a folder named “Noto” in my iCloud Drive folder that keeps populating empty folders inside of it, on all my devices. Noto is a note-taking app that I tried in Feb. 2020. Today, I found out that I had more than 30K empty folders sitting there. I deleted the folders from my Mac mini, and it came back. Same with the MacBook Air. It came back. I visited all my devices to see if Noto was still installed. Nope. I reinstalled it on the iPad to see if it would populate something. Nope. I went on Files.app on the iPad to delete the root folder. Still re-appearing. On all my devices, I reinstalled Noto, to disable iCloud sync. I visited the iCloud storage section within Settings on the iPhone. The Noto folder isn’t there. But, on the iPad, it was there. I deleted the item from iCloud storage management. Yet, the folder keeps coming back. What a strange bug. Help.

Update: the issue went away after rebooting my M2 MacBook Air to fix an issue with Screenflow screen recording permission request. I went back to the iCloud Drive folder and sure enough, the Noto folder didn’t come back. I guess the issue is resolved.

Already at Four Web Apps in My Dock, and You?

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 21:21:49 -0400

So far, I have created four web apps on my Dock in Sonoma: Micro.blog¹, Pixelfed², Tinylytics, and Omnivore. I like this a lot³. For Omnivore, the web app provides a better experience than the “native” app, which is probably not really native⁴. What other apps could I set in my Dock now?🤔

For Micro.blog, it doesn’t make too much sense as there is a native Mac app already. ↩︎
It’s better than having a Safari tab for that. It’s fast and feels native. ↩︎
I know, it’s already possible on Windows. ↩︎
It feels like an iPad app on the Mac. ↩︎

My Interview with Manton Reece of Micro.blog

Sun, 24 Sep 2023 07:00:05 -0400

I had the chance to spend some time with Manton Reece and ask him a few questions about Montreal’s poutine, Apple’s power and the App Store, Twitter¹ and the future of Micro.blog. I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did doing it.😊

I refuse to name this otherwise. ↩︎

iPhone 15 Pro Max - First Impressions

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 22:07:36 -0400

It feels great in hand, similar in fact to the weight of my iPhone 13 Pro (not the Max), which is great. The back is darker than my iPhone 11 Pro, and I love it. I’m quite happy with the darker black. It’s a bit darker than I thought. It’s definitively a finger magnet. It’s very soft to the touch. Rounded contours are really making a difference. The device feels more approachable. The screen is so nice. The setup process is superbly executed. An update to iOS was required before transferring the content from my iPhone 13 Pro. Yet, there were many apps which required reentering my credentials. Data transfer was estimated at one hour¹. The data transfer took about 45 minutes. The Always On display is… always on. 😳 I don’t know if I’ll keep that option… on.

At that point, the WiFi logo disappeared and I started wondering if the data was going through 5G instead. That was curious. It’s not possible because my new phone didn’t have the SIM call installed yet. Or maybe it was going through Bluetooth or through a point-to-point WiFi connection? ↩︎

When Journalists Aren't Any Better Than ChatGPT

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 07:20:48 -0400

In the “Craptacular Is More Like It” article, this is @gruber@mastodon.social at its best. I read the original article earlier this week and concluded that Apple had difficult times ahead with its modem development. This morning, in my usual reading routine, I read the article from Mr. Gruber, and I think it succeeds in demonstrating this: the original article wasn’t any better than any ChatGPT-generated content.

Now I feel that I was deceived by the journalist who tried to fill me with unverified and barely possible facts tied together based on thin air. And you would think journalists can do better than AI-generated work? Not always. Thanks to Mr. Gruber for that one.

Episode 04 — Did You Know?

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 20:14:23 -0400

Inspired by a recent podcast episode where Martin Feld interviewed John Gruber, for this fourth podcast episode, I decided to talk about my early years as a blogger.

Links:

Really Specific Stories podcast: https://pca.st/pcp6rwjs
Interview with John Gruber episode: https://pca.st/i0xdkxfh, his announcement on his blog: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/09/20/really-specific-stories-yours-truly
A reply to John Gruber about his interview: https://micro.blog/numericcitizen/23822941
Search for the “BuildingiPhoneApps” keyword on the internet archive for a glimpse of my very first blog, and locate 2010 and beyond on the timeline.

Transcript

I Rarely Visit the App Store

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 06:38:15 -0400

I opened the App Store this Monday to see how Apple would promote new app releases supporting iOS 17. Then I realized that I rarely open the App Store except to go and get app updates. When was the last time I went to browse the productivity category? When did I last browse the store for popular photography apps or new utilities? I can’t even remember when I last bought an app discovered in the App Store¹. I wonder if this is only me or reflects a more general trend.🤔

I usually make my discoveries by external reference. ↩︎

Where's The Magic in Adaptive Audio?

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 20:10:53 -0400

Adaptive Audio and Conversation Awareness don’t click for me

I’ve been using Apple’s new AirPods features for the past week, and I’m sad to say that I don’t really understand either of them

I’m with Matt here. I fail to find the magic here. I’ve read Gruber’s take on the AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C, and I’m afraid I don’t feel anything magical about Adaptive Audio. When activated, I hear too much from the surroundings; I prefer noise cancellation. Can we get adaptive noise cancellation instead? 🤔

I feel that Apple’s engineers couldn’t figure out which new audio profiles to include and couldn’t decide, and they suggested including both. Then, the marketing guys came in and named these profiles Adaptive Audio and Conversation Awareness. Boom. I’m half-joking here.

I’ll keep trying in the next few days to find the magic.

Review of Reviews: Great Updates to Already Great iPhone but...

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 22:05:04 -0400

Today, I read many iPhone 15 Pro reviews and watched many YouTube videos too. For some reason, I get the feeling of a slight deception mood across many reviewers. Those are great upgrades, but since they are compared to last year’s iPhone, the improvements are dimmed as mostly minor. A mentioned the superiority of the iPhone in the video recording field, but in the photography field, it’s less clear. Sharpening seems a tad less aggressive with more natural tones. The 24MP resolution by default is a welcomed addition, and yet… it’s not a home run. Device physical tweaks are unanimously welcomed, though. Maybe tomorrow, my interpretation will be different. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Some Thoughts About Apps Support of StandBy Mode and Interactive Widgets

Mon, 18 Sep 2023 10:21:24 -0400

Many apps are getting updates today and this week. Yes! 😃 But, so far, I have found some bugs in iOS 17 to display interactive widget content once they are added. They often stay blank with a white background. Rebooting doesn’t help. I don’t know if it is an iOS 17 bug or an issue with the app. 🤔 One design issue: if an app supports the StandBy mode¹, it should also support the landscape orientation, not only the portrait orientation. Tapping a widget to launch the app and the app comes up in portrait mode. It’s bad. WaterMinder is such an example, and… Apple’s Stocks app! The latter is inexcusable. In general, StandBy mode seems a work-in-press, to be honest.²

this is how the StandBy mode is triggered on the iPhone. ↩︎
Make no mistake, I do like it a lot, though. ↩︎

Testing Apple's USB-C to Lightning Adaptor with iPad Pro

Fri, 15 Sep 2023 13:17:49 -0400

I wanted to follow up a previous post of mine about using my Lightning-based Lavalier microphone with a USB-C device, like my 2018 iPad Pro¹. I ordered the USB-C to Lightning adaptor on the day of the Apple keynote. I got it this morning. If you are wondering if it works with Ferrite and Apple’s Voice Memos on my iPad Pro? No, it doesn’t.😔

A positive conclusion would have been a good sign on the prospect of making it work with the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro Max. Now, it’s not sure at all. ↩︎

An Update About My New Quest of Leaving Adobe Lightroom

Fri, 15 Sep 2023 06:56:30 -0400

Yesterday night, I spent nearly an hour reading articles and forum posts about the implications of closing my Adobe Photography subscription¹. The implications and how to recover my photos differ for Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC. It’s not that hard, but it will be a tedious process if I want to keep some organization that the Lightroom catalog currently provides. I’ll put this project on my list of things to do in 2024. This will give me some time to plan for the migration².

I subscribe to the photography plan which gives me 2TB of storage, which is currently used at 110GB. ↩︎
Or change my mind. 🤦🏻‍♂️ ↩︎

Waiting for more interactive widgets…

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 13:08:42 -0400

✅ WaterMinder

✅ Longplay

Timery 👀

Focused Work 👀

What else?

Apple Wonderlust Event — My Initial Impressions

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 21:22:42 -0400

These are my impressions of Apple’s latest product announcements.

The mother nature segment was funny, and I smiled quite often. It was a great way to communicate their progress toward better environmental protection and reduced carbon footprint. Video production quality was top-notch. Aren’t tech press people tired of going to Apple Park to watch a movie?

Many comments during the presentation about the desire by Apple to see people go into their stores to buy and activate the new iPhones¹.

We got a short update about the upcoming Apple Vision Pro, which is still on track for early 2024. That was expected but felt a bit short.

Onto the Apple Watch.

The Apple Watch Series 9 is a mildly interesting update. The new finger gestures are cool but only for Series 9. Too bad. I’ll probably buy a few new bands later this fall. I’ll skip this year’s updates and wait for next year’s rumoured redesign.

Moving to the star of the show. The iPhone.

The iPhone remains the crown jewel of Apple. Everything else is peripheral. The design of the Pro line is absolutely gorgeous (rounded edges, great pro finishes). The A17 Pro (bye-bye Bionic) is a powerhouse CPU! I’ll go with the 15 Pro Max with 512 GB of storage. I’ll order the “USB-C to Lightning adaptor” to keep using my excellent Cavalier microphone (see my previous blog post about the issue).

The black finish is my choice with a blue FineWoven case². Best of both worlds. Thanks to this video, which helped me confirm my decision³. Those wallpapers are gorgeous, too! This is the first time in a while that I love them so much. I’m overall happy with this year’s Pro finishes and tones. Very classy.

I’m a bit surprised by the battery life capacity to be the same as last year’s Pro models. I was expecting longer battery life with the A17, but I guess since we get more features… something has to give. I expect next year’s iPad Pro to use a derivative of the A17 Pro announced today.

About cameras. A 5x range for telephoto, not 6x⁴. I’m surprised it’s not 6x. But 120mm is great for travelling. Shooting with the phone and having the preview immediately available on the Mac, just like pros are expecting. Wow. Do images on the 15 Pro line have less over-processing / sharpening? I certainly hope so. And about those immersive spacial videos to be shot on the 15 Pro but visioned on the Apple Vision Pro, coming later this year. Consider me intrigued⁵. The camera app has a few tweaks, judging by some video segments, for the 2x mode, where you can select the focal length. Cool.

There is no monstrous price increase, which is good. Some price adjustments on the entry-level iPhone 15 Pro Max. The speed limit of the USB-C on the non-Pro line is ridiculous⁶. iCloud+ storage tier at 6TB is a surprise, still 5GB⁷ at the entry-level, though. I like the action button flexibility.

I’ll order my new phone this Friday. That is all for now.

Apparently, the vast majority of iPhone in the US aren’t bought in an Apple Store. Apple would like to improve that. ↩︎
I might change my mind, depending of videos from the hands-on area at Apple Park. ↩︎
My second choice would probably be the blue finish next in third position, the natural titanium color. ↩︎
25x digital zoom apparently. Not bad. ↩︎
I’m still not planning to buy an Apple Vision Pro. ↩︎
480 mb/s. Ouch. ↩︎
Yes, that is right, a mere 5 gigabytes! ↩︎

My Excitement About the Upcoming iPhones Explained

Sun, 10 Sep 2023 20:07:46 -0400

Here are some more details about my excitement for the next iPhone¹.

Besides the camera upgrades, here is a short list of things I’m looking forward to with the next iPhones.

I’m going to the Max. It’s the first Max model that I’m getting².
I expect better battery life than the iPhone 14 Pro Max³. I want a real all-day battery life for when I travel abroad.
I never liked the current chrome finish of the Pro line (since the iPhone 12 Pro)⁴. I like the titanium finish of the Apple Watch. I can’t wait to see the tweaked version for the iPhone⁵.
I’m ambivalent about the rumoured action button. I’ll want to configure it for the camera capture, but I want to keep the mute button.
The always-on display… I’m not sure. My wife has an iPhone 14 Pro, she disabled the always-on display because of the battery drain. I’ll see with the Max.
I’m curious about the grey version, but I will go either with a deep blue⁶ or the darkest one⁷.
I love the Dynamic Island. My hope is to see wider adoption by developers.
Finally, USB-C. Finally. 95% of the time, I charge my iPhone with MagSafe. It’s too convenient. On rare occasions, it will be handy to grab any normal USB-C cable and plug it in. As for transfer speed, I’m not in any use cases for this⁸.

I’ll catch you on the other side of the Wonderlust event.

Just in case someone actually care. 😜 ↩︎
Screen content displayed is barely more than the Pro, yet, I’ll take all the pixel the iPhone has to offer. ↩︎
At the very least, much better battery life than my current aging iPhone 13 Pro. ↩︎
The chrome look on anything always felt like cheap luxury to me. I prefer textures. ↩︎
I expect Apple to offer a different texture. ↩︎
I’m curious about anything that is blue. I could wait until iPhones make their way to the Apple Store, but I won’t be able to last that long. I’m looking for videos in the hands-on area at Apple Park for a cue about the colors. ↩︎
The black matte iPhone 5 was the best of all. ↩︎
Will this enable iPhone-to-iPhone transfer between an iPhone 15 Pro and an iPhone 17 Pro? 🤔 ↩︎

Pixelfed Is Working on “Solo”

Sun, 10 Sep 2023 13:53:15 -0400

I’m really curious about this. The idea of having my personal instance of Pixelfed is tempting. I like the idea of having full control and not being at the mercy of some other admin, updating the codebase as I wish while being part of the Pixelfed federation¹. It’s expected to be released on October 20th. I should start planning my domain name and username.²

Of course, other instance could decide to block mine, but that’s not going to happen, unless I’m being a bad actor in the federation. ↩︎
Does that mean Micro.blog would need to do something in order to cross post to my personal instance? ↩︎

Why I’m Excited for This Week’s Apple Announcements

Sun, 10 Sep 2023 08:38:54 -0400

I’m super excited about this year’s iPhone announcements. It’s probably because I’m getting one of them¹. I try to skip one or two iterations. I went from the iPhone 7 to the iPhone 11 Pro, then to the iPhone 13 Pro, and now the iPhone 15 Pro Max. I’m looking forward to these improvements: the cameras² and battery life³. Sure, the Dynamic Island will be cool. Oh, and USB-C, finally⁴!

Can’t wait for Sept 12th.

I’m getting the iPhone 15 Pro Max / 512 GB model. I’ll return my old 13 Pro to Apple for a credit. ↩︎
Could the telephoto lens make me forget about my Nikon? ↩︎
This is why I’m going to the Max this year. ↩︎
99% of the time I use MagSafe to charge my iPhone these days. 😜 ↩︎

Episode 03 — I'm Excited and Stressed

Sat, 09 Sep 2023 11:27:47 -0400

This week, Apple will release its latest iPhone models. I’m excited. It will be an exercise of balance between news consumption, analysis and writing. It’s the perfect mix for a stressful week. 😟 Learn why in this podcast episode.

Links

My iPhone 11 Pro review: “From iPhone 7 to iPhone 11 Pro: The Return of Delights”
My iPhone 13 Pro review: “Upgrading From the iPhone 11 Pro to iPhone 13 Pro — the Love Story Continues”

Transcript

On Apps by Apple

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 22:00:27 -0400

What a strange move by Apple. This website made by Apple promotes first-party apps for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, etc. Why? Why now? I would understand in the context of being forced to allow third-party App Stores. Apple reminding people about their apps while people are getting excited by side-loading and third-party App Stores would make sense. Is Apple up to something here? They usually plan for the long run. This could be the first baby step for a more open ecosystem.¹ 👀

Interestingly, you can launch each app with an Open button if you are visiting the website from your beloved iPhone, iPad or the Mac. ↩︎

Remember Apple’s Freeform?

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 06:53:25 -0400

I’m curious, is anyone using Apple’s Freeform? For what use case? Personally, I was curious about Freeform and experimented with it for a while, but then I stopped using it. I prefer using it on the iPad than on the Mac.

September

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 08:43:29 -0400

This is my favourite month of the year¹. It’s my birthday month². The weather is generally absolutely amazing³. Gone are muggy and hazy days; the air is crystal clear. It’s a transition month. It is a colourful month. It’s an Apple keynote month! I am looking forward to this long week-end with my family. Expect a few images, too. An happy guy! 😃

It dates back to my childhood where it September marked the return to school. ↩︎
Born on the 4th. ↩︎
Weather forecasts for the upcoming days are just brilliant with sunshine and a bit hotter-than-usual temperatures. ↩︎

Some of my Expectations for Apple’s Upcoming “Wonderlust” Event

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 20:12:14 -0400

This is going to be about the iPhone, mostly. The iPhone 15, to be more precise. Of course. Apple will probably talk a lot about the A17 because of its new 3nm manufacturing process, ensuring some battery power savings while bringing faster processing. This will be welcomed for an always-on display device since the iPhone 14 Pro performance in that respect is not as good as it used to be. Will the A17 be Bionic? Something else? I trust Apple’s marketing cracks about this.

The titanium finish on the Pro line, a first for the iPhone, but something the Apple Watch is already sporting, will get some attention too. Maybe more than the A17. I’m looking forward to it because I wouldn’t say I like the current finish on the iPhone 14 Pro¹. I hate it, actually. Thanks to my iPhone case, it’s a non-issue. If the Apple invite is any indication of the upcoming titanium colour finish, I’m in love already!

But the star of the iPhone 15 show will be the Ultra with the periscope lens, bringing telephoto photography beyond the 3x optic possibilities for the first time. This is what I’m waiting for. I expect an Apple twist to it.

I expect some updates about the Apple Vision Pro². Apple will probably talk³ about how excited developers are for the device and remind us about how it will change the world⁴. Something on the gaming front could be in the cards, too, thanks to the game porting toolkit introduced at the WWDC conference. Are Macs finally good at gaming? Is a software trick enough?

And then what else? The Apple Watch will get updates, but not the redesign we are starting to hear about for 2024. The Ultra 2 is probably not for me. But we will learn about it, for sure.

Macs? Crickets.

This is what I expect for the upcoming “Wonderlust” event.

I hate the finish of my iPhone 13 Pro for that matter, too. Too glossy. To “chromy”. ↩︎
I still think the “spacial computing” moniker should have been “spacial experience” instead. More approachable if you ask me. ↩︎
Brag is probably a better term ↩︎
For better or for worst ↩︎

Episode 02 — I’m an Iterative Type of Guy

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 18:05:44 -0400

While writing my next edition of the Friday Notes newsletter (#107), I realized that writing has never been a one-stretch thing for me. It takes countless writing iterations before getting things done. In this episode, I share my anxieties 😰 about writing in general ✍🏻. Plus, a few words about my expectations for the upcoming Apple Event “Wonderlust”! 👀

Links

Jean-Louis Gassée’s “Monday Note” newsletter https://mondaynote.com/.
Be Inc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Inc.

Transcript

Waiting for the iPhone 15 Ultra

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 07:51:08 -0400

I’m really looking forward to the iPhone 15 Ultra👀. Coming from the iPhone 13 Pro, I skipped the 14 Pro¹; I expect the camera improvements to be tangible. The telephoto lens could see the most significant improvements driving sales of the Ultra to new territories². Using a periscope architecture, telephoto could jump from 3x to 6x or more. This could be the last thing that makes me sell my Nikon D750³. The softer and rounder edges and titanium finish might make this iPhone the best design of all time⁴. And, finally, USB-C will certainly simplify charging the damn thing! I wonder if I’ll still be able to use my Lightning Lavalier microphone using a Lightning-to-USB-C adaptor.🤔

It will be my first “Max” iPhone. Apparently, I’m on a stretch of going for the bigger screens⁵.

I skip a generation to limit my consumerism habits. It’s an environmental issue here. ↩︎
Kuo’s rumors about periscope lens. ↩︎
I depend on a 70-200mm zoom on my Nikon which is very useful on a trip. ↩︎
I still thing the best design was the matte black iPhone 7. ↩︎
I recently upgraded from the 13-inch MacBook Air to a 15-inch version. ↩︎

Finally Settled on Blog Post Visual Attributes

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 07:00:53 -0400

After so many years of blogging, I think I have finally settled on the styling of each blog post. 😅 I like to emphasize key words with bold, making it easier to detect what this post is all about. Next is the use of emojis to make things a bit less serious and more approachable.🙂 Next is the selective use of Micro.blog’s post title for longer and more significant posts.¹ 😜 More recently, I started using footnotes because they add another dimension to the reading experience and are displayed in a nice popup on the site.²

This blog post is such an example of using a title. ↩︎
Footnotes are far easier to create in Ulysses than in the web interface, tough. ↩︎

One Podcast, Three Looks

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 12:34:04 -0400

From left to right: Overcast, Pocket Cast, Apple Podcast

I always subscribe to my own content distribution channels for quality control purposes ¹. I’m using Overcast, Pocket Cast and Apple Podcast to display my latest podcast episode. In these screenshots, I selected the info button to display the episode details. I’m a paid subscriber of Pocket Cast. I prefer the Pocket Cast display, but it has a caching issue as it doesn’t get the latest podcast artwork, but the other two do². Bold text is missing on Apple Podcast for some reason. The overcast look is… mildly ugly.

This blog post looks like a mini-plug for my podcast. It is. ↩︎
The artwork display issue is also present on the web version of the Pocket Cast player. ↩︎

Episode 01 — This Is Not a Drill!

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 09:47:07 -0400

Bad weather 🌧️ means time to the coffee shop for creative work ☕ 👨🏻‍💻 on my next YouTube video about Craft YouTube Integration. I paid a visit to the Apple Store to get my iPhone screen replaced 🛠️. I came out without a replacement; learn why in this episode available on Apple’s Podcast. 👀

Transcript

On Dark Sky and Apple's Weather

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 19:23:28 -0400

A Eulogy for Dark Sky, a Data Visualization Masterpiece

The design of Dark Sky was so wonderful that I could understand the shape of the weather at a glance, even from a zoomed out view of the app.

Great analysis of the now-defunct Dark Sky weather app. I’m a bit late on that one. I don’t remember using Dark Sky because I think it wasn’t working in Canada. I’m not sure about this. Once Apple took over and brought the redesigned weather app with iOS 16, we could visually feel the Dark Sky’s influence on it. But Apple being Apple, they dropped a few things here and there and made a few things their own. I tend to use Carrot Weather more, but recently, I deep-dived into Apple’s Weather, and frankly, they did a good job. Yet, there was something unique in Dark Sky that I don’t feel in Apple’s offerings. Is it too close to the Yahoo Weather look & feel? Maybe.

Learned Something New Today

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 20:56:27 -0400

Today, while reading this blog post, I found out that we could have a “popup” note inline in a blog post. I was curious and asked the author, who gladly responded with all the required information to do the same on my blog. A plugin is required, which I gladly installed in a snap¹. This blog post is a test of that feature². The day I learn something which in turn helps me improve one of my things, is a great day. 😊 I love this community so much! 🫶🏻

You can find it here, on Gitbub. ↩︎
Thanks to @dandycat for your help. ↩︎

Pilot Episode #2 — Testing, Testing, Testing, 1-2-3

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 21:04:49 -0400

This is the second pilot episode of my brand-new podcast (“Thoughts & Tribulations of a compulsive creator”). I made many changes to the recording setup. I like the results. 😊 My support templates are ready (one in Screenflow, Things and Craft) for the first real episode that should be coming soon. One last note: I discovered yesterday that Microblog will automatically generate a transcript of each episode. This is so cool! 🤯

Transcript

Introducing the Thoughts & Tribulations of a Compulsive Creator Podcast

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 22:00:24 -0400

I’m excited to introduce something new: a podcast. 🎙️Something short & sweet. At least, it is one of my goals. I don’t have a grand plan, just a desire to share my thoughts and tribulations of the creator that I am in a different medium: audio. Nothing fancy. It’s done with modest technical means and a dead simple workflow. The end product: something approachable. I want to keep it that way. This is a pilot episode. Listen to learn more. Your feedback is welcome. 😊

Transcript

Dear Original iMac, I Barely Knew You

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 21:15:23 -0400

Happy 25th anniversary, iMac! As I started documenting in my series about remembering every Mac I ever owned, in 1998, I wasn’t invested in Apple’s ecosystem at all. I was a “PC” guy because of my job. Right before the iMac came out, I got rid of my Power Mac 7100 in 1996. I barely saw the iMac in stores or public spaces where a computer was made available for things like web surfing. What an iconic but somewhat weird-retro-style computer.

Isn’t the starting point of USB ports for the masses? Thanks, Apple.

The Apple Way

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 12:57:09 -0400

I just went through the complete process of an Apple Trade-In for the return of my “old” 13-inch MacBook Air after getting my brand new 15-inch MacBook Air. I’m super impressed by the logistics behind all of it and how the user (me) is guided in the process. The final step was to cancel the AppleCare+ that I originally bought with my old device. Took a 5 min call from somewhere in Texas. The call was automatically initiated from a web form I filled out by selecting a few options. Got a confirmation email before the call and after stating the actual amount of the refund. All done. Great user experience. The next time will be for the replacement of my iPhone 13 Pro with the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro. 😃

An Observation About the Photos From IPPAWARDS Winners of 2023

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 06:57:08 -0400

I forgot to linkpost to the IPPAWARDS winners of 2023. Lot’s of great photos. Really. Twenty photos come from the iPhone 12 series (which came out in 2020). Five from the iPhone 13 series and another five from the iPhone 7 (which came out in 2016). Only four from the iPhone 14 series. What can we conclude from this? It doesn’t matter which camera you’ve got. The best one is the one you’ve got with you at the right place and time. Period.

In case you didn’t know, the iPhone 15 is coming soon.

On Being Locked Out of an Apple ID Account

Sun, 13 Aug 2023 17:52:38 -0400

Being locked out of an Apple ID account is probably one of the worst nightmares I could imagine. This story (Reddit link) makes me pause for a bit. If you spend some time reading the comments thread, it seems the original poster doesn’t tell the whole story. There are some grey zones here. Nonetheless, the possibility of losing complete access to my previously purchased and subscribed content is really something that I wouldn’t want. I would feel helpless.

Mike Rockwell’s comment on the subject:

I hope we’re nearing a future where you can realistically use an iPhone without an Apple ID at all — replacing all of Apple’s services, including the App Store, with independent alternatives.

Mike’s wishes are not going to be fulfilled anytime soon. Even with alternative authentication mechanisms and third-party stores, the prospect of losing access to previously purchased content is real. Somehow I think the government should step in and ask companies to provide secure content recovery means.

On Apple's Migration Assistant

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 07:01:48 -0400

Ok, can we agree that Apple’s Migration Assistant is magical? 🤯 After the new Mac got updated, it was required to match the version of the source Mac. It took about 45 minutes to transfer 375GB of data (with a peak speed of 650MB/s over Thunderbolt 4 cable), and boom. Of course, I had all those required permissions to be set again. But, wow, writing this on my brand new 15-inch MacBook Air this morning. It was my first experience with this process of getting a new Mac set up. I already feel at home on this machine.

Apple Should Introduce FlightPlay™

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 06:59:57 -0400

Recently, while on a flight with United from Tenerife to Newark, I played with the infotainment screen in front of me. These infotainment systems really improved in recent years. Screens are bigger, speed is much faster, and interaction has improved quite a bit. Some of these systems look like iPad-in-the-seat, literally. It occurred to me that Apple while offering CarPlay, could try to find a way to create a version for flight infotainment systems. Let’s call it FlightPlay because Flighty is already used, and AirPlay, too!

I want each plane to offer a complete set of flight data, ready to be consumed by my iPad or iPhone while in flight via a local wifi network. The iPhone or the iPad would then turn into a special StandBy mode where data would be visually presented dynamically, allowing for great interactions with the user. Modern devices have so much powerful CPU, the interaction would be much more fluid and enjoyable. The data provided would be based on a standard model and would provide speed, altitude, current destination, path, atmosphere metrics (temp, headwind speed, etc.), and so much more. The airplane company could directly provide TV shows, music, etc., to our devices. The same would be for games. But Apple could also allow consumption of locally stored content from the device itself. I can imagine Apple’s designers working on a great graphical dashboard.

Is anybody at Apple reading this? What are you waiting for?

My Non-Review of Apple's Latest Betas

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 19:35:55 -0400

Earlier this summer, when Apple’s OSes were at Beta 3, I installed iPadOS 17 on my iPad to test the latest improvements and additions to a maligned OS. Maybe I was bored too. I started gathering my notes, thinking that it would be part of a mini review. Then I upgraded my iPhone because my experience with iPadOS 17 was good for a beta. Then I upgraded both of my Apple Watch (Series 4 and Series 8). Then my two Apple TVs. All is good, and generally speaking, these are all great improvements to what can be considered a set of mature OSes. I tried to put my observations together, but I don’t think it’s worth it. Besides having the general impression of getting a new Apple Watch, thanks to Apple, who dare to revisit many fundamental aspects of the UI and many micro-interactions with watchOS 10, for all other platforms, most of the changes are great and show that Apple is headed in the right direction. Your mileage may vary, and this is ok. The end.

Adding Bookmarks to my Blog

Sat, 05 Aug 2023 14:32:38 -0400

I decided to expose my Micro.blog bookmarks, in the spirit of the “open blogger” movement (“I’m an open Blogger”), I think it’s a good thing to let other people know a portion of what I find interesting. The recently introduced tags for bookmarks is an indication that the premium feature continues to grow in functionality and usefulness. I’m happy with that. I didn’t play with the formatting, leaving the default one in place.

The Post-COVID iPad Era

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 03:17:48 -0400

Apple’s services help other Apple lines of products soften their respective crashes. COVID and work-from-home, learn-from-home was a boon for the iPad and Apple will suffer the post-COVID for quite some time. Knowing the longer-than-usual replacement cycle of the iPad, recovery is not for tomorrow. Great summary by Six Colors.

Apple Can’t Kill Siri Just Like That

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 02:55:02 -0400

And gone is Microsoft Cortana. What a weird name that was (Bard is not better in that respect). Some are suggesting Apple should do the same with Siri. I don’t think so because Apple has no apparent alternative to Siri, so they cannot just dump Siri because others are dumping their assistant. They do because they actively work on alternatives. Microsoft is clear in that respect and already shows what the alternatives are. Siri is a high-value brand name. Apple should build any next-generation AI-based tool to replace or complement the current back-end.

On The Refinement Game in Tech

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 03:13:19 -0400

I won’t bother linking to the original piece, linking to Math Birchler’s link post instead will be enough. Is the iPhone refined enough? It depends on how you define « refinement ». To me, the iPhone isn’t refined enough in a way that new tech can help make the iPhone even better. If this year’s rumors are true, this is exactly what will happen (faster processor, more power efficient, etc.). Craftmanship also is a big part of the refinement story (softer edges, etc.). I can’t wait for iPhone 15 Pro, coming from the 13 Pro, I’ll certainly enjoy all the refinements, big and small.

Oh and apparently, unlike Apple, other companies don’t bother keeping the refinement game going. Well, this is exactly why I love Apple, they care to refine and try to improve things, year after year.

Thoughts on Micro.blog Tags

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 03:37:31 -0400

I’ve been playing with Micro.blog’s new bookmark tags. At first, I thought the feature was underwhelming. I don’t think there is a way to add more than one tag to a bookmark. This might be a good thing after all. Still undecided on this. Then, I discovered how you can select a tag to display associated bookmarks. Hoping for the iOS app to receive an update soon. I updated a few dozen bookmarks to add a tag. I’ll see if it makes a difference. My bookmarks are not that many and many are deleted after a while.

Update #1: someone pointed me that we can have more than one tag, simply by adding commas. Update #2: I can see Micro.blog bookmarks as a complement to Anybox, but focused on content originating from people I follow on Micro.blog / Mastodon. I don’t see that replacing Anybox anytime soon.

The Beginning of My Journey to Midjourney

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 08:23:44 -0400

“A man sitting in front of a retro computer doing some important work”. 👀

This is my first ever prompt sent to Midjourney. I think this image is an excellent representation of my current state. A guy experimenting with Midjourney in front of my computer. I’m blown away. What a great time to be alive! Discord, as a client of this back-end service, is fascinating. 🤯

I subscribed for one month to the basic plan. I’m not sure how I’ll use the service. One example could be to create illustrations for my blog posts on Numeric Citizen Space. Another use case would be for illustration purposes for my work. I’ll see and continue experimenting. I’ll report back here my discoveries and impressions.

On Articles Size & Twitter

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 22:23:32 -0400

Tweets on Twitter use to be 140 characters max. Later it was increased to 280 characters. Now, apparently, you can post a note with a maximum of 2500 characters.

Now, looking at MacRumors or similar sites, it seems we get shorter and shorter articles, almost the size of a note on Twitter. Isn’t it strange?

People are busy and their attention span has shrunk considerably. Twitter once was very popular and others tried to adjust to its modus operandi. The web is adjusting in unexpected ways.

I'm Subscribing, Now What?

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 22:04:09 -0400

Now that I’m a subscriber of Tapbots’ Ivory client for Mastodon, what’s up with the updates? Is it because it’s summertime? Why do I feel that the development of new features and improvements has considerably slowed in recent weeks and months? After all, the roadmap is clear here.

Tweetbot followed the same trend. Not all developers or companies follow the same product releases, but regarding Tapbots, the trend is slowing and is a pattern. Now, look at Mastodon’s official client; there is an update nearly every two weeks or at least monthly. Ok, there are more than 40 contributors to the open source project of r the iOS app while Tapbots is a three-person company.

I’m ok with subscriptions, but just like the subscription itself, the commitment from the developer has to keep up. The subscription model is everywhere and is here to stay. The software and services landscape has changed forever. Expectations from customers like me are changing too. It’s too easy to grab my money regularly without showing up in the App Store “Updates” tab.

I’m watching you, Tapbots. Don’t deceive me again.

Yeah, Tweetbot was a great app, just like Ivory is, but it lacked some love in the last few years before its demise.

Ranting off. Sorry.

On Clipboard Management & Subscription Model

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 08:28:37 -0400

I’m testing Paste, a clipboard manager software utility for Mac, iOS (link). I kind of like it. It has better management features than Unclutter, which also offers some clipboard management. I’m on a 14-day trial period, but 19 $CAN, a year for a utility without a one-time purchase option, is bugging me. Will see where it goes.

Notion Can Be Impressive

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 14:25:22 -0400

I’ve been working hard with Notion at work for a unique project. It’s a 14-database setup containing 18 database relationships, many calculations as well as a place for knowledge management. I think I’m pushing the boundaries of what Notion is all about. It’s still manageable, and Notion still is speedy. I’m really impressed by what this tool can help achieve. 🤩🤯

On Data Portability in the Modern Digital World

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 07:24:02 -0400

I recently read about the news that Evernote is currently downsizing its operations worldwide, especially in the US. It’s not the first troubling episode for Evernote. I remember when they “redesigned” their app, which created a massive pushback from the community.

I used Evernote in its early days and was appreciative of its capabilities. For some reason, I left for another solution. But for those who built massive data collections inside Evernote, now might be the time to think about going elsewhere. But there is a big gotcha: after searching for a way to export all the data, I discovered that it’s not that easy. And people are angry. This brings me to the data portability of modern software and services. Evernote’s ENEX export format was not a standard the last time I checked. A handful of apps can import ENEX files; Notion is one of them. HTML is also supported but is far from ideal. Options are limited and are seriously hindering the data portability of services like Evernote. Besides content, metadata is also critical (tags, dates, location, backlinks, etc.).

Is Notion suffering from the same potential issues? PDF, CSV, and HTML are the supported formats. 🤔

Github Offers a Fascinating Look at Software Development

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 06:42:10 -0400

I learned to use GitHub for the repo of my Blot website last year (read more about my experience with Blot here). I didn’t want to use Dropbox. I’m no longer using Blot, but I’m still visiting Github occasionally to keep track of project development like Plausible, but more recently for Pixelfed and a few plugins for Micro.blog. Peeking at change logs, commit comments, files changed, etc. offers an intimate look at software development. It’s also a great way to learn something.

Feeling Helpless About Climate

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 18:15:37 -0400

Due to Canada’s forest fires and easterly winds, bad air quality is returning to my town for the next few days. With all the bad climate-related news coming up from everywhere on Earth, trying to understand what is happening is essential, so we can better adapt our lifestyle. I like to read many things on a subject that I find interesting, but climate change topic is utterly depressing. The planet is clearly slowly burning. All indicators are going in the wrong direction. How can we not feel helpless? It’s hard to stay informed and keep faith in humanity. Prove me wrong.

The Apple Vision (Bible | Knowledge Base | Hub)?

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 20:58:09 -0400

I’m thinking of building a central web portal gathering information and everything related to the Apple Vision (Pro). Think of this as something similar to a digital garden but targeted to a specific product line. I do maintain one about Apple rumors (the Apple Rumors Hub). I have a few possible names in mind:

The Apple Vision Bible / The Apple Vision Knowledge Base / The Apple Vision Hub /

The concept of an “information hub” seems popular. Which one sounds better? What other name suffix could I use?

Note: since it is clear that Apple will release a lower-end version of the headset, I won’t include the “Pro” moniker, hence Apple Vision xxx.

My week-end so far

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 14:34:48 -0400

Exploring Pixelfed✅. Producing a 60-minute video about Pixelfed✅. Writing an article about Pixelfed✅. Learning about Tinylytics✅. Learning about templates in Micro.blog and custom themes✅. Adding Tinylytics to my blog✅. Subscribing to Tinylytics. ✅

Next up: going to see the latest Mission Impossible.

A 60-minute Video Tour of Pixelfed

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 07:16:16 -0400

I’m finally ready to share my 60-minute video tour of Pixelfed. If you’re contemplating the idea of creating your account on Pixelfed, I encourage you to do so, but after watching this video. You’ll learn about Pixelfed’s capabilities. It’s not a comparison analysis with services like Flickr or Smugmug, though.

My First (And Unexpected) FaceTime Moment on My Apple TV!

Sat, 15 Jul 2023 13:45:02 -0400

I just had my first experience with FaceTime with one of my sons on my Apple TV. My son called me on FaceTime. I picked up the call. A few seconds later into the conversation, my iPhone suggested putting the call on my Apple TV. I really didn’t expect that. The iPhone instructed me what to do with my iPhone so it could catch me on camera. It was such an “Apple” moment! Flawless. Barely no lags. 🤯

My iPhone runs iOS 17 beta 3, and the Apple TV tvOS 17.0 beta 3.

A New Start: Pixelfed

Sun, 09 Jul 2023 08:41:27 -0400

It didn’t take long. I’m now on Pixelfed (profile page). The reason it was a quick decision: I found a very specific use case for it. Since returning from my trip to Morocco, I have been looking for a way to share my best pictures with my family and friends. I prefer not to use Instagram / Facebook / Glass for different reasons. So here I am. Enjoy.

Using Day One for Travel Journaling

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 16:05:33 -0400

When I decided to use Day One for my travel journal, I had the following requirements:

Data portability is paramount (markdown, text, or textbundle);
It must work offline;
Integration into my existing workflow to share travel moments on Micro.blog;
Easy data entry with as much metadata automatically filled out for me as possible;
Look at my current toolset before using something entirely new.

I tried Craft last year, and it wasn’t up to the task. Apple Notes was a candidate, but it was dropped since notes’ metadata is nonexistent. Day One met all requirements. I’ve been using Day One for more than five years. It worked wonderfully for my last trip. Sometimes, the solution is right in front of our eyes.

I’m Still Liking HEY Email But…

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 07:41:31 -0400

I’ve been using the HEY email service since its introduction. This week I had to search extensively in my email history to find transaction receipts and contracts. HEY email client has a unique take visually on emails and the inbox, and you either like it or hate it. I still like it, but I feel let down by the software for operations like searching, content rendering and attachment processing. This is where I wish HEY had a more standard take on email display and attachment preview. There is a lack of information density in this app which annoys me.

If there was another similar service but with a native client, I think I would switch.

We Must Do Something About Meta’s Monopoly

Fri, 07 Jul 2023 12:25:08 -0400

In my mind, every new platforms should start from 0 user base. Meta, just to name that one, have a monopoly of social graph. This is anti-competitive. Should Bluesky sue Meta? Should the open source community sue Meta? Yes. And yes.

Remember Microsoft and Internet Explorer back in the days? Remember Apple and the App Store?

We are not ready to accept this but here we are. Meta is a monopoly in my book. Time for regulation. I casted my vote: no Threads for me.

Bad News for Weather in Canada

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 06:56:34 -0400

Yesterday, weather report summary for June in Canada was released and it is ugly. Much higher temperatures in the wrong places and at much earlier time this year. Many records broken by wide margin (since 1871). Lot’s of discrepancies in rain distribution with lack of rain in the north of Quebec which then allowed much widespread forests fire than usual.

One month is not a trend but when you look far back, there are many worrying trends.

Hunting vs ChatGPT

Tue, 04 Jul 2023 20:19:37 -0400

Hunters are not allowed to use drones to locate their prey. It is seen as an anti-competitive measure or an unfair practice. While “real” hunters who chase their future prey for fun aren’t allowed drone usage, what about those who hunt to eat meat because it is their way of living? Is it still forbidden?

Now, let’s do a parallel with LLM-derived tools like ChatGPT. Is it ok for fun but not ok for actual work? When are the lines crossed? Is the content the only determining factor?

The Bad Side of All Inclusive Resorts

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 12:55:40 -0400

I have spent the last two days at an all-inclusive in Agadir, Morocco. It’s quite busy here with a lot of people everywhere. People are from Morocco and mostly Europe. I don’t see many Russian (none actually).

The worst part of our experience here is at the buffet. People are eating way too much, because, it’s free or because they “paid for it”, so they are entitled. Yet, the amount of wasted food is astronomical. I would argue that 80% of people here are fat, 20% in advanced stage of being fat. Many people are rude with the personal (because they paid for it?). It’s sad. Many people lack the basic sense of why “waiting in line”. They skip, they bypass and they don’t give a damn. It’s a circus.

Long Day Spent Visiting The Big Medina of Fez

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 13:13:05 -0400

Date:	June 21, 2023 at 5:54:55 PM GMT+1
Weather:	29°C Mostly Clear
Location:	Derb Salaj, Fes, Fès-Meknès, Morocco

What a strange, busy, surprising place. Strangely, I didn’t take as many pictures as I could. I guess I was too busy looking around me, up, down, everywhere. 🤯

Visiting this Medina was like reliving the past, like going back in 800. Our guide told us that not that many things has changed since the early years. But man, everything is so coupled with the Islamic religion. I’m not used to that.

The Medina is a city in a city. You’ll find everything from food, clothes, and fake Apple gear (a lot). Oh, and, the young generation of sellers are all tied to their smartphone, all the time. I’m not sure this helps do good business. 🤔

Oh and boy we eat too much in Morocco.

Leaving Rabat

Sun, 18 Jun 2023 02:37:20 -0400

Date:	June 18, 2023 at 7:28:55 AM GMT+1
Weather:	22°C Mostly Cloudy
Location:	Rue Jamaa Mourino, Rabat, Rabat-Salé-Kénitra, Morocco

Great city. Many photo opportunities. Like this wall and door. Unprocessed image.

I’m really looking forward for this trip...

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 20:11:41 -0400

Date:	June 16, 2023 at 8:05:30 PM EDT
Weather:	20°C Rain
Location:	Aéroport International de Montréal-Trudeau, Dorval, QC, Canada

From a photography experience perspective… My backpack 🎒 is so heavy with this camera and “only” two lenses. My hope is to use my big camera as much as my iPhone, so that I don’t think that I brought this with me for nothing. 😜

Are We Ready for This Dystopian World?

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 07:02:13 -0400

Warning: it’s not about the Apple Vision Pro headset, which many people think will bring a touch of a dystopian future to our life. Something else more serious will.

I read this week somewhere that, to get climate back into the normality zone🌪️ to ensure the sustainability of the human race and life in general, everyone on earth would need to live in an oppressive world where everything would be controlled by laws and government all the time and for decades. From buying food to cars to travelling to entertainment services, we would be under constant quotas, which would bring our quality of life much lower than we currently enjoy. In fact, developed countries’ quality of life would join the much lower quality of life of the vast majority of the earth’s population in less developed countries. This would be the only way to get around this climate crisis. Not convinced? The COVID pandemic brought massive and repetitive confinements that weren’t enough to bend many climate change indicators downwards. It lasted two years, more or less. 😱

Oh, and should we talk about forced birth control everywhere? Because we should, even if this is a taboo subject.

Are we ready for this dystopian world? 😷

I can see a great Vision Pro use case right here where people watch daylong movies about what used to be a much more enjoyable world in 3D. 😒

Building a CRM in ... Notion? Really?

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 20:25:32 -0400

💡I’m trying to build my own CRM with Notion for my daytime job. After a few hours today building the data model using Notion tables and relations, I concluded that I underestimated Notion for such use case. It’s impressive and very flexible. It has a lot of potential. I’m pretty happy with my current work. I sometimes find it a bit laggy, but let’s keep the experiment running for a few months.😃

On 15-inch MacBook Air: Is It Too Big?

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 20:17:31 -0400

When the 15-inch MacBook Air 💻 was officially announced, I was excited and knew it would replace my M1 MacBook Air. Since then, I read many reviews and watched many unboxing videos. People seem to enjoy the new bigger MBA, and all is good, right? But, is it?

Nobody talks about the device’s size when you use it on your lap like I do with my MBA right now as I write this post. It’s an important factor to consider for such laptop category which the MBA is targeting. Are 15 inches too wide? Is it still comfortable? For some reason, I have a few doubts. This 15-inch MacBook Air is… big, but is it too big for me? 🤔

When I come back from vacation, a visit to the Apple Store will help me decide once and for all.

In Photography, the iPhone Can Be a Killer

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 06:53:30 -0400

My nephew, a semi-pro photographer, recently sold 90% of his photography gear (Canon). He only kept one body and one 50mm lens. 😱 He upgraded his phone to the iPhone 14 Pro. 😏He couldn’t be happier, he told me. Even with the iPhone, he essentially kept his photo-processing workflow as-is (Adobe Lightroom). This makes me pause a bit. Sure, he spends much less time doing professional photography work, but still. I call this the iPhone-photography killer effect.

He got his first exposure (pun intended) to the art of photography with me when he was still a child, more than thirty years ago, when he accompanied me for a short photowalk. He demonstrated that he could be a photographer, even at this young age, just by his numerous questions and suggestions.

I’ll bring my small (but heavy) camera gear (Nikon) on my trip to Morocco and when I visit the Canary Islands later this summer. Will these trips be the last ones where I use the big one? 🤔 I know that I’m going to upgrade my iPhone 13 Pro to the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro Max later this fall. This could trigger a similar fate to my camera bag.

I’m Testing Day One for My Travel Journal Experiment

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 18:11:04 -0400

Date:	June 9, 2023 at 5:25:24 PM EDT
Weather:	18°C Mostly Cloudy
Location:	Montréal, QC, Canada

I’ll be going to Morocco a week from now. I plan to use Day One to document my trip there. It will be the first time since I’m a Day One user. I don’t know how I could not think of this before. I’ve been a big fan of Day One forever. It’s such a rich journaling app for the Mac, the iPad and the iPhone. I can wait to use it on my iPhone to create rich journal entries as my vacation progresses.

Watch Out Reddit

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 15:13:38 -0400

🤨 Because of recent Reddit behaviors towards their API consumption models, seeing Apollo go, just like that, plus similarities of behavior with Twitter, I may drop my cross posting to Reddit as a first step of protests. Then, stop manual posting (in /r/craftdocs for example). Ultimately, closing my account could become a possibility. 🫤

A Few Last-Minute Questions for WWDC2023

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 10:08:06 -0400

It’s Apple keynote day, and it is exciting but also stressful! Here are last-minute questions.

Will the headset pricing be announced today?
Will the headset be like the Apple Watch and be running apps, or will it be more like CarPlay, with some additional viewport from the iPhone? Or a combination?
Is the headset unveiled with a “one more thing” segment?
When the iPad was announced, Steve Jobs spent some time explaining its relative position within the use cases spectrum of our computing devices. Where does the headset fit?
Will the headset announcement overshadow Apple’s timid foray into generative AI?
Is Xcode finally coming to the iPad?
Can we infer something about the rumors setting the price 1999$ when we compare that to the AirPods Max price?
Tim Cook’s air time has decreased in recent events, is the trend continuing today?
Can we expect another meme moment from Craig Federighi?
Who’s going to present the headset? Jeff Williams, just like for the Apple Watch Ultra?
Can any of the announcements today affect my Apple hardware upgrade plan?

For someone who’s not interested in the headset, I have far too many questions about it. I’ll return to this post once the event is complete to fill in the answers!

Reflecting on My Photo Processing Strategy

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 16:43:30 -0400

For my next trip, I will bring my Nikon D750 and my iPhone 13 Pro (of course!), and my 2018 11-inch iPad Pro. How am I going to process my images? Will I continue using Lightroom for images from my Nikon? I usually use the iPad to import my photos into the Lightroom catalogue. What about pictures on my iPhone, which should be mostly in RAW format and shot with Halide? I like Photomator a lot; it is nicer than Lr and more approachable too. However, using Photomator to process images from my Nikon poses a challenge in file management. I’ll need to import the .NEF files from my SD card into my iPad in an iCloud Drive folder so I can work on imported files from any device (iPad, MacBook Air or iPhone). I prefer using iCloud Photos Library instead of managing files manually. I guess this will be this combo: Photomator + Halide for my “shot on iPhone” images!

Just writing this blog post made things a little bit less fuzzy. I’ll take any suggestions!

365 Days Later

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 09:58:12 -0400

Thumbnails of my produced YouTube videos

A year ago, I shared my first YouTube video on my YouTube channel. My initial goal was to share videos about using Craft, but later came videos about using Micro.blog. Here are some notable facts:

52 videos about Craft were produced;
5 videos about Micro.blog were produced;
All videos totalling more than 13.5 hours of watch time;
My YouTube channel has 813 subscribers as of now;
Two subscribers gave me money as a sign of appreciation.

I feel I’m now on par with all the things I wanted to talk about regarding Craft. Future Craft videos will touch on new features and tweaked workflow. I still have much work to do for Micro.blog video series, though.

At the initial pace of new subscribers, I set the goal of hitting a thousand subscribers in the first year, but I’m sad to report that I won’t make it. The pace of new subscribers has slowed quite a bit.

This video production journey is full of learning and lessons. Over time, I settled on a production style I’m happy with. I finally found a way to get better sound quality. I recently added iA Presenter to get cue cards showing on my screen while recording (read “iA Presenter — A Different & Clever Take at Presentation Software”). My workflow is stable now and is supported by this Craft template (you can download and use it if you are a Craft user, BTW). Finally, I started using Play.app to gather all my video links in one place. This provides a quick way to refer to past videos whenever needed.

I also produced videos about other apps like Capacities, Inoreader and Anybox. Some of these videos take the form of a 60 minutes session with the app as a first-time user. It’s fun as there is no script supporting those experiences.

Today, I will record a video about the WWDC 23 conference. The video will complement my recently published article on the same subject. It will be my first foray into tech news and commentary. I’m not planning to do many of these, but WWDC is significant and needs some of my production time attention.

On Reddit API Access Pricing

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 08:26:10 -0400

So, apparently, just like Twitter, Reddit is entering into a “kill-third-party-apps” by charging an enormous amount of money to use their APIs. It looks like it. Apollo isn’t happy, and for good reasons. Unless there was a calculation error from the makers of Apollo, it just makes no sense for them to continue. Maybe Reddit made some calculation errors, too. Perhaps they fail to read the room’s temperature. But maybe they are entitled, to some degree, I guess, to charge for their APIs, right?

I’m tempted to make a parallel with Apple’s dreaded 15%-30% App Store commission. Is Apple’s stance on its App Store different from Reddit’s stance on its APIs? Is charging a commission to be on the App Store and take advantage of all Apple’s technology to get a chance to be distributed on hundreds of millions of iPhones similar to consuming a platform APIs? If not, what is different, actually? Is free API usage a dead end in today’s world? There are whole business models built around APIs these days. API speaks intellectual property in my book. Only companies with business models supported by massive ad distribution or expansive paid subscriptions can think of thriving by giving away their API access. It will be interesting to see how Reddit is reacting to third-party developers’ pushback.

Oh, and if they actually kill the third-party Reddit client ecosystem, unlike Twitter, Reddit platform alternatives are not obvious to me.

I guess it’s time to remember: there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Where I’ve Been

Mon, 29 May 2023 07:03:21 -0400

To follow the trend started with Manton from Micro.blog, here’s my list of countries I visited.

🇺🇸 United States
🇲🇽 Mexico
🇨🇺 Cuba
🇩🇴 Republic Dominica
🇯🇲 Jamaica
🇦🇷 Argentina
🇧🇷 Brazil
🇺🇾 Uruguay
🇫🇷 France
🇪🇸 Spain
🇵🇹 Portugal
🇦🇹 Austria
🇨🇿 Czechia
🇳🇱 Netherland
🇬🇧 England
🇮🇸 Iceland
🇦🇪 UAE
🇮🇹 Italy
🇧🇪 Belgium
🇸🇪 Sweden
🇩🇪 Germany
🇨🇭 Switzerland
🇬🇷 Greece
soon 🇲🇦 Morocco

My Morning So Far

Sun, 28 May 2023 09:11:42 -0400

What an intense morning.

I learned about the existence of iTelescope, thanks to this blog post from Christopher Curtis, a service where you can rent astronomical observation time from the comfort of your home.

I read about the Eternal Recurrence, thanks to a post from Gr36. I would be ok with the idea of reliving my life as is. Over and over again.

Thanks to this superb article about Fediverse from Glenn Fleishman for Tidbits, I learned that we could follow anyone on Mastodon using an RSS feed, which we could do with Twitter. I’ll be able to re-add accounts to Inoreader to get news in one place, just as I was doing when I was on Twitter. Cool.

All this because I was searching for ideas to write a few linkposts. I wrote none except this post, but I learned quite a lot. I updated my Digital Garden accordingly.

As reported by Om Malik, automation is the next evolution step for fast food chains. Should I care?

Am I missing anything? I think so, and this is where Rewind could help me a lot.

What about your morning?

On AI & Content Creators — So many Questions — So Few Answers

Sat, 27 May 2023 13:02:35 -0400

Should I care if my content is used to train AI models? How is it different than someone who uses part of my content in a citation to write a linkpost, for example? Is it ok for a portion of my content to be used elsewhere as opposed to the full content? Should I be able to opt out of any AI training, just like we can opt out of search engines when posting content online?

On Slowing Down AI To Stay in Control

Sat, 27 May 2023 08:41:55 -0400

I had a discussion about AI yesterday with my wife. She came back from a two-day conference in Toronto. One of the sessions was about the place of AI in society and how it is time to engage in promoting and organizing some AI regulations.

The more I read and learn about AI capabilities as exposed in tools like ChatGPT, the more I think we will eventually need some regulation. For example, one thing we discussed (and on which we couldn’t agree) is the introduction of a delay in AI training. What I’d like to see is that AI companies are imposed a 2 or 3 years delay for their model training. And why would this be necessary? How would it change the game?

Remember that current training is lagging simply because we lack the processing power to digest all the digital information produced daily. But, eventually, it will come, just like Google replaced Yahoo when index content was initially entered manually by a group of people and then by a community. Sooner or later, ChatGPT or similar tools will digest the web in near real-time. And this is where this is going to be even more scary and could really get out of control.

Imposing delay on models training would help public knowledge and content to settle down and let consensus emerge in any research field, for example. Short-term noise would be reduced. In my opinion, it would be more challenging for ChatGPT to be infected by bad actors who will eventually try to influence results with toxic data.

My wife and I couldn’t agree on the effectiveness of this simple measure. She thinks that it would make ChatGPT useless or less relevant. My take goes the opposite side where, like in real life, things like encyclopedias are still helpful even though they were written and got frozen as soon as they were printed. So there is a need for them, like there is a need for more dynamic knowledge content like Wikipedia.

More than ever, we need to define what makes us unique, how we protect how uniqueness and consider slowing things down a bit, so we can have more time to understand what is going on and where things could go if we let things go without proper framing.

Targeting the First Thousand YouTube Subscribers

Fri, 26 May 2023 18:27:46 -0400

My goal when I started doing YouTube videos about Craft (and now Micro.blog) was to reach a thousand subscribers during the first year. At the current rate, I won’t make it. Am I sad about this? No. Is it nagging me? Yes. Why?

I think there are a lot of Craft users out there, and I think they could benefit from watching a few of my videos. That’s the whole purpose and “raison d’être” for my YouTube channel which was (and still is) to help users get better at using Craft or learning about Craft if they are not currently using it. Is my absence from Twitter to promote my content making any difference? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows.

I still have some time left before June 6th, but I’m being realistic here.

From Weekly to Monthly Digest

Tue, 23 May 2023 22:04:06 -0400

Following the announcement of the tweaked Micro.blog newsletter functionality, I’m switching to a monthly digest instead with a specific category as the sole source for its content. Three reasons for this change: first, the digest will become a more intentional set of creative gestures instead of being the result of a weekly and automatic content spit out without any distinction. Second, monthly means less noisy than weekly. Third, less is more. Let’s try that. 🙂

Thoughts On FCP for iPad vs Screenflow

Mon, 22 May 2023 21:57:40 -0400

I’m more inclined and attracted by the idea of testing (and actually using) FCP on iPad than the Mac version. Without being an iMovie on steroids (something that I don’t want), I wish FCP for iPad to be a simpler (but not simplistic) version of FCP on the Mac.

The problem: all my videos are all done with Screenflow for Mac because It’s all about Mac screen recording. What value would bring another app like FCP for the iPad? I see a more complex workflow because I would need to “export” from Mac then import into FCP on iPad then do the actual montage on a less capable device (two different device paradigms, little added value).

Thoughts?

PS: My 2018 iPad Pro isn’t capable enough for my 4K screen recordings. But let’s imagine that I’m on an M1 or M2 iPad Pro.

On Mimestream Going 1.0 & Native Mac Apps

Mon, 22 May 2023 17:15:07 -0400

Mimestream, a native Gmail email client, is out of beta and looks quite good if this video, by Matt Birchler, is any indication. As a subscriber to HEY, I can only salivate when I see such great Mac apps being launched for such a mature category. The guys behind HEY brag a lot about having a unique take on email, but they seriously lack in their take on being native because their software is not and is one of their biggest problems IMHO. If only they had the guts to rebuild their client like Mimestream, it would be a real killer for me.

From Authenticity To Attention and Eventually to Connection

Sun, 21 May 2023 15:45:50 -0400

I recently heard the notion of blogging for ourselves as opposed to writing for other people to read. I like this idea a lot, and after giving it some thought, I think I know why. If I’m being honest with myself in life and decide to share something like a thought about something, my guess is that writing for ourselves helps a lot in being authentic. I think it’s one of the best ways to attract attention and, eventually, maybe, make a connection.

On Apple Stores Evolution

Sat, 20 May 2023 08:53:05 -0400

After 22 Years, Apple’s Very First Retail Store Is Reopening Its Doors in a New Location Source: After 22 Years, Apple’s Very First Retail Store Is Reopening Its Doors in a New Location | Inc.com

I re-watched the video, where Steve Jobs is touring the very first Apple Store. It’s fascinating to see how things evolved over time. Software titles disappeared from shelves, thanks to the App Store. It’s no longer possible to put all Apple products on a single table. Macs, iPads, iPhones, watches, HomePod, and device cases took over the place and then more. Thankfully, the Genius bar is still there in many stores because, you know, people still have questions and broken devices to get fixed.

Apple's Headset — Alarming or Not?

Thu, 18 May 2023 13:17:58 -0400

A recent report on Apple’s upcoming headset:

Key figures including software chief Craig Federighi have also kept their distance from the headset during its development and have seemed wary of it. Apple’s senior vice president for hardware technologies, Johny Srouji, is believed to privately be a skeptic of the device, comparing it to a science project. He has warned that designing the high-performance chips that the headset requires could distract from new iPhone chips that drive more revenue. Source: Report: Apple Executives Cautious of Mixed-Reality Headset Amid Compromises - MacRumors

Everything will be fine, right? If Mr. Srouji is skeptical because the current product is too far from the original vision, I wouldn’t call this alarming. But overall, the signals coming out of these reports aren’t encouraging either. Is Apple headed in a bad direction?

On Android Switchers Coming in Drove to the iPhone

Thu, 18 May 2023 07:09:25 -0400

Report reveals Android users switching to iPhone at 5-year high

15% of new iPhone owners report having an Android device as their last smartphone. That’s a 4% increase from what CIRP saw last year, and 5% higher than the data seen in 2020 and 2021.

The last time new Android switchers made up 15% of new iPhone buyers – according to CIRP – was back in 2018. The highest rate of switchers in the last nine years was 21% back in 2016.

The market is full of previously-owned iPhones for sale. You can find used iPhones from 2 to 3 years ago at reasonable prices these days. People who were using an Android phone probably can now afford to buy an iPhone much cheaper than a brand-new one. Moreover, according to this chart, iPhones from the last few years can still run the latest releases of iOS with most of the features available. It’s very tempting for switchers. This is how I would explain this phenomenon. The study covers the US market. The dynamics might be different in other parts of the world.

One question: what percentage of iPhone owners who buy a new iPhone are returning their iPhone to Apple to get a credit instead of selling their iPhone themselves?

On Photomator 😍

Wed, 17 May 2023 07:44:48 -0400

Currently using Photomator for a small project. I love this piece of software. I bought it for 99CAN$ for a lifetime purchase. I prefer Photomator design in general when editing a photo. It’s more approachable to me. Editing with masks is super easy to use, and it creates great results. The Mac version was the one last piece of the puzzle missing. Now we get the full picture (pun intended).

It makes me wonder if I will ever get out of the Adobe subscription trap. The one missing piece from Photomator is the library management. I cannot rely on iCloud Photos Library for this.

This wasn’t a review, obviously. Just a glimpse of my enthusiasm for this great Mac app.

Important Housekeeping Announcement

Tue, 16 May 2023 18:22:44 -0400

If you consume my work through RSS, read carefully. I’ll be transitioning to FeedPress to act as the entry point for all my RSS feed publication needs. Consider updating your RSS client to use this new “superfeed”. Anything coming from long articles (Ghost), blog posts like this one (Micro.blog), photos (Glass) & videos (YouTube) will appear on this feed. I call this rather convenient, don’t you think? I’ll share the individual feeds soon if you prefer to be selective when consuming content. What will happen to the native/original feeds? They won’t go away, but in the future, If I decide to move to another publishing platform, you’ll probably be impacted if you are not making the change now. That’s the main reason why I’m moving to FeedPress.

Returning to normal programming. 🙂

Two Thoughts On Apple’s New Upcoming Accessibility Features

Tue, 16 May 2023 13:00:45 -0400

Today, Apple announced upcoming features for people with critical disabilities. Here are some thoughts.

First, Personal Voice is incredible! I can’t wait to try this out. I always feared being diagnosed with ALS, but I can see this new accessibility feature, coupled with Live Speech real game changer for people with ALS.

Second, looking at some user interface samples, especially the iPhone with iMessage (see below), we can see the return of shadows, depth, and better contrast, compared to what we have now. So my question is: why not have these UI traits everywhere instead?

Can't Wait for the Upcoming Publishing Weekend

Thu, 11 May 2023 12:55:45 -0400

This weekend, I will publish a 6000 words thousand article about my migration to Inoreader. I’ve been working on that one for at least three months. While doing so, for the first time, I used Ulysses’ “multi-sheets” feature, where each sheet is a different section tied together as a long article that I can publish as a whole. Pretty handy stuff when working on very long articles. Thanks to Ghost’s publishing feature, it will also be the first time that a portion of my article (the last three sections) will be made available to my subscribers only.

I can’t wait to share with my readers the long journey that led me to Inoreder. Watch this space.

Like Anything Else, The World is Hybrid

Mon, 08 May 2023 06:38:07 -0400

DHH wrote “In defence of the office”:

I salute Apple, for example, for sticking to their in-person culture now that the pandemic is long gone. They’re making that choice knowing that some, talented portion of their workforce will leave as a consequence, yet have the confidence that others will fill those chairs. Isn’t this what we wanted? The freedom to choose how we’d like to work by picking between a plentitude of companies offering the style of our preference?

We’re better served by diverse choices because of the diversity of people (profile, aspiration, culture, etc.).

A Peek Into My Typical Creative Week

Sun, 07 May 2023 07:59:35 -0400

Have you ever wondered what my typical creative week looks like? Here you go, courtesy of Things 3’s Logbook. As I was completing this week’s stretch, I had a look at the logbook, I thought it could be fun to share with you a behind the scene look. I love Things 3 logbook because it gives me a look at my past work.

If you want a closer look at my Things 3 usage in my creative workflow, you might want to watch this video. Oh, and don’t miss my documented micro-workflows.

Now, it’s time to prepare for the upcoming week by duplicating the project template and setting my three goals for the week. 😅

A Seemingly Mundane Visit to the Apple Store — Random Thoughts

Sat, 06 May 2023 17:35:40 -0400

It’s been quite a while since I visited an Apple Store. Last I went for a quick stop after work since I was working at my downtown offices.

There are soooo many iPad models to choose from! Too many? The 12.9-inch iPad Pro screen is unbelievably gorgeous!! I wish it would come to the 11-inch version. Maybe next year?

Of all the iPad models that I looked at, Stage Manager is not enabled. So what’s up, Apple, with that? Isn’t the Stage Manager good enough for the showroom?

I wish I had bought the Studio Display with the articulated arm. Expensive but give the most flexibility. Too bad it’s not possible to replace the monitor’s stand.

I tested the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air and tried to imagine what a 15-inch version would be. Not an easy thing to do. Speaking of MacBook, when I looked around on the MacBook table, they all look about the same; only the thickness makes it look slightly different, oh and the “colors”.

I love the latest version of the iPhone display stands. Less dangling wires. Easy to grab and put back in place.

In the previous image, I am holding the iPhone 14 Pro Max. I was still testing the device’s overall size. This is my next. I mean, the 15 Pro Max (Ultra?).

It was the day Apple released their FY2023 Q2 results. The store was unusually quiet. The illuminated decorations on the walls are getting old. I never really liked them.

I’m out after having spent twenty minutes there.

Message to Those (Still) on Twitter

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 19:33:31 -0400

After seeing this post by Chris Hannah:

It’s incredible to see the effect of the various recent changes on how the “blue checkmarks” are given out and what they seemingly represent to different demographics of people.

Here’s my take on this. It’s straightforward: you don’t need to be verified by Twitter (or any of these centralizing platforms) to feel that you exist, are relevant and be fabulous! Just be. If you’re uncomfortable with recently introduced changes at Twitter, move on elsewhere. That is all.

I’m fed up with these stories about Twitter removing previously verified check marks! This is stupid. It was bound to bound to fail from the start. Now, here we are. It failed. Look ahead.

Major Updates Coming to WriteFreely And WriteAs

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 06:45:24 -0400

Matt, the founder of the WriteFreely ecosystem, recently wrote a promising post:

It’s become clear over time that in order to make WriteFreely (and Write.as) as useful as it can be, it needs to have a much more unified experience.

…

I don’t think it makes sense for our self-hosted product to be chopped up into multiple components like our hosted tools are. Instead, I want to bring all those tools into a single application in WriteFreely.

Earlier this year, I wrote an article (“The Write.freely Ecosystem Explained”) trying to explain the WriteFreely ecosystem because I thought that, in its current form, it was a bit hard to grasp. It’s one of my most popular posts on Write.as. I think there is a need for unification and consolidation into a seamless experience. I’m glad the see that it’s coming.

Hello, Bluesky. Nice to Meet You.

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 19:47:39 -0400

In my Friday Notes edition #102, I shared my thoughts about my last four months without Twitter and how calm and quiet my digital life has become. I even wrote that I might ignore Bluesky. But that was last week.

Well, it didn’t take long to contradict myself! As you might have guessed, I’m now on Bluesky as @numericcitizen (of course), thanks to a generous donator of an invite link (looking at you @Maique).

Please make no mistake; it’s an experiment. I’m not planning to spend too much time on Bluesky, but I’m genuinely curious about its evolution and the traction it gets, if any.

I’m allowing myself to get on board for a simple reason: Manton from Micro.blog added support for cross-posting content to Bluesky. It didn’t take long. For me, it’s like getting a seal of approval from him. I highly value his opinion on Bluesky and the open web in general. So, I made the jump without really knowing what to do next except to enable the cross-posting of my content posted on MB.

Now, I wish Bluesky doesn’t get filled up with too many dark clouds. My fingers are crossed.

PS. I’m curious how Micro.blog will push that post onto the Bluesky universe. See you on the other side.

PPS. I’m gathering my thoughts and observations for an upcoming experiment status report. Stay tuned.

And Just Like That Micro.blog Syncs with Readwise.io

Sun, 23 Apr 2023 17:09:19 -0400

Today, I unexpectedly came across this announcement from Micro.blog: Highlights are now synced to Readwise.io, provided that you have an account with them and that you are on an Micro.blog Premium plan! How cool is that!

I immediately configured my Readwise.io connection in the Bookmarks section and exported past highlights in a CSV file. Next, I tried the feature on an article from MacRumors.

After a few minutes, I could read the archived version of the article and highlight some portions. And sure enough, my highlights were saved to Readwise.io in a snap.

The nice thing is that Inoreader also supports saving my highlights to Readwise.io. Everything going at the same place. Occasionally, I export and then import my highlights into Craft. Readwise remembers the point of my last export session.

Apple Entering the Journal App Landscape Soon? Hell Yeah, Count Me In!

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 13:17:14 -0400

As reported by the Wall Street Journal (since it’s paywalled, look at MacRumors report instead), Apple is supposedly working on its own journaling application. Code named « Jurassic », many interesting details are emerging from this report.

As an avid user of Dayone (read « Documenting My Numeric Life With Dayone »). , I find the prospect of having Apple entering the journaling apps landscape quite exciting. The idea of using journaling to help users with mental health issues is pretty clever. There is so much information available on our devices from which, I guess, we can infer some mental states. I’m guessing machine learning can be of some tremendous help here. Coupled with Apple’s stance on privacy, this provides a potentially very compelling story for a lot of people. Me included. Yet, some people could find this move to be crossing a line that is not acceptable for them. We will see.

The WSJ story is referring to very specific detailed aspects of the rumoured app. For example, journaling suggestions would be based on call history and iMessage conversations, and be ephemeral. After four week they would vanish from suggestions. I’m guessing this would help automate some aspects of daily journaling.

I asked this question to ChatGPT: « _Is the young generation into journal as much as older generations? _». Here is what it has to say:

_ There is no definitive answer to this question, as attitudes towards journaling can vary widely among individuals of all ages. However, some studies suggest that younger generations may be more likely to engage in forms of expressive writing such as blogging or social media updates, which could be seen as a form of journaling._

The debate might still be out if the youngsters generation is very into the writing journey, but having some part of the journaling automated would alleviate some rebarbative aspects of maintaining a journal.

Can you imagine having the journal app assembling photos, messages, phone calls, geo locations into pre populated journaling suggestions? Wow. I’m really looking forward into that one.

When AI Failed to Inspire Me

Fri, 07 Apr 2023 07:13:07 -0400

I was looking for inspiration all week to write my next Friday Notes edition. Early morning yesterday, I was still unsure if I could make it, but at lunchtime, I tried ChatGPT with “Give me some blog post ideas about the positive effects on creativity of going on vacation for a week”. It came back with phrases that looked taken from a travel agency ad. I tried again with different variations of my question. It failed to impress and to inspire me. I’ll pass this week’s edition.

Introducing “My Micro-Workflows Explained” Series

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 08:59:50 -0400

I’ve been working on this for a while and now I feel it’s time to share with the world. Follow this link, then expand each question to read the answer. It was a lot of fun to put together.

This site is going to be updated as new micro-workflows are documented or tweaked. This document is now joining my Complete Content Creator Toolset.

If you have a question, feel free to ask, using the commenting feature of the website as shown below. I welcomed suggestions for workflow improvements too! Enjoy and I hope you learn a few things along the way or that it triggers some ideas for your own workflows!

Some Numbers

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 07:30:14 -0400

🚨 This is post #2000. I have already written more posts in 2023 than for the entire year last year. I’ll probably write more than 2021. The record year, 2020, will be hard to beat. This post was written using Ulysses on my MacBook Air which is the most used device, with 73%. My Mac mini comes second with 20%, and lastly, my iPad with 7%. I love numbers. Returning to normal programming.📺

Quick Thoughts and Observations About Wavelength

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 07:34:52 -0400

After reading Gruber’s article about Wavelength, I decided to try it. I’m not sure I require another messaging solution. Besides using Apple’s iMessage and Telegram to get news from Ukraine, the rest of my messaging app usage is anecdotic.

So, what are my thoughts about this? The initial few moments with Wavelength are not what I call an honest onboarding experience. Well, I already shared my surprise at having to enter my phone number at the very first step of the application onboarding. I thought it was brutal. I was quickly reminded that asking for our phone number is the usual thing to ask in a messaging app. M’ok. 🤨 But hey, Wavelength is still in beta, right? So, let’s give them a break.

So I created a group called Microbloggers (invite link) for hosting people coming from Micro.blog (well, anyone with the link can join). As I’m writing this, there are 25 members. I’m surprised. I wasn’t expecting that many people to join. I guess my Micro.blog circle is made of very curious people. I love this. Is @Manton joining? Nope. But @Jean is among the participant, which I find cool!

My general feeling with the application is that its design reminds me of Micro.blog’s simplicity. Wavelength is simple but not simplistic. I love it very much. I’m using Wavelength mainly on the Mac, but also on the iPhone. I prefer the Mac experience. But, again, Wavelength is not complete. I’m looking forward to watching its future evolution.

An interesting byproduct of Wavelength is the inclusion of a ChatGPT client inside. It’s the group called “AI”. We can interact with it at any given time, even include this “guy” in a conversation within a group, using the @AI in a message. Each request to the AI entity is kept as an individual conversation (except the one occurring within a group conversation). It’s fun, valuable and fascinating at the same time.

But now, the big question: why would someone of Micro.blog starts using Wavelength and participates in a group chat? Conversations are already happening on Micro.blog. Just like on Micro.blog, if you are a member of a Wavelength group, conversations are public. I’m still pondering this. I understand people who are also wondering about the usefulness of having Wavelength alongside the Micro.blog. Maybe the instant nature of such messaging platform is something missing on Micro.blog? This is something I liked on Twitter: this ability to enter a private conversation with one of your followers.

Well, that’s it for now.

You can join the “Microbloggers” Wavelength group with this invite link. I plan to leave the group open as long as my experiment with Wavelength lasts.

One last thing: after launching the app for the first time, this wave animation is mesmerizing.

Another thing: my avatar photo is me at 5. 😊

From A to B — Another Digital Journey Completed

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 08:13:35 -0400

From the Numeric Citizen Blog

to the Numeric Citizen Space.

The former was my WordPress site, now on Ghost and merged with what used to be the Numeric Citizen Introspection, the home for my Friday Notes Series newsletter. It took me a while, but here I am. I’m so relieved from not having to use WordPress anymore. I have learned quite a bit about WordPress since 2015, but my desire to simplify my digital life was pressing me to make some changes.

From now on, in Ulysses, I got two places to push my articles, here or Ghost. That’s it.

Both are under the same domain name, which is something that I wanted for a while. Now, I hope to spend more time writing than moving things around. I will publish my migration process in the upcoming days on my Numeric Citizen I/O, my metablog.

From a design perspective, I’m using Ghost’s Casper default theme, which is relatively close to what I was using on WordPress. I’m ok with this for the moment. I may hunt for alternatives in the future, but for now, that will be it.

Now, returning to normal programming.

It Was (Probably) a Rough Day at Craft

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 20:08:44 -0400

Craft version 2.4.5 came out today after more than six weeks since the previous release. Usually, releases come out every two to three weeks. I guess people’s expectations were pretty high after having waited so long.

Not only did the update bring very limited functionality, it broke a seemingly simple gesture that was used by a majority of users, mostly on the iPhone. As you might expect, this caused plenty of pushbacks on this. My guess is that it took the Craft team by surprise. Moreover, a new navigation sidebar design is also causing a some more pushback.

There is a recurring theme on Slack that people are tired of waiting for basic fixes while receiving questionable features they don’t see useful in general, not only for them. It’s a bit of a public relation crisis. Now my question, could this crisis be prevented? My short answer is yes. I gave a longer answer in my recent YouTube video… “A Proposal for Handling Users Feedback Differently” and published an article too.

Craft is a young company. They have plenty of things to learn, and managing expectations is certainly one of them. Managing or at the very least communicating a clear roadmap is another. It’s not enough to publish an article once a year on the company’s blog. Such messages need repetitive reminders and on more than one platform. If they would rather not share a roadmap, then they should probably stop using Slack and Circle. Those are discussion platforms where feedback and feature requests are expressed, albeit in a chaotic way.

What I’m starting to find really troubling and worrisome is the lack of fixes to obvious issues affecting many users, me included. And we are talking about long-standing issues here. Slack is full of users expressing their resentment for unfixed problems. Sure we get answers like “we’re on it”, “will check this out, thanks for the report”, “bla bla bla”. Actions speak louder than words. For the first time since I’m using Craft, I’m starting to wonder if I should reconsider my posture with my dependency on Craft.

Spending Most of Your Life Running a Blog

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 07:32:37 -0400

Kottke.org turns 25. It’s quite a remarkable journey. I didn’t know about this website until recently. I’m not a frequent reader of it, although I spent quite some time today on it to better get the gist of it. Yet, I’m barely sure how to pronounce it. But I’m quite impressed to see someone’s life spent running a blog and getting paid for it.

I’ve been into computer tech since I was a teenager. I’m 55 now. I learned quite a lot from writing software, doing digital photography, followed Apple’s story with avid attention. My creativity is at its best with computers. I even found my career by simply being exposed to computers.

For some reason, I didn’t know much about website hosting back then, even less about blogs. I didn’t pay attention, I guess. It’s like being a writer who didn’t know we could write books. This sounds strange.

I wish I had a blog for this long. It’s not the first time that I have written this thought. But Kottke.org turning 25 reminds me that I wish I were this guy. Can you imagine having written 40 000 posts? I don’t know if we can still read them all (it appears we can). You won’t find all my posted content since I first wrote my first post. And I keep deleting stuff while moving from one place to another because I think it makes no sense to keep all that.

Bravo to Kottke.org.

Here's The Weekend… Suggestions Instead of Infinite Social Media Scrolling...

Fri, 03 Mar 2023 17:18:12 -0400

It’s the week-end in a few hours, consider those suggestions by Shawn Blanc: A few alternative things you can do when you’re bored (instead of scrolling social media)

Here are a few alternatives to what I call the “Just Checks”.

– Scroll through your Day One timeline and read a previous journal entry or browse some old photos and memories.

– Launch Day One and log how you’ve spent your time so far for the day. Doing this for a few weeks can also be super helpful for getting a perspective of where your time and energy are being spent.

– Write down 3 new ideas. These could be articles you want to write, business ideas, places you want to visit or photograph, topics you want to research, date ideas for you and your spouse, gift ideas for a friend, etc. These ideas never have to to be acted on — the point isn’t to generate a to-do list, but rather to exercise your mind and build your idea muscle. Ideation and creativity are muscles, and the more we exercise them the stronger they get.

– Send a text message to a friend or family member to tell them how awesome they are.

– Don’t get out your phone at all — do some stretches or take a 5-minute walk.

Me? I’ll be creating, as always. Have a great weekend.

About This Special Apple Device

Fri, 03 Mar 2023 08:14:09 -0400

I couldn’t agree more with 9to5Mac here: There’s something special about the 2018 iPad Pro - 9to5Mac

The 2018 iPad Pro deserves a prominent spot in the Apple hardware hall-of-fame. No other product from Apple has remained so functional for so long without appearing long in the tooth. The 11-inch iPad Pro, specifically, has held up extraordinarily well for a product from nearly five years ago.

I used my iPad Pro quite often and for so many different use cases. During work days, it becomes a second screen next to my Apple Studio Display. At night, it’s a content-consuming machine. During the weekend, it’s a streaming device while I do some food.

There’s something else special about the 2018 iPad Pro: New features for any given year are often likely to make their way to cheaper versions of the same product given enough time. The 2018 iPad Pro hasn’t had to deal with this.

The 2018 iPad Pro feels snappy and a very capable device, except when Stage Manager is turned on. It’s not.

Upgrading from a 2018 iPad Pro would fetch you a LiDAR sensor, an ultra wide camera, 5G compared to LTE, and a modest new Apple Pencil feature with hover.

Next year I’m pretty sure to upgrade my aging iPad Pro. I’ll be looking for the hover capabilities with the Apple Pencil as well as get an upgraded screen quality with OLED.

Another Day, Another Discovery: TimeStory

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 18:51:09 -0400

After Anybox earlier this week, now is the turn of TimeStory to make its debut on my list of apps under consideration. About TimeStory, from the application’s website:

TimeStory is a Mac app for illustrating events on a timeline, designed to help you easily create plans and roadmaps, capture history, tell stories, and more.

I spent quite some time today on a project at work using TimeStory. I’m blown away by the simplicity and the craftsmanship that went into this app. It’s very focused, which makes it easy to learn. At every step of my experimentation with the app, I was met with an evident interaction and response from TimeStory. I built something that took me a few hours instead of days in MS Project. Consider me impressed.

I’m on the seven-day free trial. I’ll probably buy the app for two reasons: it brought me real added value in my workflow, joy, and some rewards along the way. Also, I can see a few use cases in my personal numeric life, for my Apple Rumours hub, for example.

We need more apps like this. Very focused, not trying to impress with undeeded features. On the Mac only. Native: AppKit + Swift. No subscription.

Oh, and I love TimeStory’s About page. It’s always interesting to learn about the behind-the-scenes story of an app. I hope this app continues to evolve and improve for as long as possible.

Testing Micro.blog Bookmarking Feature

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 20:49:09 -0400

For the first time today, I diligently tested Micro.blog’s bookmarking feature. I don’t know if this is a popular feature among MB users, but I wonder if I should find a place for MB bookmarks in my workflow. Let’s see a typical workflow.

So, I start reading an article from my now favourite RSS reader: Inoreader. I decide to open the source website and use the bookmarklet to save the page into MB bookmarks. After a few minutes, MB diligently created a readable article archive stripped of all the noise. Think of it as an MB version of Instapaper.

I open the newly created archive and start my reading. I find an interesting or very valuable passage that I select in the browser. MB shows a very gentle overlay titled “Highlight”. I click on it, and sure enough, the text gets highlighted. But that’s not all.

MB can display a list of all my highlights. If I find a highlight that I want to create a linkpost for, I simply click the “New post” button underneath it. And voilà, I can start writing my linkpost right there.

Moreover, MB offers a simple way to save a bookmark by entering the article’s URL into the provided field at the top of the “Bookmarks” section on the MB website. Very handy.

Bookmarks can be embedded in a blog post too. Just click “Embed” underneath a specific bookmark.

The only downside, for now, is the lack of data portability: bookmarks and highlights can’t be saved or exported outside MB.

The bookmarking feature is part of the Premium subscription tier.

Coming out of another rabbit hole…

Sat, 25 Feb 2023 17:22:50 -0400

👨‍💻 I’ve been extensively testing Inoreader recently and I have to say that as much as I like the service, I find the support for third-party services seriously lacking.

Inoreader supports many third-party services like Blogger, Telegram, Buffer, Evernote, LinkedIn, Hootsuite, Pocket, Google Drive, Instapaper, OneNote, Hatena Bookmarks and Dropbox.

It certainly a long list of services but the problem is that I don’t use any of them. I recently cancelled Buffer and Pocket. I’m surprised to see Blogger but not WordPress or Ghost. Who’s using Hootsuite these days?

I wish Raindrop.io or Notion would be supported, after all, both of these services support offer APIs. Too bad because with better integration often come more efficient workflows.

Building something around tags, IFTTT and RSS could unlock some form of automated workflow. For example, tagging an article would generate an article in a custom RSS feed built using Inoreader which would trigger an applet on IFTTT monitoring this RSS feed which in turn could create an entry in Things 3. The latter part is a challenge, though. IFTTT can’t talk to Things, but it can talk to Google Sheet.

Nothing is perfect I guess. 🤷🏻‍♂️

AI Comes to WordPress… Who Knew

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 08:09:35 -0400

The pervasiveness of AI is starting to look troubling at best. This week as I was heading to my WordPress admin page, I got this message at the top.

Who knew? I was curious so I read the official “AI Engine” plugin page on WordPress.org. Here’s something that I found dubious.

Five stars reviews only so far. I won’t have the pleasure to test this plugin or implement any of this on my website as I’m getting ready to move out of WordPress this year. Now, who’s next, Ghost?

The official plugin page can be found here.

A Typical Morning Rabbit Hole

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 08:27:05 -0400

I’m heading to Micro.blog and start reading on my timeline, I read someone’s post about note taking apps, mentioning how Bear Notes is great. I switch to Bear Notes website. After watching the introduction video, I head to the website’s blog section. Bear Notes certainly looks great. This particular blog post looks at how Bear Notes can work with other apps like Things 3 and Readwise. I wonder how I could use Brea Notes for my workflow. I’m reminded that we can export Readwise highlights in markdown files. I head to Readwise website and give it a try. I play with the export options for a while and export all my highlights, more than 1400 in total. Easy and quick. Next I wonder if I could import them in Craft. Yes I can. What about importing them in Ulysses. Yes I could. Then I remember that Ulysses, my go-to writing app, is great. And forget about Bear Notes.

Written and posted using Ulysses on my M1 MacBook Air.

The Computer is Wrong — Stay Critical & Curious

Fri, 17 Feb 2023 22:20:20 -0400

This evening, using an Apple Shortcut called Clips, I imported the « Apple in 2022 The Six Colors report card » by Six Colors into Craft. It’s a 25 000 article that I started reading on my iPad, within Craft. Then, fifteen minutes into my reading, I asked Craft assistant to summarize the Mac section. It came out with this summary:

« In 2022, Apple released the M2 MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Studio Display. The hardware in the Mac lineup is powerful and impressive, and the M2 MacBook Air has become a favorite of Mac users due to its light weight, zero noise, and long battery life, as well as its ability to handle workloads that used to require a pro-level desktop. macOS Ventura has some great features, but there is still backsliding represented by bugs that have gone unfixed and apps that don’t work well. While many users are disappointed that an expected Mac Pro did not arrive, Apple is still praised for their strong hardware lineup and the Mac Studio, which might be a success except for the long shipping delays. »

Because I’m an Apple pundit; I read a lot about Apple in general, I find this summary « plausible », but also because I read the entire Mac section of the Six Colors report. Otherwise, I could I really know? This is where this article ChatGPT from Matt Birchler comes into view « The Computer is Wrong »: it’s fun to play with ChatGPT or any derivative services but staying critical, curious is still a mandatory thing to be these days.

Eternally Unsatisfied With My Reading Apps

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 07:41:40 -0400

I’ve been a News Explorer RSS reader user for a long time. It’s a less-known RSS reader compared to Reeder or anything else. It’s really good, but missing a few things that keep bugging me. There is no web version, no filtering feature, and no text highlighting either.

I started testing Inoreader yesterday and Feedbin. Both seem good RSS readers, but none of them is satisfying. In fact, I’m never satisfied with anything when it comes to RSS readers and reading applications or services in general. It’s been going on forever.

Read-later apps are unsatisfying, too, for me. None of Instapaper, Pocket, Matter, and Readwise’s Reader satisfy my needs. Readwise is too busy and still immature, Matter is nice, but some things like tags handling don’t scale well.

The perfect combination of a read-later function with an RSS reader doesn’t exist. If I were twenty years younger, I would write my own.

Highly Troubling—Ops are Taking Over Apple My Friends

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 19:50:31 -0400

Don’t bother reading too much into the latest Apple financial numbers. They’re not too bad. What you should be paying attention to is this:

Apple is eliminating one of its most high-profile executive positions. According to a new report today, Apple is eliminating the role of “industrial design chief” as part of a broader shake-up. This role was once held by Jony Ive, and most recently held by Evans Hankey.

More specifically:

Under this new structure, the design team will report to Apple’s chief operating officer Jeff Williams. Source: Apple is eliminating its iconic ‘industrial design chief’ position

This comment by one of the 9To5Mac staff members is not reassuring at all:

I think it’s important to keep in mind, however, that Williams has been involved with the design team for several years at this point. Hankey has reported to Williams since 2019. The difference now is that the middle ground between Williams and the rest of the design team is being removed.

Maybe Hankey saw this coming and couldn’t adhere to this direction. Here’s my take: ops are taking over Apple, and design is no longer the top priority. It is utterly troubling to read rumours of Williams possibly replacing Cook which looks like being more of the same if you ask me. Maybe Williams has more design experience, but not as a first-party involvement. Troubling.

My Taxi Ride to The Past

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 07:36:20 -0400

I recently took a taxi ride to leave the airport as Uber taxis were unavailable and plagued with longer than usual delays. We were directed to the traditional taxi lines. I couldn’t use an app on my iPhone to call a taxi instead.

Boy, it was a trip in the past. The taxi driver had no Google or Waze open to know where to go, only his memory and his knowledge of the city. The taxi timer was this old and ugly box installed on his car dash, partially blocking his view.

It was disorienting not to get any feedback about how long the trip would go, what was the best road alternatives along the way, and not having a driver reputation score.

You would think that Uber would kick the butt of taxi companies so they evolve the customer experience and get their shit together to build a competitive experience, but no. They seem to have given up a long time ago.

My message to taxi companies: enjoy the ride while it last.

Integrating Adobe Enhance Voice Tech Into My Video Production Workflow — In Search of a Solution

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 12:56:15 -0400

I don’t know if anyone knows about this free web tool by Adobe: Enhance Voice (link), but it is really impressive (@MattBirchler knows about it). Here is what I’d like to do: find a way to integrate this tool into my video production workflow.

So, I’m producing YouTube videos with ScreenFlow (my YouTube Channel). So far, I’m ok with the results, but I think my voice, and the sound in general, could be improved (I’m using the Blue Yeti Microphone, but Adobe Enhance Voice is really impressive).

So, how can I:

Do my recording sessions as usual
Do my video montage as usual
Extract the audio track
Use Adobe Enhance Voice to re-process the audio track
Replace the audio track in my Screenflow document
Export the final video

Step 3 and 5 are not possible in the current release of Screenflow. Any suggestion of tools I could use instead?

Here’s what I know or already use:

Permute allows for easy conversion of audio files, including converting video files into the audio-only version.
QuickTime Player can export the audio track only out of a video file.
I know how to use iMovie.
I’m a happy user of Audio Hijack
I don’t really want to get rid of Screenflow. LumaFusion, FinalCut Pro, etc., maybe could do the job here, but it would be ok if I could find a simple utility that can replace the audio track easily instead.

This question has been posted to the Screenflow Telestream forum.

Update #1: corrected a few typos but added the solution using iMovie. Here’s the solution.

Do my recording sessions as usual
Do my video montage as usual and export the video
Extract the audio track using Permute in .MP3 format
Use Adobe Enhance Voice to re-process the audio track
Convert .WAV into .MP3
Launch iMovie and create a new Project
Import the produced video in step 2
Detach the audio track and delete it
Add the enhanced version of the audio track
Export the final video using iMovie’s share option

Voilà!

Update #2: there is a major issue with this process, the video and audio are not in sync over time, even though both files are of the same duration. This is not something easy to fix. Back to the drawing board. 😒

Thanks for Paying Attention

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 23:05:21 -0400

There’s this question that keeps popping up in my mind all the time since I’m being more active on Micro.blog. Why am I getting way more interactions with others on Micro.blog compared to Twitter? What am I doing differently? I write about the same subjects, albeit maybe more frequently. I think I have a few possible explanations.

First, Twitter is full of bots. Twitter is a dumpster. I suspect many people or organizations are simply cross-posting stuff on Twitter without real human beings behind the content. I did exactly that myself via Buffer for a few years. Optimizing exposure by scheduling posts at the “right” time was the idea. A bot worked for me.

Second, and this is probably the most probable reason: algorithmic timeline. The Twitter engine is tuned to generate higher engagement. The more you engage, the higher the probability that your content will appear on people’s timelines. If you’re well-known, again, the higher the likelihood that you will make it to the timeline of others.

I’m not well-known. I didn’t engage that much with others. Both made me a near-nobody on Twitter. So I didn’t get exposure, hence the lack of engagement with my content.

Third, there is just too much noise on Twitter to get noticed. My content competes against the rest of the Twittosphere. My context was noise for others, hence the lack of feedback, comments, and interactions.

Here on Micro.blog? Night and day. I’m not a star, far from it. But I get a sense that some people are paying attention.

Thanks for that anyway. 🤗

When Matter Made a Major Strategic Error

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 23:02:47 -0400

Today I spent some time in Matter to read a few articles. I went to the Staff Picks section, noticed those tweets between articles and remembered Matter's decision to leave the social portion in their early days. They preferred to go the Twitter route instead. That was before the Elon Musk fiasco. As you might expect, it was a deception for me, and I preferred Matter to build its own thing instead. I actually like to comment on articles and share my thoughts on them within the Matter sphere. Oh well…

How ironic things can sometimes be. I think the Matter team made a significant strategic error by dropping the social portion of their initial offerings, and they should reconsider their decision.

What's Really Behind a Subscription Fee?

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 18:02:38 -0400

This video from birchtree@mastodon.social resonated greatly with me today. Here’s why.

First, someone is finally calling out something about software subscriptions that I always wanted to call out myself. Every developer seems entitled to charge a subscription for whatever reason. Matt brilliantly illustrates that some subscriptions are ok, some are borderline ok, but others are not.

For applications like Notion or Craft, developers must pay costs for hosting the backend. For example, Craft’s backend seems to be on the AWS cloud. In that specific case, it’s clear that a subscription makes sense. So we must help the developers pay their bills, right?

Things get more controversial when the developers charge for a subscription, even though no backend services are required. Why would the developers go with a subscription model, then, you might ask? Well, this is where I want to chime in. The developers may not have to pay hosting costs, but what about their development time? It is as if we value infrastructure costs more than craftmanship time. It should not be this way.

I’m willing to pay for software or service using a subscription if the product comes with updates regularly. Matt has shown Tweetbot as an example. Well, this isn’t the best example because Tweetbot rarely gets any updates; it doesn’t fit my criteria for using a subscription. CleanShot X, absolutely yes. I recognize, through my subscription, not only the value of the service but the time it took to put it together and keep it running fine. I’m willing to support the developer for that through a subscription.

We pay 5$ for a drink that takes less than a minute to prepare at Starbucks. Why is it so hard to pay for developers’ time, spending weeks or months writing great software? Also, we must try to consider not only backend bills when deciding that a subscription is ok; craftmanship is something to pay for too.

Should Apple Offer AI-based Services at the OS Level?

Thu, 29 Dec 2022 10:32:06 -0400

In recent months, we’ve seen the addition of many AI-based features in apps like Notion and Craft, two apps that I know pretty well. Now I’m wondering if it would be a good idea that Apple integrates such features at the operating system level. Just like we can double tap a word in a text and get its definition from the dictionary, wouldn’t be cool if we could select a whole text and ask for a summary or anything involving the selected content? Apple would have to decide which AI sources to use or provide users a choice, just like for search engines. Any apps manipulating text would instantly benefit from this added capabilities. Your thoughts?

Which is Best for Photographers: Twitter or Flickr?

Wed, 28 Dec 2022 08:06:21 -0400

Which platform is best for photographer between Flickr and Twitter if you have about the same number of followers on both? You might think it’s Flickr? According to this experiment, you get 2x more exposure on Twitter, but you get 2x more engagement on Flickr. Things get even better on Flickr if your photo gets selected for Flickr Explore page.

The “views” count definition is not clear but I would think that Twitter’s definition is a wide one (I don’t trust them for being honest about anything). A tweet could get a view count if it goes through an API without guarantee of human actually seeing the picture.

Personally, I prefer engagement over views. This is something to expect I guess from a photo-sharing service like Flickr or Glass. Finally, this is an indication of Twitter being an empty promise for photographers.

Remembering Sad Souvenirs With Great Words and Images

Mon, 26 Dec 2022 22:11:40 -0400

Here’s a great visual recollection of a trip to Italy back in 2011, when Steve Jobs died. Great images. Gentle words. It’s not only about the iPhone as a great camera, but about Italy, a place I visited last summer, and how it felt to be there when Steve death made the news. Must see and read.

On Making Apple Lovable Again

Mon, 26 Dec 2022 12:07:33 -0400

The DMA holds the promise to return Apple to an earlier age without these gluttonous service and tax aspirations driving seemingly every major decision at the company. The EU just might make Apple lovable again by outlawing their monopolistic excesses. What a twist. Source: Apple’s big monopoly loss comes curtesy of the EU

For once, I agree with David Heinemeier Hansson. Apple’s arrogance is slowly killing all the magic.

30 Years of Platforms Learning

Mon, 26 Dec 2022 11:29:19 -0400

To celebrate my calculator app PCalc turning 30 today, I've written up all the history I can still remember:
http://pcalc.com/thirty
There's also a rare 30%-off sale, which runs until midnight tonight, PST:
Mac:
https://pcalc.com/store/pcalcmac
iOS:
https://pcalc.com/store/pcalc
A big thanks to everybody who has used PCalc during the last three decades!
James Thomson https://mastodon.social/@jamesthomson/109562907458479500

I never bought PCalc but for as long I’ve been following the Apple story, PCalc always was somewhere to be seen in a magazine, on the web or an App Store. What a great way to learn, explore over the years.

Thinking About 2023 and My Future Creative Projects or Experimentation

Mon, 26 Dec 2022 10:07:49 -0400

It’s the time of the year where I start to think of my upcoming year from a content creation perspective and as someone who likes to try new things. Here are a few things that I’m going to explore. First, as a subscriber of SoundCloud, I’m finding it hard to find content for my DJ mixing experimentation. More often than not, those publishing content on SoundCloud wants you to buy what's available on Beatport. Someone told me recently to use Beatport instead. I may switch from SoundCloud to Beatport for 2023. Second, I’ll continue my slow migration from Smugmug to my Exposure page. Smugmug was good but didn’t fit well with what I expected from a modern photo-sharing service. Third, I finally found a use case for recording videos with CleanShot. I’ll use it to add short video clips showing how to use specific features and tricks in Craft. Those clips will be added to The Craft Bible (a website dedicated to Craft, the document writing app) and will come as a complement to my YouTube channel. It’s fun to be full of projects.

Leaving the Nikon D750 Behind

Sun, 25 Dec 2022 19:53:06 -0400

Can you believe it? As an amateur photographer, I’m leaving my Nikon D750 home for my upcoming trip to Brasil. This trip certainly classifies itself as a once-in-a-lifetime event, yet I won’t bring my camera with me. There are a few reasons for this. First, I’ll be on a cruise ship for most of my twelve-day trip. Second, I don’t feel it’s secure to bring such gear to some parts of Rio or Sao Polo when we go off-board. Third, it’s tough to beat the convenience of an iPhone 13 Pro in the pocket. The Nikon bag with all my lenses feels quite heavy at times. I’ll see when I return home if I made the right decision.

A Few Takeaways About My Mastodon-Related Questions Today

Sun, 25 Dec 2022 19:21:23 -0400

Thanks to all who replied to my question regarding Mastodon. What a great community over here! Never had this in fifteen years on Twitter. 😊

Here are a few takeaways (many may be obvious, duh!).

Just like for emails, one cannot "reserve" a username in the Mastodon-friendly world. Makes sense.
Registering with a specific instance (or server) is mandatory just like opening an account with an email provider.
Using a custom domain that I own is something I should consider doing.
I should probably go ahead with my custom domain name for Micro.blog before doing anything related to Mastodon.
Setting my websites (I do have a few) to display my Mastodon username or profile is a good idea too.
Setting my Mastodon profile to display my website is another good practice.
Finding an instance I can relate to is probably the most daunting task if my research is any indication. I didn’t find any so far.
I still don’t understand how a Micro.blog compatible Mastodon name is helping in any of this.
Having a registered account on a Mastodon won’t do much for me. I already get everything I want on Micro.blog. People can follow me from their Mastodon instance, and I can, too, from Micro.blog.
Thinking about all this on Christmas day shows that I don’t have a life! LOL

Anyway, happy holidays to you all! 👋

A Few Observations on Apple's Latest AirPods Pro

Sun, 25 Dec 2022 12:56:50 -0400

I got a pleasant surprise under the tree for this Christmas🎄: AirPods Pro 2. Some observations: I would say the clicking sound when closing the lid is different, with a bit lower tonality. The setup experience is top-notch, of course. Sound quality is definitively upgraded with more present bass and deeper sound. Noise cancellation is better too. I’ll have to experience it in a noisy place like an airplane tomorrow. For my next trip, I will leave my AirPods Max behind (they are too big for sleeping on the plane) and use the new, much lighter ones and easier to travel with.

Comparing Elon Musk at Twitter to Steve Jobs at Pixar

Sun, 25 Dec 2022 11:36:49 -0400

When I read articles like this one from The Washington Post about Elon Musk’s current tenure at Twitter, I think about Steve Jobs's tenure at Pixar. Both are quite different leaders, but I think Steve Jobs had a much more positive impact on Pixar than Musk on Twitter. My comparison comes from the belief that Steve could be seen as a jerk or be very hard on people. Elon is certainly seen and behaves like a real jerk. His leadership image is being tarnished every single day.

The Digital Cleanup Continues

Sat, 24 Dec 2022 09:43:38 -0400

This morning, I visited IFTTT and Zapier to turn off ten applets which were using Twitter. My About page was updated to remove references to my Twitter accounts. While at it, I removed all references to Medium and GetRevue since they are no longer used.

I still have to figure out how I will follow people on Twitter who are valuable (there are a few) but refuse to move elsewhere. I might use News Explorer to follow them, cutting the noise because I refrain from using a Twitter client. It’s not a perfect solution because I would get all their replies which makes things noisy. Speaking of Twitter clients (Twitter & Tweetbot), these were removed from my devices too.

It is one of the most comprehensive digital cleanups I ever did since 2007. For the upcoming year: I’ll focus on the open web services and tools for publishing most of my content. There are a few exceptions: YouTube and WordPress.com.

I may sound a bit extremist.

Getting Ready for the Holidays and my Next Trip

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 12:24:59 -0400

Closing out my working session with my office for the holidays. What a year it was. Now is the time to finally get ready for Christmas and everything that comes with it. Next, on December 26th, we’re leaving Canada for Brasil and our first cruise trip in five years! 😅

After Closing Twitter, Medium Will Be Next

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 22:49:07 -0400

The next victim of my "digital cleanup" will be my Medium account. Even though I stopped writing original content there a while ago, I currently get a few cents a month of revenue, maybe a few dollars when I’m lucky. It’s tough to expand the readership over there. My revenue used to be enough to pay for my Partner Program annual membership, but not anymore. All in all, the time has come to move on.

An iPhone + a Belkin iPhone Mount + macOS Ventura + FaceTime Call

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 21:07:00 -0400

I finally tested a FaceTime call with my iPhone 13 Pro and the Belkin iPhone mount with my M1 MacBook Air running macOS Ventura. The setup was easy. iPhone automatically detected as a possible camera source within FaceTime. The image quality was obviously top-notch. The sound was great too. The tabletop feature required a bit of tweaking but eventually led to good (but not “top-notch”) results.

The only problem is the weight of the combined iPhone 13 Pro with a case and the Belkin mount: the screen panel of my MacBook tends to move back during the call. Oops. 🤣

More is Indeed Better on Micro.blog

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 16:58:14 -0400

I receive more user feedback or interactions in a day here on Micro.blog than in an entire month on Twitter. On top of that, the quality is 100x higher too.

Think about that for a second.

Thank you guys!

Musing About Writing Needs And This War

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 13:36:26 -0400

Earlier this year, back in May I think, I started a subscription to Write.as. Why? I was curious about this platform for writers and there was a special for a five-year subscription. So, why not! Then I started to write about my reactions to the war in Ukraine. I wrote maybe a dozen of posts on this subject. I had to let go my feelings. Then I stopped. But I still follow the news about this senseless war. I’m still in state of mixed feelings ranging from feeling helpless, frustrated, desperate, raging, etc.

Now, I don’t know what to do. Should I continue writing on Write.as or move my written frustrations elsewhere? Here? I don’t know. Enabling posts import to my timeline from the Write.as RSS feed might be a good solution.

Tell me what you think about dilemma.

What I'll Lose By Leaving Twitter

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 09:25:59 -0400

As per my current analysis and preparation for leaving Twitter, here’s what I’m going to lose.

Access to product announcements, most of which I track because they are part of my workflows (Examples: Glass, Unsplash, Substack, Opal, Readwise, and 90 more). This could be hard to replace, not all websites support RSS feeds.
Access to some public services status messages like special events or some type of alerts.
Two of my Brews on Mailbrew that are entirely based on Twitter content will need to be deleted.
Interaction with people following me who won’t leave Twitter to go elsewhere. I rarely get replies, though. Not a big loss.
According to [my Plausible page](https://plausible.io/numericcitizen.micro.blog), 50% of visitors coming from non-direct sources are coming from Twitter. One way to mitigate this is by enabling RSS feeds and letting people no in advance other ways to get in touch.
Quite a few of my published articles or blog posts refer to my tweets as links or embed. They won’t show up anymore when I turnoff public access to my tweets. That's not cool.

But, I'll gain other things too. That's for another post.

Write.as: Are You Fediverse Friendly?

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 21:57:37 -0400

Write.as and Fediverse support (or lack of):

Write.as doesn't render the URLs of both the toot and the PeerTube video. The HTML embedding code does work, but the rendered video is not responsive and doesn't blend well with the page on mobile.

My guess is that we will see changes to Write.as to make it more Fediverse friendly.

Assign to All Desktops - A Must Know macOS Stage Manager Trick

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 21:01:09 -0400

Updated my last Mac to macOS Ventura and discovered something super useful when using Stage Manager. If you want to have an application always visible, make sure to select “Assign To: All Desktops” from the application icon in the Dock. This is particularly useful with the Finder so we can easily do drag & drop of a file into the active window; the Finder needs to always be available for this to be possible.

Why Close My Twitter Accounts? Here Are My Five Reasons

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 15:13:32 -0400

I think it is essential to elaborate on why I will close my Twitter accounts in 2023. This is not something to do lightly. So, after much thought, here are my five main reasons.

I disagree with the values and views as they are expressed by its new owner: Elon Musk. Even if he resigns, it won’t matter much. Elon Musk has broken too many things since he became the owner. Twitter is a broken platform and cannot be trusted.
I no longer want to feed the beast (user tracking, advertising networks, algorithm-based timelines). I won’t pay to get rid of 50% of the ads or whatever Musk decides to ask for.
I no longer trust Twitter’s sustainability and ability to thrive in the future. Twitter has become a loser in my digital landscape. If anything, Twitter has become the other wake-up call for the toxicity of a centralized web. The time has come for decentralizing the Internet.
Twitter doesn’t add significant unique value to my digital life anyway. Most of what I’m getting from Twitter can be found elsewhere.
Before I decided to close my accounts, I wanted to focus on one of my two accounts anyway (numericcitizen) instead of apple_observer, but it doesn’t have enough traction to warrant the efforts for the change.

What are your reasons?

Installing Windows in 2022

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 10:44:28 -0400

I just spent part of my morning installing Windows 10 version 22H2 on a virtual machine with VMware Fusion 12 on my recently acquired 2013 Mac Pro. God, it’s been a long time since I experienced the Windows installation process. It is so freaking slow (way faster to install a Linux machine, BTW) and with so many reboots. I still prefer Apple’s macOS in that respect.

My Experience With Tidbyt LED-Based Display

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 08:02:32 -0400

After six weeks of waiting, I finally got this little LED-based display called “Tidbyt”, a reference, I guess, to the old Lite-Brite game which came out in 1967 (I had one when I was a child).

Tidbyt is an intelligent wireless LED-based panel that displays content configured from the Tidbyt app available on a smartphone. Physically, the device feels high quality and well-designed and is framed with real wood, reminiscent of mid-century furniture.

Content is configured using applets that you put together on a canvas. The display content will switch from one applet to another in the order defined on the canvas. Applets can be set to display only on a specific schedule, but the scheduling options are rather limited. It’s very simple to set this up.

Once the display is plugged into power via its USB-C cable, it will wait for the configuration to be done from the smartphone, a six-step process. Bluetooth is required to detect the display, and a Wifi network is required for the display to get its data from the Internet.

The applets catalogue is growing but still is relatively limited. Thanks to an SDK and open APIs, developers constantly add new ones. The display is bright and can be adjusted according to a manual setting or time of the day. There is a night mode, too, if you want to put the device in one bedroom.

The screen resolution seemed low at first, but from a distance, it is surprisingly good, enough to display small images.

All in all, the Tidbyt makes a great addition to my home office, and people at work have already noticed it during Teams meetings and are asking questions about this little thing sitting on the shelf behind me.

On Twitter's Attention Seekers

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 09:32:21 -0400

On Twitter, you can get notified when someone starts following you. Sounds great until it isn’t. You know, many people will start following others to get attention about their existence, hoping to get a follow back. It’s easy to know they are seeking your attention because after a few days they will unfollow you. I always despised this behaviour. For this reason, I prefer Micro.blog’s lack of notifications when someone starts to follow me. I don’t pay attention.

Rewind: Thanks but No Thanks

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 08:32:44 -0400

After watching a recent video from Matt Birchler about Rewind, a constant screen recording utility for the Mac, I was excited to give my email address and get onboard the waiting list for early access to the app. I got my invite a few days ago. As much as I would like to test this app, here's this deal-breaker for me: 20 US$ per month to get on the early access program, no thank you. Why?

I understand Rewind is still in beta, but the developer wants me to pay for testing the application. Shouldn’t it be the other way around so I get a rebate when the app goes out of beta? I mean, even with a 30-day “trial” I still can’t get over this. If it’s 20 US$ a month now for the early access, what will be the price of the final product then? Even more expansive?

Rewind makes me think of CleanShot, and I find Rewind’s pricing overly expansive if I think about the scope of both apps.

Rewind is a great idea, even if it pauses many security risks, but I’ll pass for now.

The Cost of Twitter

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 22:57:27 -0400

I could save more than a whopping 400$ annually by shutting down my Twitter accounts. Thanks to the potential removal of a few service subscriptions from my workflow and potentially unjustified without Twitter in my digital life: Buffer, Typefully, Mailbrew.

It’s incredible how thinking about my Twitter reliance makes me realize so many things on so many levels in my content creation workflow.

Less Than 1%

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 21:12:23 -0400

The longer you’ve been on Twitter (I joined in 2007), the more likely that most of your followers are inactive accounts. My guesstimate would be that less than 1% of my followers are actually active, and even fewer actually care about what I’m saying or posting. So why on earth, give a damn?

Twitter Is Xenophobic Now

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 18:40:36 -0400

I’m in violation of Twitter’s guidelines because I do promote content coming from other social platforms. I do use Linktree and have my Linktr.ee URL set on @numericcitizen.

This new "Promotion of alternative social platforms policy" on Twitter deserves memorializing for the pure idiocy of it.

Jamie Thingelstad https://www.thingelstad.com/2022/12/18/this-new-promotion.html

"Accounts that are used for the main purpose of promoting content on another social platform may be suspended.".

Twitter Down, Micro.blog Up

Sat, 17 Dec 2022 09:37:46 -0400

I would love @manton to speak out about how the current Twitter turmoils, people flocking to Mastodon, and the ability to follow people over there right from my Micro.blog feed is increasing Micro.blog engagement, subscriptions and general usage. Personally, I’m much more active than before.

On "Load Bearing Mac Mini"

Sat, 17 Dec 2022 09:33:56 -0400

Is this true?

12 years ago, Twitter’s office used a Mac Mini to tunnel into the servers. One day, an IT guy found it in the closet.
“Anyone know who owns this?”
“Unplug it. Someone will show up.”
Everyone lost access to servers. Huge crisis. It became known as the “Load Bearing Mac Mini.”
https://mastodon.social/@sandofsky/109434832011074072

Mailbrew, Typefully and Twitter

Sat, 17 Dec 2022 09:27:42 -0400

I finally found how to reconfigure my Mailbrew account to log in without using Twitter. Good thing. I don’t log in often in Mailbrew, but this morning I learned that I’d need to adjust many things when I close my Twitter account. As an example, this newsletter setup will need to be revisited to remove any references to Twitter as a data source.

Mailbrew is an excellent tool for generating newsletters, but it hasn’t been updated for quite a while (October of 2021, according to the change log). The developers behind Mailbrew are too busy working on their other product: Typefully, a web service for writing Twitter threads. I’m subscribing to both services. Typefully was cool when it launched but being entirely dependent on Twitter puts them in danger IMHO. I don’t use Typefully much, preferring Buffer for scheduling cross-posted content to Twitter, something Typefully doesn’t support.

It’s sad to see Mailbrew coming to a halt. Typefully will go down the drain with my Twitter account closure next year.

The Stars of the Show for 2022 Are...

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 22:15:40 -0400

If I look back at my software usage in 2022, three stars stand out:

Raycast
Things 3
Screenflow

Raycast was a revelation. It is so pervasive in my workflow that I feel lost when returning to my iPad for serious work. I underutilize Raycast for sure. It's free and constantly evolving.

Things 3 returned after more than a year of trying Apple Reminders and Craft Daily notes. It was a futile exercise. Things 3 is beautifully supporting my content creator workflow. Managing to-dos has never been so enjoyable.

Screenflow is essential to my YouTube video creation workflow. I don’t use FinalCut Pro, Luma Fusion or anything that sophisticated. I could use Screenshot screen recording too, but Screenflow is really the simplest and most focused video creation app out there that clicks with me.

I love using great software.

Twitter — It’s Really Getting Worse

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 08:06:30 -0400

According to media and users on Twitter:

Many Twitter users added a Mastodon profile link into their bios as the Twitter alternative picked up steam. Now, any links to blocked Mastodon servers are disabled and accompanied by the text “Warning: this link may be unsafe.

And

Twitter on Thursday evening suddenly suspended several high-profile journalists who cover the platform and Elon Musk, one of the richest people in the world, who acquired the company just a few months ago.

Hours after the suspensions took hold, Musk faced off with one of the journalists he suspended in a Twitter Space audio discussion before an audience of more than 30,000 listeners. The suspended journalist, along with several others, found a backdoor way onto the platform through the website's audio function.

“You doxx, you get suspended. End of story. That's it,” Musk said, explaining his latest policy to the group, before he left minutes after having joined the discussion.

Wow. What a shit show. After suspending targeted individual accounts, now it appears it is getting more systematic. Is there an employee at Twitter capable of saying no to Musk even if it means being fired? Or is Musk at the command and personally disabling those accounts?

Twitter is turning into USSR with a fake free-speech proponent leader.

Hands Down to Hand Mirror Plus

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 22:31:08 -0400

Just got my notice for the Hand Mirror update today. The latest release offers a paid version, for which I gladly paid. Why? Hand Mirror is a great example of useful software with attributes of the work of great craftsmanship. It was an instant buy because of this. The onboarding screen is simply gorgeous.

Eyeing the Rumoured 15-Inch MacBook Air

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 19:31:28 -0400

Apple’s rumored 15-inch ‌MacBook Air‌ is expected to feature the same general design as the 13-inch ‌MacBook Air‌ that was released in 2022 with flat edges, a large Force Touch trackpad, a keyboard with function keys, and more. It will also likely include a MagSafe charging port, upgraded speaker system, and a 1080p camera. Source: 15.5-Inch MacBook Air Expected to Launch in Spring 2023 - MacRumors

This year, as an M1 MacBook Air owner, I decided to skip the M2 MacBook Air. The differences aren’t significant enough for me to upgrade, performance and design-wise. But getting a bigger display in a light package without going to the Pro line is a different story. It won’t come cheap, for sure. Count me in the line up.

Exit Plans are Important — Learning the Hard Way With Twitter

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 12:07:42 -0400

Exit plans are important. My Twitter exit planning reminds me that we all should have some sort of exit plan for anything we use and depend on online. Every building has an emergency exit plan. Businesses who subscribe to cloud-based services need to plan their exit in case they no longer like their cloud provider. The same should be planned for using services like Twitter. Having a plan is one thing but maintaining it is quite another. I’m learning my lesson the hard way my friends. More to come soon.

Twitter Is the Uneeded Intermediary and How I'm Planning to Get Rid of It

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 07:54:43 -0400

Whenever I want to go to Twitter, I should remember that Twitter is mostly a big dump of content originating from other places. So, why not consume content at the source instead? In my journey to a Twitter-free world, I’ll need to rebuild my habits of visiting the following places:

* Techmeme: for consuming news;

* RSS Reader: for consuming news and articles;

* Telegram: for consuming news;

* Mailbrew: for consuming content;

* Hackernews: for discovering content;

* Reddit: for consuming content, exploring and discovering new content;

A special mention about Mailbrew is required here: a portion of the content generated in my private newsletters comes from Twitter. I’ll need to revisit this sooner than later. Thankfully, Mailbrew supports RSS feeds as a content source. But then, maybe using my RSS reader will render Mailbrew mostly useless?

On Rumours of Apple Working on Its App Stores Overhaul

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 21:18:18 -0400

Bloomberg:

Apple to Allow Outside App Stores in Overhaul Spurred by EU Laws.

Boom. If true, it’s massive. I can imagine Apple's engineering efforts to make it happen for WWDC 2023. I wrote earlier this year that I changed my mind about sideloading apps on the iPhone. I still stand with my change of heart. I expect the iPhone experience to suffer with increased complexity for ordinary users. Not by much, but somehow, things will have to change to accommodate new workflows. It’s not an easy task to keep things simple. I trust Apple to find a good compromise.

I don’t expect to use apps installed from other sources, except if there is a significant pricing difference or if it’s a unique app not available otherwise.

On Apple's Freeform and Tools Palettes

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 20:49:47 -0400

Freeform, the visual and collaborative application from Apple, is finally out for the iPad, the Mac and… I spent some time with it on the iPad and found it enjoyable and deceptively minimalistic. On the Mac, once updated to Ventura 13.1, Freeform can be used to continue working on the content, albeit with a different set of tools, since there is no Apple Pencil support over there. One question is, why is the tools palette on the iPad different from the one with Apple Notes? I mean, there are pencils or crayons that I prefer on Notes over the available choices in Freemform’s palette. Following is a comparison of both. At the top is the Apple Notes tools palette. At the bottom is Apple’s Freeform. The latter seems a bit childish, too simplistic. I really wish there were more pencil types.

Other than that, I didn’t test the collaborative work with someone else. I see Freemore as more for individualistic creative work. I’m not sure yet if I’ll ever make good use of it. Certainly not at work, as we’re more of a “Microsoft” business. Time will tell.

Starting a Journey to My Twitter-Free Digital Life

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 09:14:45 -0400

After much thinking and due to recent events on Elon Musk’s Twitter, I’m starting to put together a plan for phasing Twitter out of my digital life entirely. The journey will be long, and I made it to be one of my goals for 2023.

Twitter is well entrenched in my digital life. One example of this is the Mailbrew service that I’m subscribing to: sign in requires my Twitter account. Duh. Lots of generated newsletter content is pulled off Twitter. Duh.

I’ll need to be methodical in pursuing a better digital world. I’ll learn a lot about along the way and probably reconsider many aspects of my digital workflows.

From now on, I’ll use the “Qwitter” category for these posts.

Following Mastodon Users From Micro.blog

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 22:03:59 -0400

[@anildash@mastodon.cloud](https://micro.blog/anildash@mastodon.cloud) I've been improving our ActivityPub support in Micro.blog. Just posted a video earlier today that you might find interesting: www.youtube.com/watch

Manton Reece https://micro.blog/manton/14888307

Thanks to this video, I understand that I can follow Mastodon users right from Micro.blog.

When Ukraine Is Home of Great Software Makers

Mon, 12 Dec 2022 21:10:32 -0400

I recently wrote my satisfaction about Readdle’s Documents.app on-boarding experience on the iPad. Now I’m reading about Spark’s cleverness take on emails. Without being as opinionated as Hey.com, Spark is a serious professional email client. Readdle’s home is Ukraine 🇺🇦 too. I’m considering integrating both software in my toolset. All good reasons to show some support to them.

Welcome to the TwitterDump

Sun, 11 Dec 2022 17:03:12 -0400

I’m not a Qwitter. I don’t think I’ll ever close my Twitter account. But, there will be a day where I no longer post original content on Twitter, only cross-posting stuff from other sources. That day, I’ll refer to Twitter as the TwitterDump™.

Another Day, Another Rabbit Hole

Sun, 11 Dec 2022 16:08:59 -0400

Well, I almost forgot about it. Today I received my invite to start testing Post.news; another potential exit door from Twitter.

From what I’m seeing, there is already quite a few people in there and I like the posting experience so far. It’s way easier to setup than anything Mastodon-related. Yeah, I know, it’s not the “federated” & “open web” et al., but hey, it’s not Elon Musk’s Twitter!

The Most Divisive Mac Pro Is a Thing of Beauty

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 16:15:47 -0400

This week, a new Mac joined the family. The 2013 Mac Pro. I always dreamed of owning one. It’s probably one of the most singular Macs Apple has ever designed. Yes, it has limited expansion. Yes, it is not the Pro Mac that the pros wanted back in 2013. Yes, you need to unplug everything from the machine to open it up. It’s borderline baffling. But this hardware piece, just like the monolith in the 2001 Space Odyssey movie, seems to come from an alien planet, far from earth. Once plugged in and turned on, you can hear it barely humming, just like in any space station depicted in science fiction movies.

I’m starting to use this Mac Pro for a project that requires an Intel processor. You can read about it here if you are curious.

Glass Is Evolving Nicely

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:29:55 -0400

It’s good to see Glass introduce new methods for discovering photos on its platform. I would love to see percentages relative to each camera and smartphone brand. Searching by lenses tells us that Nikon is way behind Canon regarding diversity and representation. Can’t wait for Glass’s next move.

The Password-Less Future Looks Bright and Secure

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 08:01:41 -0400

For the first in years, I just bought something from eBay. Man, this website design sucks and seems to date back to the early web. Is there anyone who cares about design at eBay? Anyway, they do care about security, though. Upon logging in with my password this morning, there was a popup asking me if I wanted to get rid of my password. I thought it was the eBay website that was about to turn on the Touch ID but instead asked me to confirm the passkey creation. It took me a confirmation with my finger on the Touch ID sensor on my M1 MacBook, and voilà, no more password required! That’s super cool.

Upgraded to MarsEdit 5.0...

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 22:53:40 -0400

Because native software is cool. Because indie developers are cool. Because it supports Micro.blog but not Twitter. Because it is cheap. Because it’s a small company. Because their new Micropost (markdown) editor is nice, perfect for posting on Micro.blog. It is frictionless. Micropost & micro.blog, any coincidence? Mmmm.

Anyways… it’s a great update that I’m currently testing. Returning to normal programming.

Written from the couch, on my M1 MacBook Air.

Twitter’s Essentials

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 08:00:00 -0400

I read about so many people flocking to Mastodon, leaving Twitter behind. I actually started to see a definitive decline in my followers number. Something is really going on. I myself started to think about the possibility of leaving the platform too. Just like I did with Facebook, Flickr, and Tumblr, only to leave a place where my content is simply cross-posted from another source without a real and active presence of mine. Twitter could be next. Really. I could live without the traffic influx from Twitter, which represents about 15% of all my visitors.

There is one thing that it would be hard for me to leave behind, though. If it wasn’t about the war in Ukraine, it would be an easy decision. The problem is that I follow a few people and news sources that diffuse their content on Twitter. Is there a Twitter equivalent for this type of small blips of nano content? I don’t see that in Mastodon yet. RSS feeds are not a platform but transport. The next Twitter has yet to emerge.

Clear Thoughts on a Confusing iPad Lineup

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 07:21:48 -0400

There we have it, a new iPad, a new iPad Pro, joining a growing and more confusing iPad lineup than ever. I won’t repeat the best comments from MacStories (“Apple Announces Strange New iPad and iPad Pro Lineup“) and Six Colors (“The iPad’s erratic odyssey continues”). How are this week’s announcements influencing my buying decisions?

I’m currently using a 2018 11-inches iPad Pro. Going to the 2022 M2 iPad Pro would be a significant step, at least from a processing power perspective. Should I stay on the 11-inches size or go to the 12.9-inches version and get a big screen upgrade? Using this new iPad as a photo-processing machine and as a second screen to any of my Mac would undoubtedly support the bigger iPad. But what a weird setup this would make to use a much-better secondary screen like the 12.9-inches iPad Pro on a 2020 M1-based MacBook Air machine. There is no comparison to be made.

In its video clip of fewer than five minutes, Apple is positioning the latest iPad Pro weirdly and surprisingly: the best machine to experience the “exciting” Stage Manager. What a strange way to present the iPad Pro. It will undoubtedly help but having to buy an expensive iPad to get a different and questionable way to multitask on a tablet is doubtful.

Oh, and what a missed opportunity to have Freeform ready simultaneously and present it as the best way to collaborate in a creative environment! We will have to wait until “later this year” to come to get a sense of Apple’s vision of collaborative work. Oh, and Final Cut is still MIA. Instead, Apple continues to rely on third-party apps to show how powerful the iPad Pro actually is. Thanks to DaVinci Resolve or Affinity, when they ship their new beast of software. Later. Eventually.

I don’t know why but my feeling is that the 2022 iPad Pro is only a transition machine, and the real deal will be next year’s update. Oh, and these keyboard choices are as strange as all the rest.

I’m unsettled. 🤔

Adobe, Lightroom and the Camera

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 07:00:14 -0400

The Adobe Max conference was held this week. With each conference comes a slew of new application update releases. I’m not really into Adobe ecosystem except for using Adobe Lightroom on the Mac and the iPad Pro. This is my main photo processing engine, coupled with the excellent Pixelmator Pro. For About a year, Adobe spent some of its development money to “augment” Lightroom, a photo-processing application, with video-processing features. Why? I don’t get it. I don’t want it.

As Adobe is adding video-processing features to Lightroom, I fear they are making it less focused and slowly becoming a bloated piece of software, on the outside but also the inside. Adobe Lightroom’s mission was to start over and make a new solid foundation apart from its aging Adobe Lightroom Classic.

I want Adobe to focus on photography; they already have video-processing apps like Adobe Premiere!

I’d love Adobe to focus on making the camera feature compete with a dedicated camera app like Apple’s camera app or Halide or Camera+. I cannot remember when the last release of Adobe touched this portion of Lightroom in significant ways. Why is it important? As a subscriber of an Adobe photography plan, I would use the Lightroom camera more, and my images would directly go to the Adobe Cloud, just like the Apple camera app saved photos in iCloud. It would be so much more convenient. I prefer Adobe cloud for my RAW images instead of having to transit my RAW photos through the Apple Photos library. The more Adobe improves the built-in camera module of Lightroom, the more I’ll stay within Lightroom while in a photography moment.

On This AI-Generated Podcast Interview Between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 07:08:47 -0400

What. The. Fuck.

This podcast example about a fake interview between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs is a blatant example of where some more thoughts should take place before putting high tech to work. What is the purpose of this? Is this a tech demo or some bad-taste proof-of-concept? It’s not hard to imagine how it could derail in the future when used in politically-heated contexts. Oh, and no, I didn’t waste my time listening to this garbage, and I won’t share the link to this podcast, either.

Image credits: generated using Dall-E with the following phrase: “an hand drawn Mac computer that never existed digital art”

When the iPad Is No Longer a Novel Device

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 06:44:07 -0400

As I write this, rumours are pointing to an imminent release of some updated iPads today. What is novel this time is not the CPU to be used, the screen attributes, or the long-awaited app called Freeform. What is novel is the fact that there won’t be an Apple event for the announcement but a few well-crafted press releases. Apple judges the updates as not worth tech pundits’ time, flight to Cupertino, or even a secret press briefing.

I would argue that we are officially entering the iPad commodity era. Thanks to Apple, who neglected to show the iPad’s true potential with a ported version of powerful apps like Final Cut Pro, a real multitasking experience, the iPad is becoming a mundane device. Putting an M2 processor in it won’t change the story here. Freeform, a low-profile app that Apple quickly demonstrated at the WWDC conference last June, won’t probably appeal to many, being late in the game of collaborative work and creativity. Even long-time bloggers and iPad believers like Matt Birchler are no longer waiting for the iPad to ignite the personal computing segment.

We will see shortly if Apple has a few surprises in-store today.

Photo credits: Photo by Niklas Hamann on Unsplash

The Waiting Game

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 15:37:33 -0400

In case you didn’t know, I’m a big fan of Apple (from the corporation, the products to the company’s history). Here’s a little secret: I maintain a document of possible upgrade paths for all my current Apple products. It’s fun. Yes, I’m a bit crazy.

Each year, during the fall, Apple releases a slew of new products. Each year, I spend some time updating my document to reflect my analysis of possible product upgrades. Take the iPhone for example. I’m currently using last year’s iPhone 13 Pro. I’m super happy with but I’m pondering the idea of upgrading to the iPhone 14 Pro Max. So, I list all the reasons why I should do it and all the reasons why I should refrain from doing the upgrade. It’s the same drill for my aging 2018 11-inches iPad Pro. Or my Apple Watch Series 6. It’s quite fun and educative because for each product, I spend quite some time studying it and pondering their technical advances over my current product. It’s really fun. And crazy.

This year, it’s a bit different for some reasons. There’s still nothing in the Apple tech landscape that could trigger a purchase. Not yet. Rumours about an upcoming iPad Pro refresh and a more powerful Mac mini with an M2 are aplenty. Things could change in a few weeks.

But, seriously, what is more fun than anything else is the waiting game. Pleases come while waiting for something to happen. I read somewhere that people who wait patiently to get something are more happy in life than those who succumb rapidly to fill their immediate needs. I must be quite happy then.

Header photo credits: Photo by Zhiyue on Unsplash

On the Dynamic Island Inception and Possible Future

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 18:39:36 -0400

A recent Twitter thread about the possible iPhone Dynamic Island inception by Matt Birchler caught my attention a few days ago but couldn’t find the required time to write my take.

How long could Dynamic Island have been in gestation at Apple? A few weeks, a few months? I think this has been in the works for quite some time. Besides the visual appearance, the API goes with it and needs a design period too. I’m sure Matt understands and knows about that. I would argue that Apple worked on this way before this year’s announcement. Best integration between hardware and software takes time because of how Apple is internally structured. Secrecy plays a significant role in making things longer to achieve too. Apple plan’s for the long run, and I think the pill shape was set in stone last year.

The second thing that caught my attention is this: How long will Dynamic Island be with us? What if Apple can make the camera disappear under the iPhone’s display? Would this make Dynamic Island pointless? No. My take is that the feature is here for the long run, even though the camera and all other sensors could disappear entirely. Apple is training us to accept Dynamic Island as a fundamental part of the iPhone experience. We may even expect the feature to be the de facto standard of the best iPhone user experience. I don’t think we will revert to the previous design that Dynamic Island is taking care of. The black pill share could be dynamically removed when not required but could then pop up to respond to the current context dictated by the user interaction.

The Dynamic Island is such a terrible name but the feature in itself is brilliant, so Apple.

Press Releases it will be — Next Round of Apple Products Releases

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 17:23:56 -0400

The way I see it, there is nothing in an updated MacBook Pro line with M2 processors and a tweaked iPad Pro line to warrant a keynote. There has to be something special, really special. iPadOS 16.1, macOS Ventura aren’t enough. The rumoured Mac Pro? Maybe, but no signals on its imminent release either. An updated Apple TV hardware? Nah. A larger MacBook Air (like 15")? Why now? That is why I agree with Gurman’s view and the next product release will go through a set of press releases later in October.

On Software Subscriptions

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 07:30:23 -0400

Tweetbot hasn’t been updated for over 6 months, I thought a subscription was going to mean more frequent updates? Source: Letting my Glass and Tweetbot subscriptions expire – LJPUK:

This blog post triggered the following thoughts.

The movement to subscriptions in the software landscape is MASSIVE but is far from being a guarantee of more frequent updates from the developers. I’m utterly infuriated when I see a yearly subscription for a small utility with a limited scope when no “lifetime” options are offered with reasonable pricing. Many devs are lazy, and greedy and send you a big middle finger.

Let Apple Fix All Bugs, Will Ya?

Tue, 20 Sep 2022 08:30:00 -0400

MacRumors in iPhone 14 Pro Owners Complain of ‘Slow’ Camera App - MacRumors:

Affected users are seeing the Camera app take four to five seconds to activate after the Camera app icon is tapped, with the problem occurring after the camera has been opened once already.

Coupled with other issues related to the camera and AirDrop, even though I’ll probably upgrade to the 14 Pro Max, I’ll gladly wait a few months before taking the plunge. But, fixes are coming very soon, apparently.

On iPhone Internal Design - as Important as the External Design

Tue, 20 Sep 2022 08:00:00 -0400

iFixit writing about the internal redesign of the iPhone 14 in “The iPhone 14 Feature Apple Didn’t Tell You About”:

This is the most substantial iPhone redesign since the X. It’s hard to understate how big a change this is. For a reference point, Samsung hasn’t changed their phone architecture since 2015.

So, with the biggest update in years, we’re upgrading the iPhone 14 to a repairability score of 7 out of 10. That’s the best score we’ve given an iPhone since the iPhone 7. This is the most repairable iPhone in years.

Who wrote that smartphones, iPhone in particular, have peeked? A fundamental redesign of the iPhone to make it more repairable seems not only a good move but a much-needed change of thinking. If Apple is serious about environment protection and carbon footprint, they not only have to think about the choice of materials but also the way iPhones are built so they are more easily fixed. Kudos to Apple. Why this design is only for the iPhone 14, not the Pro, is a mystery to me.

The more I think about it...

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 18:45:46 -0400

The more I look at reviews, watch YouTube videos and visit Apple.com, the more I realize that considering my current hardware setup, there aren’t many reasons to upgrade to the iPhone 14 Pro (currently with 13 Pro), the Apple Series 8 (currently with Series 6) or the AirPods Pro 2 (currently the original Pro version). The Apple Watch Ultra could be a reason, but I’m not the target customer for that one.

Waiting for October releases and going to the Apple Store tomorrow. Just for fun.

The Unexpected Pain That Comes With Lock Screen Customization

Wed, 14 Sep 2022 07:11:22 -0400

So, I’ve been testing iOS 16 since its early beta stage, and I love it so much. One of the best features is the customizable Lock Screen. But it also creates an issue, the same with Apple Watch watch faces: how to decide which widgets to use and place in those limited slots. There are more and more widgets available each day, but the space is so constrained. I cannot find a strategy to create a Lock Screen that I’m fully satisfied with. I end up creating many of them, but switching among them isn’t smooth, except if they are linked to a focus mode. It’s not a first-world problem, but it is annoying. I’m left with a sense of constant dissatisfaction.

What's Hot in Italy? Android or iPhone? My Observations

Wed, 07 Sep 2022 03:30:29 -0400

Here’s an interesting post by Gruber about Android vs iPhone’s relative popularity in different places around the world. I have some observations to share from my experience.

After spending three weeks in Italy for vacation, from what I could see, there was a lot of iPhone around me independently of the place I visited. Sure I saw many Android phone users too. But a majority were iPhone users. Regarding Android’s relative popularity in Germany and France, I would consider the possibility of an aversion for what Apple represents (an “American icon”) in those countries as a partial explanation. Maybe it’s not cool to support an American company like Apple?

Another interesting fact: WhatsApp is THE messaging service app people seem to use the most. iMessage isn’t popular in Italy, it seems.

Away from Apple's Far out event

Sat, 03 Sep 2022 04:43:26 -0400

Next week, Apple will release a bunch of new iPhone and Apple Watch. I think it’s the first time I feel so detached from this media event. I’ll still be in Italy on vacation. The “Far out” event will happen at 19:00 local time. I’m not sure I’ll be able to watch the keynote live since I’ll probably be having dinner or visiting a village. I don’t want to impose a stay at the apartment for that. I’ll watch the YouTube video when I’m back at the apartment.

M2 MacBook Air — Not Going To Happen

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 06:57:43 -0400

I paid a quick visit to the Apple Store yesterday to get a pack of AirTags and give another look at the M2 MacBook Air, especially the Midnight colour version. In principle, this colour is gorgeous, but in practice, I don’t think I would go with this colour if I were to upgrade to the M2 MacBook Air. It’s really a fingerprints magnet. I know my fingers can be “oily” at times, which would be even worse than in this picture. I like the idea of having black keyboard keys on a dark frame (like the MacBook Pro). Too bad. Another reason to postpone any upgrade plans.

AirTags Can Make a Difference

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 07:54:56 -0400

I want to chime in here, following the publication of this article from Om Malik about AirTags. I’m leaving for Italy in a few days. Knowing how bad the airport experience can get and reading those stories about airline companies’ inability to keep up and keep losing track of customers’ luggage, AirTags can make a big difference. I’m going to double-down on AirTags. I already own four, and I’ll buy another four before leaving, so I get my base covered. AirTags already saved me a lot of trouble in the past on more than one occasion by reminding me that I left something behind. It’s well worth the money.

Building a Photo Diary Using Craft — An Experiment

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 07:00:00 -0400

I started another experiment: a photo diary of my upcoming trip to Italy. I’ll be using Craft for this. My objective is simple: testing Craft for photography-related work. I explain why and how I will do it in much more detail on the website. Here’s the link.

Waiting for the Surprises

Sun, 14 Aug 2022 08:06:22 -0400

Interesting fact: I rarely look at pictures of the places I’m going to visit. I could go online and look at many images of Milan, for example, or all the other places I’ll be visiting starting next week, but I don’t. My trips are organized by my wife. She’s the one doing the scouting and spends hours looking at where we’re going. I’m the guy who spends hours post-processing images I’ll be taking during the trip, making our trip live forever.

How Apple Is Encouraging Developers to Have Their Own Identity

Sat, 13 Aug 2022 10:29:26 -0400

Telegram’s CEO, M. Pavel Durov, complains that Apple is making his life harder than necessary by having to wait for the review process to complete its job. When Apple finally accepts the update but requires him to remove the Telemoji package, he goes on to say:

… this will motivate Telegram to make Telemoji even more “unique and recognizable.”

He sounds like a whining baby. Thanks to Apple, Mr. Durov now gets the idea and his team will have to return to their drawing board and be more creative.

My Photo Publishing Flow for Italy

Sat, 13 Aug 2022 07:31:07 -0400

Following my post earlier this week, I finally found my publishing workflow for my vacation in Italy. From time to time, I’ll write a story on my Photo Legend Series. Glass will be for regular publishing of my best shots of the day. I’ll use Craft to build a photo diary, it’s part of another project. I’ll share the link when I’m ready. Finally, Micro.blog will receive posts from my blog and Glass via the RSS cross-posting feature. What I think will be my best photos of the vacation will go to Unsplash and Smugmug when I return from vacation and after post-processing them in Lightroom. Unsplash will only get a few of them, while the full set will go to my Smugmug page.

No, no, no, and no.

Sat, 13 Aug 2022 07:15:13 -0400

I’m sorry, Dropzone, you’re good but not that useful. I mean, for such a narrow-usage utility, I’m not going to pay that much monthly. I’m the one who buys and rent software but come on. It’s becoming ridiculous. Provide a lifetime contribution, and I’ll make the deal. You’re a feature, not a product. Delete. 😞

How fast do you need your internet to be?

Fri, 12 Aug 2022 07:07:21 -0400

A recent post from MereCivilian about subscribing to a fast Internet service triggered this one. Here are a few reasons for having fast Internet at home:

1. You’re many people (four or more) living under the same roof who are active Internet users;
2. You’re many users who are doing streaming at the same time;
3. You’re downloading or uploading really big files all the time;
4. You’re playing online games;

Other than that, high-speed internet is useless as each micro-transaction (small HTTPS requests) won’t benefit from the bandwidth available. In other words, a 100K web page on a 100 Mbits or 400 Mbits or 1000 Mbits link will take about the same time to load and render within your browser. Finally, consider the DNS service, which plays a big role in the latency involved while browsing the Internet.

On Ghost Explorer

Fri, 12 Aug 2022 06:58:51 -0400

This could be the best thing to come to Ghost in a long time: Ghost Explorer. And there is more coming next week, apparently 🤔. For someone who left Substack for Ghost more than a year ago, this is something that I was missing on Ghost. Now, it is much easier to get discovered. I guess. It remains to be seen if this will change the bottom line for me, though.

Wondering About Photo Journal for My Upcoming Trip to Italy

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 07:45:21 -0400

I’m two weeks away from a long trip to Italy, and I’m wondering about posting photos while on the trip, but where? Since I’m not active on Facebook or Instagram but have a SmugMug and Glass account, what will I do? My Glass and SmugMug accounts aren’t for photo journaling, after all. I’m very selective with those. Maybe I could create posts in my Photo Legend series on Ghost? Could I try experimenting with Craft and adding photos to a shared page? Unfortunately, Craft isn’t the best app for images. Craft is much more about written words. What about posting here, on Micro.blog, using Sunlit? Decision, decision, decision. 🤔

But, fundamentally, who cares about my trip to Italy? 😉

Less Colour Options at First, Introduce More Later

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 07:19:51 -0400

Color Options for All iPhone 14 Models: Everything We Know - MacRumors If iPhone 14 colour options are reduced compared to the iPhone 13 lineup, I think it’s because Apple is trying to reduce manufacturing options in a time of highly constrained manufacturing capacity. New colours could later be introduced like they did for the purple option this year.

About Heavy Camera Gear for Vacations

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 07:13:18 -0400

In The Weight Of Creativity – On my Om, Om Malik thinks about camera gears weight during trips. I’m on the verge of going to Italy for a three weeks vacation, and I’ll have to decide about the content of my camera backpack. As the iPhone is taking a more prominent role in photography, there are fewer incentives to bring heavy gear with me.

About This Reading Enabling Device

Wed, 03 Aug 2022 07:39:12 -0400

For many reasons that I’m aware of, I forgot that the iPad is the best device for reading and collecting information tidbits that are fueling my content creation workflow. The iPad enables me to effortlessly annotate and store content into Craft using a Shortcut. In fact, unsurprisingly, the iPad actually is a devide that invites reading sessions into my morning routine. I should use my iPad more often; I’ll probably read more consequently.

Switching from Instagram to ...

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 08:00:00 -0400

It is surprising and fascinating that we seem to skip Flickr or 500px as a replacement for Instagram when thinking like this about Instagram possible replacements. Those platforms should take advantage of the Instagram pivot to something other than photos. They don’t and they are missing an occasion to reinvent themselves. I’m a paid user of Glass and Smugmug, and I love them.

On Apple Silicon Macs and lack of Windows Support

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 06:49:02 -0400

Regarding the lack of Boot Camp on Apple Silicon Macs: I think that the lack of Windows support on Apple Silicon machines is hurting some buyers, me included. I’d like to be able to run Windows on a Mac, because of my job in IT. I came close to buying a Mac Pro to run VMware stuff. But who’s really at fault here, Apple or … Microsoft? Linux is another story, though. I’m not fully aware of current Linux compatibility with Apple Silicon, but I think it’s slowly coming. Oh, and don’t even try to mention Windows ARM to me. This thing won’t run on Apple Silicon Macs unless Microsoft and Apple actively cooperate on this.

The Lost of the Nobs

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 21:16:20 -0400

About the updated design of the media player on the iPhone with iOS 16 beta 4: this enhancement in iOS 16 illustrated by Six Colors is real. At first, I didn’t like the loss of the little and reassuring nob, but now the interface feels cleaner and yet shows some affordance as we now know what these lines are for.

Only 84 posts this year

Sat, 23 Jul 2022 08:53:48 -0400

Woah, I just paid a visit to my stats for Micro.blog. This year, I’ve got only 84 posts published; the lowest since 2019. It’s a bit sad because I like the platform, its values and the community. It’s not the first time I have lamented the lack of time elasticity. I have too many projects and fall into many rabbit holes. At the very least, I could tweak my routine to visit and post once a week. Vacations are a month away, but this could be the occasion to spend more time here.

The Disconnected Country

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 16:15:03 -0400

We’re currently experiencing a major and nationwide cellular network outage here in Canada 🇨🇦, thanks to Rogers telecommunication company. It’s been going on since early this morning. Everything seems affected in one way or another: phone calls, internet access, emergency calls via 911, travellers, banking services via Interac, and lots of public non-urgent services, just to name a few. We will need a few days to comprehend the ramifications of what happened. It’s a major event illustrating that big telco companies concentration like we endure here in Canada isn’t a good thing. Also a good (and sad) example of how badly we’re dependent on technologies for everything.

That Rabbit Hole that is named YouTube Videos Production

Sat, 02 Jul 2022 12:11:33 -0400

I felt in a rabbit hole with these YouTube videos production. Either it’s because Craft is such a great application to talk about, or I’m just discovering the subtleties of the video medium, and I like it a lot. Or it could be both. Either way, I have much less time to write and publish here or on other publishing platforms.

If you aren’t aware yet, I recently started a YouTube channel about Craft. I’ll definitively write an article on my metablog about my adventure. I’m learning a lot.

There’s no such thing as time elasticity

Sat, 18 Jun 2022 08:17:46 -0400

Since early June, I’ve been quite busy working and producing YouTube videos about Craft which left me no time for posting here. As seen in the following graph, YouTube videos production is now the lion share of my spare time schedule. 👀

I expect things to return to normal in the coming weeks as my recording and producing setup is complete. Creating videos takes about 2-3 hours of my time. Subjects that I want to tackle will eventually dry out. If you are wondering what’s those videos are really about, feel free to pay a visit to my YouTube Channel. Tell me what you think here or over there in the comments!

On The Myth of Lack of Mac Management Tools

Thu, 26 May 2022 06:35:44 -0400

Recently, during a discussion in a meeting at work, a colleague of mine was expressing his frustration about the fact that one of our customers was using Macs in its business. He went on saying the Mac is such a pain to manage and is an immature platform in the business world compared to Windows PC. I couldn’t help myself to tell him he couldn’t be farther than the truth.

Here’s the thing: of course, management tools and services are aplenty on the Windows platform. Why is that? Well, because it needs so much attention, so they can keep working! Just think of security-related software needed to keep hackers away from your machine full of security holes, thanks to Windows.

It was a “🙄” moment for sure. I think I’m on earth on a mission: to debunk false perceptions about the Mac.

I’m Not Publishing an iOS 16 or iPadOS 16 Wish List This Year

Tue, 24 May 2022 07:04:14 -0400

WWDC is around the corner. It’s usually the time of the year when tech pundits will work hard on their wish list for the next major revision of Apple’s iOS 16 and iPadOS 16. I typically do that myself. This year, though, I’ll skip the whole thing. Apple’s core operating systems are mature, low-hanging fruits are scarce. At this maturity stage, it seems that expressing our desires is more and more a matter of preferences, or interpretation of what could be better user experiences. I may sound bored. Maybe I am. Sure, I’d like improvements to the iPad like full external monitor support, but then what? Apple owns the agenda, decides how to move the needle and protect its bottom line. The rest is pure noise.

A Week of Software Releases in Review

Fri, 20 May 2022 06:58:13 -0400

Some weeks are busier than others for software or service updates. This week saw meaningful updates to many applications that I used daily.

Craft version got bumped to 2.2, a controversial update. Using the updated Share Page feature, my Craft wish list was completely reworked. According to the Craft community channels on Slack, people would rather prefer to see the core experience to be refined and straighten up. I’m one of them. It seems to me that there are many unfinished core features within Craft that are in need of attention. For example, the Share Page is super useful but we still miss the use of custom domain names or notifications from people who post comments. It’s not a deal-breaker but it is annoying and frustrating.
Matter, the new kid on the block in the read-later service space was updated too. The team behind Matter made a decision to focus more the product by dropping the social portion of it. Good move. The new update makes a lot of sense and is a joy to use on all Apple platforms.
Microsoft updated the beta version of Teams for Apple Silicon, latest public build May, 19th. Previous release provided a very buggy in-conference experience. According to people on Reddit, it seems to be fixed. I didn’t try it yet.
Apple’s platforms received a slew of updates. I was eagerly awaiting the Studio Display 15.5 firmware. I did a comparison of the image quality that I posted on Twitter. It’s not perfect but it’s a noticeable upgrade. Some more detailed video on the update.
Finally, I wanted to mention something about Glass. It wasn’t updated this week, but I had a chance to sit with the team behind Glass in a Zoom Q&A session. It was a nice talk. We had a chance to voice our delights or wishes for where the product should go next.

The Power of Instant Publishing

Wed, 18 May 2022 10:39:34 -0400

I’m currently working on a proof-of-concept to migrate one of my website to Craft using the application’s SharePage feature. The beauty of this solution is the simple fact that the content of the documents are always readily available on the web. Once the root document has been shared, there’s nothing more to do on my part. It’s the most frictionless experience to date. I find this powerful and satisfying.

My Reading Workflow Is in a State of Flux

Sat, 07 May 2022 07:25:24 -0400

First, I got back to Pocket and paid for the subscription. Then I added Readwise. Then I found Matter, and fell in love with it. I’m not sure why. I’m still waiting for Readwise Reader application. While waiting for it, what’s the point of Readwise, again? News Explorer is my go-to application for most of my readings via RSS feeds; I can save links as favourites, but I never do so. My reading workflow is in a total state of flux.

Which application or service should I use to bookmark articles that I want to read later? What should I prioritize in such application: organization of links or the reading experience? How is that fact that I collect more than I read should change my application selection? Comparing applications like Matter, Pocket, and Raindrop.io, I find many common features, which brings confusion to me. Matter seems better for reading, but Raindrop.io more complete at organizing links collections. Why can’t I have both in the same application? Craft is my goto application for drafting and writing my articles, but can save links with nice previews. Craft is lacking tags to organize objects and doesn’t offer a reading experience as it doesn’t save content from a link. Craft is of no help here in my reading workflow. And what about highlights, how do I create them and make use of them later? Matter is good at creating highlights, Raindrop.io recently added highlight support too, but that’s it. Oh, and RSS readers like Reeder or News Explorer can save links and add tags too. Finally, I wish I could find a great text highlighting extension for Safari, after all, it’s my goto browser.

To some degree, read later applications or services are still maturing, no solution is complete. This explains that, I guess.

Help, please. 😫

Photo by Javier Esteban on Unsplash

On Returning on Telegram

Mon, 02 May 2022 06:56:44 -0400

I’m back on Telegram, after closing my account about a year ago. I wrote about the reasons why on my story published on Micro.blog. Since the start of the criminal invasion of Ukraine by the Russian, I found out quickly that a lot of information about the conflict is being published on Telegram. I decided to come back and open a new account.

I read on Mr. Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram. Some compare him to Elon Musk. He’s opinionated, just like Musk. He has his views on Apple and technology. He seems to advocate user privacy protection. Furthermore, he flew from Russia because he refused to cooperate with the government, which was asking to leak information from Telegram users.

A few words on Telegram, my usage, its design and the application. It’s available on most of the Apple platforms, including the Mac. I like its design a lot. I don’t use it for chatting, only to receive messages from channels where comments aren’t enabled.

Only fools don’t change their mind.

On Keeping a Seperate Computer for Creative Work

Sat, 30 Apr 2022 20:23:20 -0400

In a recent article from Josh Ginter for The Newsprint, If found the idea of having a separate computer for work and one for creative activities interesting and I’m close to feeling the same about my personal and work life. I do most of my work on an M1 Mac mini, while my creative work is done on an M1 MacBook Air. My iPad is used as a second screen on my Mac mini or for some photo processing stuff with Adobe Lightroom. The distinction between two worlds gets blurry when you consider how the cloud brings those two worlds closer to each other. If you are like me and use a single Apple ID for all your Apple services, as soon as you set up iCloud on both computers, you’ll get access to the same “virtual space and digital content” on both machines. This is where the idea of two separate computers becomes blurry and probably more of a theory.

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Interesting Ideas for iPadOS 16

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 06:52:23 -0400

I recently wrote an article about where the iPad should go from here. On the subject of iPadOS, looking at this article on Behance from Parker Ortolani, here are the few interesting ideas that caught my attention:

The updated Dock with the ability to move an application window to an external display.
Still on the Dock, the frequently used applications replaced with standard folders (like downloaded items).
Stacks in the Dock, just like on macOS.
Home Screen icon placements can include things like Shortcuts, or files.
Studio Mode for external display full support. My number one request.
Addition of Preview from macOS would be super useful for more pro-like workflows. Same with the addition of Dictionary. It would be super useful for content creators like me.

WWDC 2022 is around the corner, starting another round of updates for iPadOs over the coming year.

When Uber is Being Rude

Sun, 24 Apr 2022 08:00:53 -0400

I recently came back from a one-week vacation in Cancun, Mexico. The first thing I did before leaving the airport to go home was to call an Uber taxi. My last experience with Uber went well, but it was quite a while. Boy, this time it was a surprising and unexpected experience. After ordering the car, I was met with a plethora of notifications and ads within the application and via Uber Eat to order food on the go or before arriving at home. Those ads took the form of notifications, but also big popups taking the whole screen within the application. It was so intrusive, it wasn’t always clear how to dismiss the ad to return to the actual trip details.

I understand the idea of integrating two different services from the same company, but doing so at the expense of a great user experience with the basic feature of the application is not the way to go with me. Even Apple sometimes seems to be going in that direction. Not good.

Doing Some Cleanup in My Home Office

Sat, 23 Apr 2022 12:49:18 -0400

After spending some time cleanup my office this today, I found these in my drawers and other places. I no longer use these. Do you? I know some people here on Micro.blog do. I don’t which I find fascinating because I did a lot in my younger times. Before the computers.

Wondering About Returning to Podcasting

Sat, 23 Apr 2022 10:39:21 -0400

Now that I’m finally having my dedicated room in the house for working, I’m wondering about returning to podcasting (I used to have a podcast, in French) or even testing the YouTuber world (even though I wrote in the past that I’ll never be a YouTuber). Why is that?

First, a dedicated room is mandatory to be able to record without being disrupted too much. Second, sound quality would probably be much better than recording in an open space. Third, I could create a better background because my room is decorated to my personal tastes.

But is this enough to convince myself to seriously consider getting back to audio or video content creation? I have all the tools: a great MacBook Air, a Mac mini, an Apple Studio Display, a good microphone, a NAS for archiving purposes, etc. Yet, I’m not really good at audio or video production, and it’s very time-consuming for me. I would certainly learn a lot while working hard at this. Moreover, should I do this in my native language which is French or do it in English, which I’m not perfectly fluent with? Maybe I could try to do it together with other podcasters (I know a few of them). Too many questions, not many answers.

Photo credit: Will Francis on Unsplash.

Taking a break of many things

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 12:29:02 -0400

If you are wondering what’s up with me, I’m on vacation for a week. I’m not only taking a break from work, my office, but also from blogging. Expect a return to normal programming next week.

Written on my iPad, somewhere on a sandy beach in Mexico 😃😛

When Apple Pivoted

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 21:27:55 -0400

Thanks to MacRumors, as reported today, I didn’t know today was the fifth anniversary of a special meeting between Apple’s top brass and select journalists to talk about Apple’s plans with the pro users and their commitment to the Mac.

At the time, we didn’t know how serious Apple’s upcoming pivot would be. In retrospective, Apple delivered and then some. It is simply a tour-de-force to flip the Mac product line upside down and bring power efficient, mighty and beautiful Mac designs. The Mac transition to Apple Silicon is probably the most important change to come to the Mac line since its inception in 1984.

I can’t wait to see what the next ten years will be made of.

It’s Was So Fun

Sun, 03 Apr 2022 10:06:23 -0400

This weekend I did some cleanup in my old papers and documents. I found an old bank account statement where I can see a withdraw transaction to help me pay for my Macintosh 128K in 1985: 3460.75 CAN$. 🤑 Ouch. I did some research to better document the time when I had a Macintosh SE while studying at the university and remembered about using Think Pascal, Prototyper and ResEdit to build a floppy disks indexer. That was before the Internet. It was so much fun. It’s gives you an idea how old I am. 😜

Venting My Frustration About Microsoft Teams

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 06:46:54 -0400

It’s March 2022. Spring is finally here. Moreover, among us, Apple Silicon, first announced in June 2020 and massively available since November 2020. Furthermore, also available is Center Stage, a new feature introduced with the 2021 iPad Pro and now available on the MacBook Pro and more recently the Apple Studio display.

Here’s the thing. Microsoft Teams, currently at version 1.5 still isn’t supporting Center Stage and worst, Apple Silicon. Running Teams on any recent Mac is an execrable experience: slow, bad image quality (compared to Zoom for example) and consume far too much memory. How is it possible for a company the size of Microsoft who’s so slow to move and fix Teams? I don’t buy the argument about Teams being built with the Electron framework. The latter already supports the M1 chip. Microsoft is supposedly working on Teams version 2.0 which will be presumably built on WebView2. They’ve been working on this since June of last year.

It’s highly frustrating. Sorry for the bad mood, but Teams is one of the most used application for work giving me the right to vent my frustration.

Dear Mobile Apps Developers

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 20:28:36 -0400

Dear iOS developers, dear @Substack, when building screenshots for the App Store, show us your software, not the device on which it is running. Thank you. With love. The Direction.

Pausing My Apple Studio Display Buying Decision

Fri, 18 Mar 2022 07:46:39 -0400

Well, after a promising start, following reviews of the Apple Studio display, it seems that I’ll put my buying decision on hold. As I wrote, one of the reasons why I’m considering this display is the integrated camera and speakers for a better video conference experience. It appears image quality is not good at all, judging by the examples posted online. It’s close to being a deal breaker.

Apparently, the Apple Studio display is running a version of iOS 15.4. Yep, sounds overkill, and yet, it’s the case, according to Gruber. Apple is promising a software update to fix the problem and bring image quality on par with the iPad Pro equipped with the same camera and essentially using th same software to enable Center Stage.

Here’s something: when we look at preview integrated cameras in MacBook Pro or the iMac and find the image quality to be bad, we try to excuse Apple of fitting a camera in a too-thin enclosure. But we know it’s not enough to explain the issue of image quality. Software is the problem. Look no further than the iPhone for an example.

As soon as:

I can go to an Apple Store to see the Apple Studio display for myself;
Normal people are publishing their reviews and comment on their experience with the display;
Apple fixes the camera image quality with an update to the display operating system;

Then, I’ll make a final decision. Now, I can’t wait to see in action the software upgrade process on this thing.

”The Mac Studio contains radical innards in a plain exterior”

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 07:33:24 -0400

Benjamin Mayo in Apple Introduces Mac Studio:

“…the introduction of a brand new model of Mac is precisely the best time to do something entirely new.”

And

“The Mac Studio is a boring box with rounded corners, and has no party tricks to speak of. The trashcan was a truly wild, out-there, design.”

I share the same sentiment. A new form-factor is a rare thing from Apple. An elongated Mac mini doesn’t do justice the Mac Studio interior, even less to its name. Another missed opportunity. I guess “real pros” doesn’t give a damn about all of this.

Two Years Ago…

Sun, 13 Mar 2022 10:18:30 -0400

On March 13th, in 2020, the world flipped, my world flipped. So many things are different now. This short blog post is about reflecting on the last two years and how they became the foundation for what is to come in my life.

Time flies and making judicious decisions is more important than ever. Working from home is important. I’ll never return full time at the office. Even if I move to another job, working from home is now a requirement. Visiting customers for the sake of shaking hands no longer make sense to me. There has to be more than this. The price is too high to pay: wasted time.

Traveling is more important than ever too; that’s the only way for me to do more photography. Something that I didn’t do much in the last two years. This visual work posted in April of 2020 was the trigger to write this blog post. I’m sad about this because photography is my most important source of inspiration and my biggest creativity playground after writing. Still on the travel subject, I can envision traveling abroad for more than two weeks now and splitting my time between leisure and remote work. Leaving for a month or more is now possible.

Speaking of writing, I’ll probably continue to write but probably not as much as in the last two years. A more balanced life is taking place and will take away some of my writing time. It’s ok. It’s also part of making better choices.

The last two years of COVID-19, the more and more frequent climate disturbances and the recent events in Europe are telling me this: the world is more than ever in a constant state of emergency. I better learn how to cope with this otherwise I’m not finished at being in constant consternation mood while reading the news.

Thanks for reading this. I know your time is precious too and you made the decision to read this short piece.

Peek Performance, Low Interest

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 21:00:08 -0400

It’s now official. Apple will host another virtual event next week, on March 8th. It’s the first Apple event of 2022, but it’s far from being the first real event of 2022. Current events happening in Ukraine are troubling and make me pause on a lot of things. Apple-related stuff is one of these. I’m not in the mood for that. My thoughts and energy are diverted, seized. I don’t care if it’s a new iPhone SE, a beefed up Mac mini or whatever else. These look so irrelevant in this incredible and terrible era. Low interest indeed.

Apple is Finally Showing Courage

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 20:30:18 -0400

I asked for this since the beginning of the Ukrainian war (on Twitter: first here, then here, then here), and today Apple delivered. Apple’s products are no longer being sold through its online store. While the App Store is still working apparently, I’m ok with their decision. On top of that, Apple will donate money, twice the amount that employees will give to help Ukrainians. It’s a good move, the only move, without using real arms, to make an impact. It’s even more powerful when many companies are doing exactly the same.

Yep, finally.

Going Downwards

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 21:13:39 -0400

I don’t know about you but I find current events in Ukraine very disturbing and distracting. As much as I’m 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.

A Message for Ukrainians

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 07:48:57 -0400

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 we’re seeing such an invasion in Europe, in 2022. What’s next? Who’s next? We’re 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, I’m 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.

On Time Machine Backups Over Network

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 21:48:09 -0400

If you own a desktop Mac, you probably use an external drive for Time Machine. If you use a portable Mac, most likely not, and according to the Tidbits article, you’re not alone. The portability of the Mac is hindered by having an external drive hooked permanently. I, personally, have a different strategy: I use a Synology NAS DS720+ with Time Machine enabled to do my backups over the wireless network. It works perfectly, but I don’t do a full backup of my MacBook Air. Files that are part of iCloud Drive are excluded (read more here, you’ll find out why it’s a good idea). In fact, most of the files are excluded, except a few critical folders, outside the scope of any cloud syncing services. Applications aren’t backed up either (easy to recover in case of lost). Backups are small but are just what I need to protect my work.

Still Mystified by ProRAW

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 12:20:55 -0400

Even after reading this excellent article by the guy behind Halide, I’m still mystified by Apple’s ProRAW format. The question that keeps popping up in my mind is: if computational photography processing is involved in creating the ProRAW file (in DNG format), how can we still call this a variant of a RAW image?

Photo credit: Jason Strull on Unsplash

Dune Movie - Woah!

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 22:23:19 -0400

Today, I finally saw the Dune movie, by the Canadian director, Denis Villeneuve. As a Canadian myself I’m so proud of him! It’s not a movie review, far from it. Let me just say that when I think about this movie, the word “equilibrium” comes to my mind. The movie is well balanced: storyline, intrigue, visual effects (visual effects serving the story), music, Dune’s world imaginary world. But the best for me were those “ornithopters”. Wow, they were sooooo cool! Can’t wait for the next part.

Have you seen the movie? What do you think of it?

Old Computer-Related Memories

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 15:52:44 -0400

From 1993 to 1994, I owned a PowerBook Duo 210 sporting a trackball, a low-profile keyboard and a grayscale screen. I didn’t like the trackball as the pointing device. The keyboard wasn’t 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. It’s been a long time ago. This article was written using a M1 MacBook Air, in a coffee shop.

On Carrot Weather — Is It That Cool?

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 15:23:34 -0400

Why is Carrot Weather so popular? I’m a weather enthusiast and I like trying new weather-related applications. I use many all year long, but Carrot Weather is not part of my application arsenal. They recently introduced updated weather maps, but to get a sense of them, I would need to subscribe for a year subscription. Most of the interesting features are available in the premium tier. I like the maps feature, but I wonder how better they will get compared to the ones that I’m already using in MyRadar. iOS 15 brought a significant update to the weather too, but I find the maps lacking radar resolution.

If there are users of Carrot Weather subscription, tell me more, tell my why it is so nice?

About ME

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 16:19:00 -0400

👨🏻‍💻 I think it’s important that you know a bit about who’s behind this continuous musing feed. So, here you go.

Dear visitor, welcome to my blog. My real name is JF Martin, but I prefer to be called Numeric Citizen in cyberspace. This is my pen name (learn why I’m using this name). I’ve been an IT (Information Technologies) professional since the early nineties. I’m 58, I’m probably getting old, I know. I have many hobbies, but writing is the one that’s taking up much of my spare time. I spend about twenty hours a week on writing and publishing (fully documented here). Why? Get the answer in “I read, I learn, I write, I Share”. As explained in this post, I write about my passions, which revolve around Apple, photography, privacy protection and climate change.

As you can see, I have more than enough interests to inspire me. So much so that they are the source of my monthly newsletter.

You can find more information about me here.

That’s about it! 😳😅

Last updated: 2026-05-09.

My Oldest Post

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 19:00:50 -0400

Going back in time on previously published content can be the source of a few smiles. My oldest post on my main blog is about Micro.blog. Here is an excerpt:

This morning I found out the existence of a blogging platform called Micro.blog. Something very special. Very lean. Very light. Without ads. Leaner than WordPress. Yet capable. Close to Twitter but with less clutter.

It’s funny. It’s not about introducing my blog or something like “hello” world.

Challenge of the day: exporting posts from WordPress to Ghost

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 08:51:00 -0400

Well, well, well, it seems that data portability among CMS is an issue. Who knew! I’m trying to find an easy way to move a few posts from my WordPress blog into my Ghost website. Exporting data from WordPress seems like an all-or-nothing situation. There are a few plugins available for this. The problem is that the content isn’t easily imported into Ghost. The latter does have a plugin, but it doesn’t support selecting posts. I don’t want to do this manually.

Any idea or suggestions?

Update 2022-02-16: There is a follow-up to my quest, read all the details here

Health of Developer Relations with Apple in Free Fall

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 08:50:55 -0400

According to this year’s Six Colors Report Card, relationships between Apple and its developers’ community is in terrible shape. The trend isn’t looking good either.

Marco Arment said, “Apple’s tightening grip on App Store fees, attempts to reach into other parts of businesses that they don’t 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.”

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 Microsoft’s leadership.

From Apple’s AirPort Exterme to Ubiquiti’s Amplify HD

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 21:01:54 -0400

As reported in my previous blog post, I had a chance to perform a “tech refresh” of my sister’s WiFi installation at her house. As a satisfied user of Ubiquiti product, the Dream Machine, I suggested to go with a lower end model, the Amplify HD. She has a big two levels home, with numerous rooms that poses a challenge for good wireless connectivity. It was a delightful experience, from the unpacking to final configuration. It’s a beautiful device with an informative display.

The setup was simple. Turning off the AirPort Express after taking note of the SSID, so I could reuse it with the same password. This prevents the reconfiguration of every device connecting to the WiFi with an already known SSID-password combination. After the initial power up sequence, the router will ask the user to download the configuration application from the App Store. An account has to be created with Ubiquity. Thankfully, Sign In with Apple is available.

The next phase happens on the iPhone with an initial discovery over Bluetooth. The setup process is quick and flawless. As expected, a firmware update was waiting to be applied. During the update process, it was the right rime to deploy the two WiFi extenders, in strategic places where the WiFi signals used to be weak. Once completed, I could name each devices with a more meaningful name, to represent where were each device. All in all, the process took less than 30 minutes. It’s a very Apple-like experience. The following table shows the situation before and after the new router. Numbers speaks for themselves.

Mission accomplished. Another happy customer. I came back with the old AirPort Extreme. No idea what to do with it.

Replacing (Another) Aging AirPort Extreme With…

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 10:25:39 -0400

In mid-2020, I wrote about my experience of replacing an aging Apple AirPort Extreme with an Ubiquiti’s Dream Machine. Today, I’m kind of repeating the experience, but this time with the Amplify HD router, also from Ubiquiti, for my sister. Don’t expect a complete review, but expect a post with a few observations. My sister is having weak WiFi issues in her house and I suggested her to get the kit to form a mesh network. I’ll be taking measure before and after to see if it brings meaningful improvements in her big house. Stay tuned.

Universal Control — Finally!

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 22:36:18 -0400

I’m a big fan of Apple’s Sidecar. I frequently use it for work. When Apple announced Universal Control at the 2021 WWDC keynote, I was blown away by the technical challenge it might have represented for Apple’s engineers. It really makes for great demos. Then, I started to wonder if this feature would enable new workflows, and I failed to find meaningful ones. With Sidecar, the iPad acts like a passive device most of the time, and I’m happy with this configuration. Then, following the release of iOS 15.4b1, videos (like this one from MacRumors) demonstrating Universal Control in action started to pop up. I changed my mind.

Under a Universal Control configuration, the iPad acts like an intelligent extension of the Mac desktop. It’s like Sidecar Pro Max (just kidding here). The iPad becomes a second computing device readily available to the Mac. The user simply and seamlessly can take advantage of this second screen in a matter where the computing power of the device adds up to the Mac, the screen, the system memory. It’s absolutely clever.

I can see myself using Craft on the MacBook Air and Ulysses on the iPad Pro, all using the MacBook’s keyboard and trackpad. Or vice versa. Clever. Really.

I’m considering updating my M1 MacBook Air and my iPad Pro to this beta.

On HomePod mini with a screen - STOP!

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 08:37:12 -0400

Consider this recent article from 9to5Mac: Concept: How Apple could turn HomePod mini into a delightful and adorable smart display - 9to5Mac.

Please, stop thinking that a screen on the HomePod mini makes sense because it just doesn’t. Why? Well, by looking at where we put these devices in our house, most of the time, you wouldn’t be able to see the screen from a distance. What Apple really wishes is that you buy an iPad mini with a Smart Folio cover for that purpose.

MP3 Files and the iPhone — Harder Than Necessary

Sun, 23 Jan 2022 16:02:57 -0400

I find it surprisingly hard to find a simple MP3 player for an iPhone these days. I mean, just a simple application capable of downloading an MP3 file locally on the device with good playback controls, simple library management, nothing fancy. Readdle’s Documents (which I know very well) and EverMusic seem to be popular options. Documents offers a good user experience, albeit its multipurpose mission with documents management.

(I’m a moderate consumer of Soundcloud (paid subscription) and use Downie to download files from the service. Those files are stored on my DS720+ Synology NAS.)

What’s your experience in playing MP3 files on your iPhone? I’m curious.

It’s the Time of the Month to Start Crafting the Next Edition of My Monthly Newsletter

Sun, 23 Jan 2022 10:15:51 -0400

Well, it’s the time of the month where I start to work on the next edition of my monthly newsletter (it’s free BTW). I spend about ten to fifteen hours each month to put this together using my past readings and discoveries, Craft and Ulysses. Each time, it’s a pleasure to create. I think I should put together an article about the workflow I use to create each newsletter. Would you find this interesting?

Yep, Notion is Bad

Sat, 22 Jan 2022 22:53:16 -0400

I’m nearly done with my Notion to Craft migration. I know I’ve been lazy; I’ve been using Craft for many months while my old content was still sitting there in Notion. While doing the migration, I realized, again, that I don’t really like Notion’s handling of a document. It just feels unnatural and quirky. Export options are very limited, which makes my job much harder. I’m also losing some metadata along the way (and database content too). I don’t have high hopes for a Craft eXtension to support Notion’s API to help users do this kind of rich content migration. I expect to finish the migration in the coming days.

Give Me Some Time...

Sat, 22 Jan 2022 10:33:32 -0400

…and I’ll move out of 1Password. It’s on my to-do list for 2022. Gruber’s article is a reminder that time is ticking. I’m just being too lazy to move my stuff out of 1Password and put that in Apple’s Keychain. It takes time, which is a rare resource for me.

I don’t like 1Password’s direction. It seems to me that going the enterprise way is counterproductive for the average users. Corporations and individuals don’t share the same objectives. Why do you think Microsoft is making Teams for personal use?

Dear Apple: Bring Back the Dashboard

Sat, 22 Jan 2022 09:25:23 -0400

I want this so much. We have to voice our desire to get back the Dashboard on macOS. As explained by 512px a long time ago:

Jobs pitched widgets as mini-apps that let you look up a quick bit of information without ruining your workflow or train of thought. They allowed for quick interactions. They were present when you needed them, and disappeared when you didn’t.

Why try to imagine new solutions to fix the widgets conundrum on macOS? The Dashboard was the only good solution where you could put widgets anywhere on the screen, then invoke them as needed. Dear Apple, are you reading this? 🥺🙏🏻

Let’s enjoy one more time the Dashboard in its full glory.

Taking Advantage of the iPad Screen

Sat, 22 Jan 2022 09:05:46 -0400

Consider the previous annotated screenshot from Matter. Way too many applications have the same design issue. Why, in 2022, developers cannot fix these wasted space? I see that the content is of the same width if the iPad is used in portrait or landscape orientation. Why not adjust width dynamically? Is it that hard?

About iMessage - Again

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 20:31:37 -0400

Apple’s Messages app, why does it only support iMessage and SMS? iChat had support for AIM, Yahoo Messanger, ICQ, and XMPP. Why hasn’t Apple gone beyond the blue and green bubbles, introducing support for additional protocols with more message bubble colors?

Apple likes control. They didn’t have it with those protocols. How could they implement things like CSAM?

Source: The Green Bubble Myth - Initial Charge

I’m a Big Fan of Craft But…

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 22:22:41 -0400

As you probably know, I’m a big fan of Craft. This application is really at the center of everything I do online, as thoroughly documented in my blogger workflow. That being said, I always keep an eye open for competing services, thanks to my Twitter list “Apps & Services”. Notion is one of them. Before Craft, there was Notion, which I loved too. But it felt too complicated or overkill for my needs. Craft is nowhere near Notion in terms of features. There is no comparison, even though I wrote one. Really. Yet, according to their recent tweets, Notion has been on a roll lately, adding features, tweaking things or rewriting a portion of the user experience like the text editing engine. So, where am I going with this?

It is tempting to think: what if I came back to Notion? I still have my account, after all. Things always look better on the other side of the fence, right? The thing is the speed of evolution of Craft, while being considered at a fast pace by some, I’m realistic, and I would argue the contrary. The team behind Craft is surely a fraction of Notion’s. Basic things are hard to come by. Said another way, my expectations aren’t met as fast as I wished. Take this week’s update, which was released earlier this week. While I’m happy to see improvements, there is not much to talk about. The release notes starts by the possibility to “star” a document, so it is easier to find in the navigation bar on the left. The second thing on the list is some improvements to the display of backlinks at the end of a page. While being welcomed by many, it’s not exactly mind-blowing. Sure it is a dot dot release (v2.0.3), but I was expecting so much more, as documented in my Craft wish list. Craft eXtensions, announced with the 2.0 release at the end of 2021 sure looks full of potential, but my expectations lean toward Craft’s core experience, which I find somewhat lacking.

I think I’m being overly demanding. Patience is a virtue.

Exploring the World of DJing

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 08:31:56 -0400

I always liked electronic music, but I’m not a musician. In recent moths, I’ve been exploring the world of DJing. It’s a way for me to feel that I can do music without deep knowledge of musical theory. It’s a fascinating world.

Last year I bought a Pioneer DDJ-400 controller for use with my Mac mini. There is two major roadblocks in my experience so far: finding good quality tracks to mix and selecting the best DJ app. I want to draw your attention to the software side of my story.

Some well known DJ apps are Rekordbox, Serato and DJay. My understanding is that in recent years, software makers all switched to subscription models. Application like Rekordbox will “unlock” some of its features while being used with certain DJ controller models, but to get the whole thing, you have to subscribe to some plan. It’s irritating for someone like me who’s just trying to learn and experiment. But there is another problem: applications design sucks. Rekordbox and Serato are visually terrible. On the Mac, these apps really feels like aliens coming from… I don’t know… even on Windows they probably look aliens. The best looking application is Algoriddim’s Djay, by far. Problem is, the application is lacking many features. For now, my conclusion is that It appears that we cannot have both fully featured applications with a great design.

Green vs Blue Bubbles: The Definitive And Honest Point of View

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 21:24:15 -0400

A few days ago, I wrote a small commentary post regarding the WSJ article on Apple’s iMessage, its effects on the crowd of young iPhone users, and how Apple is being evil. Man, it’s a pale and superficial perspective compared to Gruber’s view of the article, and the controversy that followed. Must read, if this short-lived controversy is picking up your curiosity.

On iOS 15 Update Conundrum — Why Apple Is Changing is Mind

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 08:21:24 -0400

Apple finally published the numbers of people who upgraded to iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. While the percentages show the vast majority of users upgraded their devices, there are more people than with previous years who didn’t. It’s probably Apple’s fault.

With iOS 15, Apple is no longer forcing users to adopt the latest release to get the latest security updates. A user running iOS 14.7 can stay there as long as he can apply the security patches made available for that version. It’s an entirely new approach for Apple. I wonder why Apple made that change. I think I found one big reason.

If you compare Apple’s ecosystem to Android, Apple has a clear advantage here by being able to move the needle much faster for releases adoption, until now. In a single year, Apple can transform its ecosystem of users by adding features that are quickly making their way into people’s devices. By allowing users to stay on previous releases, Apple is shooting itself in the foot. Now they seem to change their mind, though. Apple could be changing his mind. As reported by MacRumors:

iOS 15‌ used to be listed as an optional update on devices running iOS 14, but now it is front and center on devices that still have iOS 14, and it is the only available update option as Apple has now stopped making security updates available for devices running iOS 14. Those who want the latest security fixes need to upgrade to ‌iOS 15‌, as all devices capable of running iOS 14 also support ‌iOS 15‌.

I think it’s the right move for Apple, since they tend to support old devices longer than other manufacturers. Apple could tweak iOS to be less aggressive is upgrading to the latest release by introducing delays in a random manner. Users eager to upgrade can do so manually, others would randomly get a notification suggesting the availability of the newer release. As time passes, those notifications would increase in frequency. This new behaviour will probably never come to like and not be enough. Here is why.

There might be another reason behind this change of mind on Apple’s part. Look at antitrust regulations looming on the horizon all around the world. Apple is probably making sure that all users adopt the latest release faster to comply with possible new regulations imposed by lawmakers, which would need to trigger changes to the operating system.

Bye Bye 500px

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 09:05:51 -0400

It was written on the walls: my subscription to 500px is coming to an end next week, and I won’t renew. It was a nice ride for sure, but Smugmug + Glass took over. Sure, comparing those services isn’t fair. For my needs, 500px doesn’t fit anymore. Another reason is the fact that I’m not taking as many photos as I used to, thanks to the pandemic.

I’ll keep my 500px account but in “read-only” mode for the year to come.

Carriers vs Apple

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 21:46:39 -0400

Om Malik writing on the iPhone fifteen anniversary and the carrier companies at the time (emphasis is mine):

These were wireless walled gardens crammed with absolutely rotten apps, games, and everything from mobile backgrounds to ringtones. They were an opportunity for carriers to nickel-and-dime their customers and extracted mafia-like fees from startups. Source: Looking back: iPhone & its impact on mobile industry & us. – On my Om

I have great admiration for Mr. Malik, but a lot of people, especially developers, would jump in right here and use the same paragraph to describe Apple and its App Store today. You may agree or not with them. I mostly don’t.

"It’s not just how things look, it’s about how things work."

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 20:09:33 -0400

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. I’d 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

One More Gripe Against Apple’s Photos Memory Feature

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 19:58:50 -0400

Jim Novell & Stephen Hackett both have valid points against Apple’s Photos Memory feature. I would another one: memories are created on a very aggressive schedule. There are way too many; I miss most of them. I don’t know if this is related to the fact that my library contains more than 42K images or if other factors come into play here. There should be a way to reduce the frequency.

Blue vs Green Bubbles — Blue is In, Green is Out?

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 11:18:36 -0400

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal created a concerted reactions chain from news sites and people on Twitter. In “Why Apple’s iMessage Is Winning: Teens Dread the Green Text Bubble”, the WSJ article paints Apple as using highly questionable tactics to keep its users locked in iMessage messaging service. I want to share my thoughts on this.

Peer pressure among teens isn’t a new phenomenon, far from it. Way before the Internet became accessible, when I was a teen myself, I vividly remember the feeling of not wearing the same brand of clothes as my friends. The problem here is teen’s social behaviour, not the technology. They are the one to blame if they reject people using non iMessage messaging service. I would argue that Apple as nothing to do with this. Sure, they like the stickiness of their platform, but I wouldn’t say it’s the defining goal when they add features to it.

Of course, Apple can’t provide the dot-dot-dot feedback showing people who are actually writing a response to a text message because the SMS standard doesn’t provide that. Duh.

When Mr. Hiroshi Lockheimer from Google refers to “standards” in one of his tweets to fix the interoperability issues of messaging platforms like iMessage, I wonder what standards he is referring to, Google’s RCS. And if this standard is actually a standard, why is it so hard to take off? Why are messaging services like Discord, Telegram, WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, etc.?

I would also argue that, for a company like Apple, the ecosystem stickiness is part of their differentiating factor. Of course, iMessage plays a major role here. For a company like Google, where massively providing free services with ads, the more people who get to use your services, the more revenues you get. It’s their differentiating factor. It’s easy to say: Apple should open up their messaging service.

My anecdotal experience is to the effect that when something breaks in the conversation between an iPhone user and an Android users, they usually go with Messenger or WhatsApp. People still have access to many alternatives.

WSJ’s article is a prime example that finding the right angle to portray Apple as the devil in the room attracts numerous clicks.

On Talent Retention Challenges

Sat, 08 Jan 2022 16:06:54 -0400

I’ve been working in information technologies for nearly three decades. Finding competent people has always been a challenge. Keeping them too. But, in recent years, the situation has become simply critical, to the point where businesses are deeply impacted: delayed projects, abandoned initiatives, high pressures on other people, stress, etc. Businesses’ bottom line if at stake here.

The news of the departure of one of the directors behind Apple’s transition from Intel to Apple’s own silicon, Mr. Jeff Wilcox, for its Mac product line is sad but probably just the tip of the iceberg. I wouldn’t read too much into this. I can imagine a team of many hundred engineers working on this program. People come, people go. Apple must cope with this. One could argue that when there are empty seats to fill, it becomes an opportunity for others to move in and try to be their best.

There are an infinite number of reasons why people leave a company. For Apple, the challenge is probably to stay attractive in a sea of opportunities for engineers. Apple cannot please everyone, all the time. I guess salaries is one of many other factors that come into play here. Apple is a legendary company where countless people would like to work there, me included. Pressure most be high in many key positions. Yet, the reward must be satisfying. I guess Mr. Wilcox has done what he thought could be done and succeeded. It’s often the good time to move on, and try something else while being at the top of their game.

Those Curves…

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 21:53:34 -0400

I’m a big fan of curves, but up until now, I didn’t really know how to take advantage of them. 🙃 Enter this short tutorial for Pixelmator Pro. 😂 You’ll learn how to use the curves adjustment to tweak colours and luminance of any photos. I usually prefer to use sliders just because up until now I didn’t really get how to use the curves. Now, thanks to this tutorial, I have a much better idea. Many more tutorials are available on the Pixelmator Pro YouTube channel.

The production quality of these tutorials is impeccable. I really love Pixelmator in general, and I always thought this photo processing application could have been done by Apple, when they cared enough about making one, back in the days. This isn’t a paid advertisement. I’m just being enthusiastic about great native macOS applications. 😌

On iPhone 14 Pro Max Pricing

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 14:14:44 -0400

Kuo has also said that the iPhone 14 Max, or whatever it ultimately ends up being called, will be priced at under $900. For comparison’s sake, the current iPhone lineup’s “Max” only includes the 6.7-inch iPhone 13 Pro Max, which is priced at $1,099.

I highly doubt that Apple will reduce the price of the top-of-the-line model of their iPhone line-up. Why would they do that? This would put pressure on lower-end models to go down in price too. Non sense.

Surprise Me!

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 09:00:19 -0400

The Surprise Me! plugin for Micro.blog is undoubtedly a lot of fun to play with. It will pick a random post from this blog out of 1578 posts published since 2018. It’s a fun way to resurface old yet still relevant content. Try it! I wonder how many hours of my life were used to write and publish all that stuff?

Beyond the iPhone

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 20:38:55 -0400

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 don’t 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 Apple’s 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.

On NFTs: What Am I Missing?

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 20:20:51 -0400

First, consider this announcement from Samsung:

“In 2022, Samsung is introducing the world’s first TV screen-based NFT explorer and marketplace aggregator, a groundbreaking platform that lets you browse, purchase, and display your favorite art — all in one place.”

What? Why is there so much talk around NFTs these days? What problems do they solve? What am I missing? This short Twitter thread makes me think that I’m not missing a lot, and that I should probably move on. Nothing to see here. Yet, how long before platforms like Unsplash steps in? 🤦🏻‍♂️

COVID — Did He Really Got Me?

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 09:41:04 -0400

Here is an update following yesterday’s 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 didn’t 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. That’s a strange feeling. We still have two quick tests on hand, which we’ll probably use before going back home today. We’ll 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 didn’t really know what to do with a single test coming out as positive. We spent the last week together, with the Omicron variant, It’s 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 didn’t feel the need to panic or worry too much.

Our holiday vacation is ending on a sour note, to say the least. 😒

COVID — Got Me!

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 10:17:18 -0400

After close to two years of relentless fight to protect myself from COVID-19, after following all the government’s sanitary rules and telling others how it is important to get vaccinated, It appears that the virus won over me.

We had this “get together week” 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. I’m not angry. I’m resigned.

I’m 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. It’s seems to be in line with people who got two vaccines. I’m hoping this will stay that way for the coming days.

Now, I’ll 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. That’s the hardest part. Guilt. 🤦🏻‍♂️

The Real Cost of Crypto

Sun, 02 Jan 2022 10:54:07 -0400

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.

A New Project for 2022 — Every Apple Computers…

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 10:28:03 -0400

What if I documented all Apple computers I ever actively used or owned? For each of them, there is a story worth remembering and to write (like this one from 1986), the general context of its use, what software did I use on it at the time, how I bought it, how long did I own it and which new computer replaced it? There is even a ten-years pause where I left the Apple bandwagon to switch to the other side. What happened? Why?

Using the excellent and must-have utility, MacTracker, which I should have included in my post “The Perfect Apple Enthusiast — Find Out Where You Stand”, I started to process of going back in times. It won’t be easy to go back forty years back, but it’s worth it. I want this article to be as complete as possible and fun to read, full of high-quality pictures. Be patient, it will be a long journey.

He says "Hi!"

Sun, 26 Dec 2021 10:46:43 -0400

For no apparent reason, I started a photo series of this little guy in all sorts of visual contexts. I’m using an album to store them all. I’m currently at 23 photos of him. He’s so cute, isn’t he? I got my inspiration from someone here on Micro.blog who did the same in recent months. I can’t remember who, though. So who knows where this is headed. It’s the time of the year for frivolous projects. 😂

Completed The Servant Season 2 - At Long Last!

Sun, 26 Dec 2021 10:19:19 -0400

Finally was able to finish season 2 of The Servant on Apple TV+ yesterday, just in time for the third season. What a weird story. The only occasion I can spend time watching TV series is during the holidays. Using AirPods Max for the listening experience is pure magic; nobody in the living gets distracted by the TV, and the sound quality is impressive. Now, I should finish For All Mankind Season 2.

A Message for Christmas

Fri, 24 Dec 2021 09:17:03 -0400

To all of you, even though I don’t know you personally, since I spend quite some time here all year long reading your posts, I kind of feel familiarity. It’s like being part of a small community. I like this a lot. It’s something not possible on Twitter. So, I want to wish you a merry Christmas to all of you. Take care of you, of your family and your friends. 🎄

Doing Nothing Useful and Feeling Guilty About It

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 15:30:32 -0400

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. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Phasing Out My Vimeo Account

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 09:23:49 -0400

Well, I’m not a video guy. I prefer photography. My experience with Vimeo is coming to an end. I won’t renew my subscription. I’ll keep my account but returning to the free tier will remove many of my previously published content. This prompts me to remove some content from my main blog too. Deleting content is something that I don’t like to do. It’s like putting hard work, countless hours of work down the drain. 😔

You can have a look at my Vimeo profile if you are curious.

Glass — Maybe We Need to Be Patient?

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 12:56:40 -0400

Matt Birchler blog post about his interest for Glass’s fading out:

I was very high on Glass, a new photo sharing app this summer, but my enthusiasm for it has dropped in perfect sync with the temperature dropping here in the Midwest since then.

Lee Peterson blog post about his interest is so low that he canceled his Glass subscription:

I still feel it was a bad slope to start down by adding appreciation and I’ve cancelled my subscription.

Finally, Andy Nicolaides on Twitter thinking out loud about the introduction of “appreciation” (a term used instead of “likes”):

I’m not one of the folks that wasn’t a big fit of Glass adding the likes / appreciation function, but I’ll tell you this much, in my small case study of one, it’s completely killed off any comments I used to receive.

Let’s be honest: Glass has been alive for less than four months. They kept updating the service since the beginning to improve the experience and discoverability. They didn’t fall in the “me too” trap yet. Aren’t we expecting too much too soon from such a small organization? Should we expect them to come out with the right recipe on day one? Could this be much more difficult to be different and yet familiar in the crowded space of on-line photo sharing? I would argue that your feed is as good as the people you follow. Sure, Glass needs to attract great photographers. I suspect they are working on it as I write this. People are busy. Living in a pandemic put a lot of stress on everybody and cancelled so many opportunities for doing photography, but it created others too. It wasn’t the best moment to launch such a service, and yet, they’ve done a great job so far.

I do have a subscription to Glass (my profile page here) and I’m willing to be patient here. I have a goal of posting at least one picture a week, even though I have another place to do so, on Smugmug (my profile page here).

An idea. The iPad. A Brainstorming Session. Another Article in the Works.

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 18:53:48 -0400

I love the iPad. Apple’s Notes.app in dark mode is 😍. You’re currently seeing a brainstorm of ideas for an upcoming blog post in early 2022. The subject? Can you tell just by looking at my notes? Hint: It’s a meta blog post. Another hint: https://numericcitizen.io.

Yes, I know, my handwriting sucks. 🤦🏻‍♂️😔😉

The Enigmatic Snapseed from Google

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 15:31:03 -0400

Surprising to see Snapseed being updated since it is owned by Google. I use this photo processing application to create the posts in the Perfect Imperfection Series on my Smugmug account. If Google was to kill this app, it would probably put an end to my photo series. I tried to find other apps to replace Snapseed but failed to find something that comes close. Now, why is Google even bother maintaining Snapseed? How does it fit their business model?

Is The iPad Still Exciting — It Depends

Fri, 17 Dec 2021 17:29:48 -0400

I want to chime in on a series of posts by Matt Birchler (on his YouTube channel) and Andy Nicolaides (on his The Dent website) regarding the iPad. The question is clear: is the iPad still exciting?

It all depends on the use case. I came to realize in 2021 that the iPad (even in its Pro incarnation) cannot be as powerful and effective in my workflow as the MacBook Air. Besides creating content, is the iPad Pro still relevant? You bet! There is nothing beating the feeling of tearing the iPad from its Magic Keyboard and sitting on the couch for reading or browsing the web. Every single time, I enjoy the experience in all its glory, if such a thing can be said. The other use case that I came to appreciate is Sidecar. The iPad Pro, even in its 11” size, proves to be a superb and useful second screen to my Mac mini. And using the iPad with its Magic Keyboard, when I’m on the go, is still a superb experience, as long as I set my expectations accordingly.

With iPadOS 15, Apple did address a few more low-hanging fruits from a software perspective. There is still a lot to accomplish, but more than ever I feel Apple is giving the iPad the attention it deserves.

In summary, the iPad can be super exciting, it all comes down to its use case. For me, it still is, when I use it.

I Just Paid $50 to Wikipedia

Fri, 17 Dec 2021 08:49:44 -0400

I think it’s worth it and it’s important. The transaction was easy (Apple Pay), which makes a big difference. Consider this an impulsive buy.

Currently Working On — A Teaser

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 08:19:32 -0400

Four articles to be published soon

Directly from Craft, a peek at four articles that I’m currently working on, almost ready for publication! 👀👨🏻‍💻

I dare you to meet me in my Digital Garden! 🏡

On iOS 15’s Legacy Contacts

Mon, 13 Dec 2021 20:33:15 -0400

I remember working on “A Guide for Preparing to Leave Your Numeric Legacy”, one of the cited challenges was to get access to the deceased person’s online data. I provided ways and a methodology to get ready for their numeric legacy. With iOS 15’s Legacy Contacts, Apple is making it much easier. The setup process takes less than 2 minutes to complete. An access key and a death certificate are required to ask Apple to let the legacy contacts to gain access to the online data. At long last, big tech companies now consider important to let people surviving people to keep access to deceased people in a simple and secure way. I can see countless headaches being prevented with this feature, first promised at WWDC last June. Bravo to Apple.

iOS 15.2 & iPadOS 15.2 are OUT — A Few Thoughts

Mon, 13 Dec 2021 17:31:12 -0400

The previous screenshots show the release notes, as seen on an iPhone. I just can’t believe Apple cannot fix the font size. It’s been like this life forever. It’s all in the details, Apple, in the details. Gosh.

The most interesting thing for me is the App Privacy Report, which I love. As an IT guy in my professional life, I like to see what’s going on in my devices. App Privacy Report is a great way to show this to me.

Notifications Summary has a refined design. The summary goes edge-to-edge with the screen. It’s a bit weird. I don’t know if this is a bug or a feature. Yet, I like to see more information in the summary as each notification offers expanded content.

As a side note, apparently, Apple won’t release Universal Control this year. I couldn’t care less because I don’t see this as useful in my current workflow. Maybe there is something to Universal Control that I don’t get.

Wallpaper by Basic Apple Guy.

Being Unsplashed — Take 2

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 09:33:19 -0400

If you’ve been reading my blogs for a while, you probably know by now that I’m a big fan of Unsplash (“My Growing Love Affair with Unsplash”). I’ve been using Unsplash constantly to find and use pictures in many of my posts (when I cannot find one of mines that fit the post subject). My contributions slowed a bit in the last year because I spend more time building my online presence on Smugmug (my Smugmug page) and more recently on Glass (my profile on Glass).

This week, the picture above has been selected to be featured in the architecture category. I’m honoured. You can see my featured photo in the architecture category right now. The last time that I’ve been unsplashed was less than a year ago, I wrote about it on my main blog: OMG — I’ve Been Unsplashed!.

To see all of my contributions to Unsplash, visit my profile page. The expression of “being Unsplash” is a creation of mine. 😂

On #Glass Appreciation

Thu, 09 Dec 2021 18:38:02 -0400

Surprise! Today, Glass introduced something I thought would never come: Like! Oops, Appreciation (Announcement on Twitter)! In summary: they are private. They are note at the forefront of the experience. They don’t propels algorithms. They aren’t used to sell targeted ads. They are merely a check box in a database. They are gentle. They are a gift. The team behind Glass is showing sign of lucidity. I like what’s I’m seeing since the start of this special place.

Micro.blog Officially Launches Support for Newsletters

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 08:30:00 -0400

So, as expected, yesterday Micro.blog introduced support for newsletters in the premium subscription tier. The official announcement follows:

Today we’re announcing a major new feature for Micro.blog Premium subscribers: email newsletters. Micro.blog can now manage, letting readers subscribe to your blog and receive emails for new blog posts. It’s deeply integrated into Micro.blog and works great for collecting multiple microblog posts together automatically.

Here is why I upgraded my subscription plan almost instantly after the news came out.

First, I’m a big fan of Micro.blog as a publishing platform and also of its foundational principles. I’m totally ok with paying a monthly fee of $10 to support the team behind—I want the platform to thrive. Second, adding support for newsletters is a great idea. Not everyone is using an RSS feed reader or like to read content through a browser. Everyone uses email clients! It’s important to provide different ways of communicating content to the readers. Newsletters are making a comeback.

Enabling newsletter is dead simple as shown below. I chose the weekly newsletter containing all the posts for the past week. Email go out at 9AM, local time, each Saturday morning. It’s a good way to start the weekend, isn’t it?

As you can see, the settings are quite simple. There is no formatting option (yet). Having a choice between all text vs excerpt would be a useful one. Speaking of formatting, one thing that I’m curious about, though: how does one newsletter look like? I couldn’t find an example in the documentation. Furthermore, how can we preview the next newsletter issue? It seems that, in case the first option is selected (one email for each post), the author has 30 minutes after posting to preview the email as explained here:

@timapple The preview works the same for the weekly and monthly option except it only creates it 30 minutes before it’s ready to send. Micro.blog will send you a preview email automatically with a link to edit it then. — Manton Reece https://micro.blog/manton/12238527

How does Micro.blog newsletter feature fit in my workflow? Micro.blog newsletter joins two other services that I depend on: Mailbrew to create something very similar in nature to Micro.blog offering and Ghost for my monthly newsletter (previously on Substack). On Mailbrew though, my summary newsletter also brings in content published on other platforms (WordPress, Blot, Ghost, Smugmug, etc.). It’s the ultimate weekly posts summary newsletter. Ghost, for my introspection newsletter, is like Substack, but better. I see Micro.blog offering as being a convenient way for my readers to get my content into their mailbox. It won’t replace Mailbrew or Ghost, obviously.

By subscribing to the premium tier, I also get a few goodies that could prove to be useful: bookmarking archiving and highlighting. The former allows for the bookmarking of a post on my timeline. The latter allows me to highlight some text while reading a bookmarked post or URL. Highlighted text can be conveniently used to create a link post easily. One thing that I would love to see is a browser extension for selecting text in any website. I’m not holding my breath, though.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with this addition to an already great service for content creators like me. Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly digest! So, to those who subscribe, I guess this post is the first to get through the newsletter feature of Micro.blog!

Don’t miss the YouTube video explaining the feature.

About Micro.blog Upcoming Update — Newsletter Support

Sun, 05 Dec 2021 15:03:40 -0400

Apparently, it looks like tomorrow, Micro.blog is going to add support for newsletters. A few weeks ago, I can’t remember exactly, Manton posted a screenshot (which I can no longer find) where a “newsletter” item was shown on the left sidebar on the Micro.blog main site.

I’m very curious about Micro.blog take on newsletter. Micro.blog is all about simplicity without being too simplistic. If the feature is available to entry-level paid tier, I’m might enable it and use it myself. Right now, I’m using Mailbrew to gather all my published posts via the RSS feed to generate a newsletter. There is one thing though, are we starting to feel a bit of newsletters fatigue?

Can’t wait for tomorrow.

On My Photographic Style

Sat, 04 Dec 2021 11:40:15 -0400

The photo thumbnails are from a personal trip to Austria in 1998. When I look back at these photos, I have to come to a conclusion that my photographic style didn’t really change in 30 years. It feels a bit depressing. It is basically revolving about architecture, nature. Very rarely about people, these are too hard to capture; I don’t have a good sense of timing, and I’m shy. I’m rarely doing street photography. The only addition to my subjects in recent years is urban exploration. Do we come into this world with a pre-determined photographic style?

Here is my Glass page.

And my SmugMug page.

Oh and my Unsplash page!

Changing my Mind

Fri, 03 Dec 2021 19:13:16 -0400

Boooooo… Well, it looks like I changed my mind. I didn’t remember that I wrote this blog post following the release of Ghost 4.0. At the time, I didn’t see the benefit, but now, it’s quite another story. I really love Ghost and I think I made the right choice for a few significant reasons:

Ghost comes with APIs, which enable all sort of possibilities to improve my workflow.
Ghost editor is much more powerful than Substack’s. This week, they started to release new cards type: GIF and Button. They promise another ten before Christmas! Yeah!
I prefer Ghost’s design in general over Substack.

In case you didn’t know, my newsletter website is reachable here: https://numericcitizen-introspection.blog

Testing Synology Photos as a digital assets management solution (#synology #beta #dsm7)

Fri, 03 Dec 2021 19:01:15 -0400

I’m currently testing Synology as a storage solution for all my non-personal, non-photographic digital assets that I often use to complement my blog posts. After testing Synology Moments, their previous solution for photo management on DSM 6.2, Synology Photos in DSM 7.x is a step in the right direction, a big improvement. I like what I’m seeing. It’s fast. The ability to use folders as well as albums to organize my collection is a big plus. I’ve yet to find a bug. There is an iPad version of their Synology Photos. It’s not perfect but it works. Lacking is support iPad multitasking, which is a shame but not a deal-breaker.

In order to test this solution, I’m using my DS720+ running DSM7 beta inside a virtual machine. DSM Virtual Machine Manager allows the execution of a Virtual DSM which is very cool for testing future releases of their software. I’m impressed by the relative speed of this setup running on 6 GB of RAM, 2 x 6 TB SATA drives and a Samsung M2 NVMe 512 GB cache drive.

Stay tuned for more.

Will Apple SharePlay Really Take Off?

Sun, 28 Nov 2021 21:51:00 -0400

Readdle software released an update to PDF Expert with support for Apple’s SharePlay. Using FaceTime, up to 32 people can share and annotate a PDF. According to the documented workflow on The MacObserver website, while in a FaceTime call, opening a PDF file with PDF Expert enables the SharePlay feature.

I tried the SharePlay experience using Music and screen sharing to see how easy the SharePlay workflow is to master. Each of my test with Apple Music ended up with a popup saying the selected content couldn’t be shared (probably controlled by the owner of the music track-not surprising at all). With screen sharing, I had more success and the feature worked as expected.

I think this is all cool and SharePlay brings Apple’s ecosystem closer to what is possible within Zoom or Teams.

What I’d like to see is more application support for SharePlay. Apple’s Keynote would be another winner where people could watch the same presentation together. I find it surprising that’s not already the case. Maybe an upcoming update to iWork will fix that.

l’ll definitively play with this more in the coming days because I think SharePlay has a lot o potential, especially in the business space.

Photo editing while on the beach

Fri, 26 Nov 2021 11:30:36 -0400

On my iPad Pro, in split-screen view: on the left, Lightroom. On the right, Apple’s Photos. Same photo in DNG format (ProRAW) edited with available features and possibilities of each application. Lightroom wins, obviously. Recent update to Lightroom adds editing masks which makes a big difference in achieving desired results. Picture taken with iPhone 13 Pro. On the beach. While in vacation. Cheers. 😎🍹

My Current Status

Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:45:06 -0400

My current status — spending quality time on vacations in Tulum, Mexico. It’s the first trip for more than 22 months. After so many sacrifices, time has come to say: enough, let’s enjoy life. 😎🌅

A New Home, Same Purposes

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 08:46:25 -0400

I’m done putting the final touches to my new home, a place where I continue sharing my newsletter and publish new posts under the Friday Notes and Photo Legend Series. Instead of using Substack, I’m now on Ghost(Pro). And I love it! I hope you stay with me in this transition.

Considering bookmarking this link: https://numericcitizen-introspection.blog or adding it to your favourite RSS reader: https://numericcitizen-introspection.blog/rss/.

RTFM (Read The Fuckin Manual They Say!)

Mon, 15 Nov 2021 21:14:30 -0400

When I got my first AirTags, I was anxious to get this wallet from this KickStarter project: “Snapback Slim Air - A Wallet for AirTags”. This is my Snapback Slim Air. With the AirTag inserted.

Can you see the problem? The AirTag hardly stays in place and has the tendency to pop out of its place. Not great at all. I always found the fitting to be so so. Then, today I got an email from KickStarter with the following promotional photo. Can you see what I’m doing wrong?

I happen to insert my AirTag the wrong side. Duh! The white side (the best looking one IMHO) must be inside and the silver side exposed outside. Ooops. Here’s the result.

As you can see, the fitting is a bit better but not that much better. I’m already looking for alternatives. Any suggestions?

Like the Dislike — Put the Decision in Creator’s Hands

Sat, 13 Nov 2021 14:55:56 -0400

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

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 Google’s decision. His view echos mine. I’m 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, people’s reactions on each video could be turned off by the author’s 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 creator’s 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 “most of” the video. That no rocket science. There are probably other tricks that could be played to better control what’s going on in user’s reactions. But at this stage, it seems closer to be only implementation details.

As for the creator’s 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. That’s something that could help others in dealing with this.

Glass, a photo sharing service, didn’t provide a like button from day one and doesn’t plan to add one. Is it good? Well, it depends. One thing is clear, from the comments I’m seeing posted by others, I have to ask myself: what is the difference between getting dozens of “I love it” or hitting the “like” button? Not much.

Photo credit: Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

Android Phones Are For…?

Tue, 09 Nov 2021 21:55:45 -0400

A story by MacRumors reports Tim Cook’s answer about not being able to sideload applications on the iPhone is not restricting customers choice. Here’s the beginning of Tim Cook’s answer:

“I think that people have that choice today, Andrew, if you want to sideload, you can buy an Android phone.”

Tim Cook’s answer reminds me of another one. Steve Jobs once said that if you want porn on a phone, just buy an Android phone. Apple’s stance is fascinating. You want shit? There’s Android for that.

Photo credits: Dainis Graveris on Unsplash

Revisiting My Craft Content Organization

Mon, 08 Nov 2021 22:05:07 -0400

Even though I’m using Ulysses for most of my writings, after reading the “A Complete Ulysses Writing Workflow”, it gave me the idea of revisiting the way I organize my content in Craft. As shown in the previous screenshot, my content is now organized following a similar flow often seen on Kansan boards. As you might expect, everything start in the Inbox folder then eventually get “promoted” to the next folder, according to the content’s maturity. I like this a lot—it’s much cleaner than before. I should have known better, as I experienced the Kanban method a few years ago at work.

From ProRAW to JPEG — When JPEG is Simply Enough

Sun, 07 Nov 2021 18:13:04 -0400

Here is a situation for which I’m searching for a solution. Let’s say I’m going out with my iPhone 13 Pro to take a few pictures outside. After a while, I notice that all the pictures that I was shooting were in ProRAW format. What if the lighting conditions were great that day and my photos didn’t require post-processing of any kind besides the iPhone’s own processing? How can I convert from ProRAW to their optimized JPEG counterparts and keep them in my iCloud Photo Library? Such process would decrease image size by a factor of ten.

I cannot find an answer for this seemingly easy question. So far, it all comes down to exporting the photos from Apple’s Photos application and then reimporting them. Such process needs to be followed by the deletion of all the original photos to prevent duplicates. There has to be a better way. Shortcuts, on iOS or macOS doesn’t provide any solutions as far as I can tell. Why is such thing not possible? If you happen to have a solution for this, please let me know.

Exposure Notifications — Still Useful?

Sun, 07 Nov 2021 17:50:49 -0400

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. It’s not the first that I see Exposure Notifications to take so much juice out of my iPhone battery. I’m not alone, apparently, according to a Google search with the “exposure notifications battery drain” keywords.

The question is simple: considering that I’m 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.

Got Things Done This Week

Sat, 06 Nov 2021 12:36:30 -0400

I’m feeling pretty happy again this week-end as I managed to do everything that I was sitting in my blogger’s to do list (which is setup every Sunday in Craft). What you’re seeing in my summary newsletter here is only part of my content creator story.

Remembering Macintosh Floppies

Sat, 06 Nov 2021 11:59:19 -0400

This seemingly insignificant box used to be sold by Apple and contained ten single-sided floppy disks. Those were meant to be used in a Macintosh computer. I had a bunch of them but somehow managed to keep an empty box. It was a great time.

Each floppy contained a whopping 400 KB of storage for a single-sided version. At one point we could get them for 70$ a piece. It was expansive compared to 5 1/4 inches flexible floppy disks that contained either 160 KB or 360 KB that were typically used in IBM PCs. From a design perspective, Apple’s floppy disks were rigid, smaller, sturdier and dust proof, hence a higher asking price.

Glass Profile Page — Finally?

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 19:43:14 -0400

After a successful initial launch, categories support addition, now here is profile page support. Glass is maturing, one step at a time. The web experience wasn’t part of the initial launch and I think it is fine. This is my profile page. Works great on iPhone, and on iPad which is cool. To join, you need to download the application. Works great on iPhone, not available on iPad. Oops. Next? Like support? I don’t think so. Hoping to meet you there!

Computational Photography Meet Traditional Cameras

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 20:52:51 -0400

But I wonder, where is photography headed from here? Surely, computational photography will play a big role in the short term. In my opinion, smartphones are not the future of photography, but they are hinting at where standalone, interchangeable lens cameras have to go in the next few years. I can’t wait to see what’s coming next. Source: Where is photography headed? — aows

What if Canon or Nikon were developing computational photography features in their cameras, just like Apple does for its iPhone? Imagine a “real” lens, a much bigger CCD captor, algorithms coupled with machine learning running on a powerful CPU. I wonder if this is the only way for Canon and Nikon to survive.

Understanding Halide Pro+ Capture Format

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 07:19:41 -0400

I’m still learning new things about shooting in ProRAW on my iPhone 13 Pro. The latest tidbits that I learned is not directly related to ProRAW usage, but to a setting in Halide related to photo capture modes.

When using what is called “Pro+” setting, Halide will take two photos for each shot. One is taken in HEIC format, the other is taken in ProRAW. Both photos are tied together and stored in Apple’s Photos library as one image. Here is the thing that I learned: when browsing previously taken photos from within Halide, metadata is shown in two different panels: HEIC and DNG (see above screenshots). Each component is taking a certain amount of space. The former being the smallest one. The latter, being the ProRAW version, is usually ten times bigger. But, when browsing the same photo in Photos, only the HEIC size is shown, as depicted in the following screenshot.

In summary, for pictures taken with Halide’s Pro+ format, don’t be deceived by Apple’s Photos showing only the HEIC size. The actual space consumed by this image is actually the sum of the HEIC part + ProRAW part (in DNG). That’s big, for only one image. Is it worth it? It depends, as I recently wrote about this.

Is the Cost of ProRAW Worth It? #apple #photography #proraw

Sat, 23 Oct 2021 14:45:14 -0400

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around Apple’s ProRAW. I know, I’m late to the party. Image size can be as much as 10x the size of a jpeg. I think that for non-edge cases (optimal lighting), ProRAW “cost” isn’t worth it. Also, ProRAW images taken with Halide are much smaller than using Apple’s camera app, for reasons I still don’t understand.

Big Update to Timery — I Love It!

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 07:30:30 -0400

Timery received a major addition in this week’s update: REPORTS! As I wrote recently, I’m tracking the time I spend on my blogging and content creation activities. Timery is my go-to client for Toggl, a time tracking service. Having access to reports within the application, instead of heading to the Toogl’s website is really helpful. Now, looking forward for Timery to support macOS Monterey’s Shortcuts!

A Few #Unleashed Observations About That #AppleEvent

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 12:30:58 -0400

The less than an hour Unleashed event took place yesterday, I was there… watching on my Mac mini. I had these observations.

The opening sequence with the man in its garage building a song based on sound from Apple devices, like the Mac startup sound was different, some sort of Mac celebration. Is this garage setup intentional and a reference to Apple’s beginnings? Probably.
Today, I would argue that Apple completed 80% of its transition to its Apple Silicon. The Mac Pro will probably be the last to get the Apple Silicon treatment. What a monster it will be. We’ll probably get a bigger iMac and beeper Mac mini meanwhile. 2022.
There is not much not to like in Apple’s MacBook Pro announcement. These MacBook Pro are technical marvels. Lots of “speeds and feeds” for sure but hey, that was for the pros, right?
The M1 Pro / M1 Max branding makes me think of Intel’s.
The notch… comes with a bonus, more screen estate. Is there room to complain? I wonder how good apps with many menus will look like. Yet, with all the hardware prowess Apple is capable of, I still wonder why they cannot put the FaceTime camera in the bezel, even that thin. Center Stage? Nope. Requires a better camera for that.
I’m not looking to buy a new MacBook or any Apple devices for that matter. I’m super happy with my M1 Mac mini and M1 MacBook Air. But, a friend of mine ordered the 14”. Can’t wait to have his comments.
This design changes are more or less subtile and it is quite interesting to note that it is reminiscent of the PowerBook G4 Titanium. I love it.
The keyboard, without the Touch Bar, with its black background, looks so… pro. I love it. The best combination to me is with the silver version of the MacBook Pro, the contrast is even higher, more pro.
Now, am I alone to think that the iMac / Mac mini could be the next to receive the M1 Pro and M1 Max treatment?
The ProMotion display, which is based on the Liquid Retina Display, looks impressive. We’ll see what the reviewers have to say next week.

Another solid virtual event for Apple. Oh, Voice plan for Music? That was weird. I don’t get it. I thought Siri was bad as an interface to search for music. Apple must have a different take with that one. Now, the big question, is there any new stuff left for Apple this year? I think so. And that’s ok.

Going to the movies still sucks

Sun, 17 Oct 2021 12:19:40 -0400

We went to the movies yesterday night. The first time in two years. “No Time To Die” 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.

Where Should Glass Go? A Debate About Likes

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 06:47:21 -0400

One of my picture on Glass

Matt Bircher on the lack of “Like” on Glass:

Maybe this is a terrible idea and I’m in the minority here, but I really do think that I would enjoy the app more if I was able to give lower-friction reactions to people’s photos. I still like Glass quite a bit, and I browse it everyday, but I do often feel like I don’t have the energy to comment on all the photos I like, and that’s a shame.

Lee Peterson’s take on his blog:

Not having follower counts and likes is a great way to stop the comparison to others and help to reduce the stress of feeling bad about myself for not making engaging content.

It’s not an easy thing to consider. Matt’s point of view also echos mine. If Glass added likes, does that put them on the path of Instagram, ads, and algorithm-based feed? I don’t think so. Glass is a paid service. That’s the key.

What if the decision of enabling likes was delegated to the photographer posting photos? I would enable it, Matt probably would too, but not Lee. The same goes for seeing and showing the followers count on the profile page. What if those decisions were put in the hands of the content creator? Let the platform have it builtin and the content creator decide what to do with it. Twitter’s Revue offers such a feature of showing the subscribers count on the Revue profile page. I like it, and it is enabled, even though I only have two subscribers.

On Micro.blog, the situation is pretty much the same. We don’t get likes to our posts, we don’t get to see how many followers we’ve got. I made requests to the guy behind Micro.blog for the ability to see the followers count on Micro.blog without much success. This data could be made private, and we could enable to show it on our profile page.

Why is the platform the only one making those decisions? Let the content creators decide. You can find me on Glass under the Numericcitizen moniker, here is one of my shared photo.

Google, Are You Kidding Me?

Tue, 12 Oct 2021 20:06:12 -0400

Google, recently on Twitter, announcing their adoption of Apple’s UIKit design language instead of using their Material design:

“Does a switch really need to be built custom in alignment with a generic design system? Or might it be sufficient to simply use the system solution and move on?”

I don’t buy Google’s explanation. Google is trying to say that UIKit wasn’t good enough for them, so they went their own way. Bullshit. The other way to look at this: building native apps is a better way to go than trying to build apps on unifying frameworks.

E-Bikes: #VanmoofV — What Is Going on Here?

Tue, 12 Oct 2021 19:47:08 -0400

Today, Vanmoof announced their latest e-bike, the Vanmoof V model. The announcement video, reminiscent of Apple’s product reveals, is light on details. The singular design, in white, is both intriguing and looks heavy on the look. Some specs are impressive, on paper. But, there is something absolutely troubling: the V model is going to ship near the end of 2022. Yep, in more than a year. What is going on here? What this premature announcement could mean for Vanmoof? Well, obviously they are trying to gain mind share among potential e-bike buyers, and they are afraid to lose market share.

We’ll be developing the VanMoof V over the upcoming year, and will keep you updated with news and features as the bike comes to life.

Can you imagine if Apple were to announce a new flagship product iteration, the next iPhone, more than a year in advance? I wonder if Vanmoof is aware of the Osborne effect. 🧐

On the way back home

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 12:32:23 -0400

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.

Am I missing Notion? @notionhq @craftsdocsapp

Sat, 09 Oct 2021 16:32:23 -0400

Been thinking about Notion recently. Before using Craft, I was a fan of Notion. I spent a few moments today on Notion to make some cleanup. I think I’m still a fan. Craft feels better for me as a writer tool. Yet, Notion is features rich. They keep improving it. I don’t know if they do it at a faster pace than Craft. They are certainly more mature. The team behind Craft being smaller, they don’t have the same resources. Many features are missing. But there is something to it that is missing in Notion. Craft being native on the Mac (it’s a Catalyst app), it makes a big difference. Anyway, I’ll keep an eye on Notion. Who knows if I’ll come back.

The Read Later Syndrome

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 07:19:12 -0400

Pocket. Refind. Readwise. Matter. Safari Read Later. When is this going to stop, so I can make up my mind? If you do a search on my Micro.blog page, you’ll see how tormented I can be about saving web stuff stuff to read later. I’m not very good at reading later. Yet, I’m eager to read more. I’m watching Readwise Reader to come out (I signed up for an early access), but just yesterday I stumbled on Matter, which looks really interesting, but still a bit limited.

It’s Becoming Harder and Harder to Sell Second Hand Apple Gear

Sat, 02 Oct 2021 14:11:13 -0400

After many weeks of trying, I finally sold my 2017 21.5 inches iMac. Even though Apple is currently selling M1 iMac at a competitive price, I thought that it would be easier to get rid of my Mac. It was a maxed out configuration, which helped me ask for a higher than usual price compared to other sellers. Yet, it wasn’t easy. As you might guess, I’m not the only one trying to sell an Intel-based iMac.

The next device put on sale was my iPhone 11 Pro with 256 GB of storage. One week before the officiel launch of the iPhone 13 Pro, I put up my older iPhone for sale. I got quite a few people interested in it, but the problem was the price they were willing to offer. It was way under my asking price, closer to what Apple is offering as a trade-in value. I think this is part of the problem. Many people are looking to get rid of their older devices to help pay for the new one, but potential buyers are comparing to what Apple is offering, which shouldn’t be used to fix the value of the second hand iPhone. Apple will refurbish the device or recycle it. This cannot be used as a comparison. After a week of getting my trade-in kit, I decided to return my iPhone instead of bothering to sell it.

When I bought my MacBook Air back in August, it came with a free pair of AirPods. I didn’t need them, so I put them on sale too. That one was easy to sell, though. It took less than half a day to find someone willing to get them.

It’s true that Apple hardware keep their resale value, but I think it’s not what it used to be. Apple is no longer the underdog, their devices are everywhere, which puts pressure on pricing.

What’s I’d like to see come in Canada is the iPhone upgrade program available in the US. I think I would pay a monthly price to always get the newer iPhone.

Dear @Viticci, I’m Not a Professional Reviewer, So What?

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 06:56:26 -0400

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

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:

“You wouldn’t want to read/or watch a review by someone who is not a professional reviewer. It wouldn’t be enjoyable.”

Yep. Viticci said that. In “The value of a non-reviewer’s perspective” from Mere Civilian:

”I 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. “

What? Really? Then, I read this reaction from Lee Peterson on his blog:

”MacStories 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?”

And here is my response. Viticci comments make him look full of himself. Period. I’m 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, I’d 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 “I’m not an audiophile, but here are my thoughts on Apple’s AirPods Max” which is not of “review” but a collection of observations. I concluded with this:

”So, 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 Apple’s walled garden.”

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

Apple’s Maps — Nine Years of Iterative Updates

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 13:01:05 -0400

Today Apple is publishing an article on its newsroom website about all the new thing that comes with Maps in iOS 15. There is a lot to like in this update, like the 3D detailed views in some major cities like San Francisco. These 3D views remind me of SimCity, a game on which I’ve spent countless hours playing. Maps as matured over the years, following the iterative nature of Apple’s approach to everything they do. Some don’t like it, others see the value in it. I’m one of those who think this is the best approach as each iteration helps build the next one with good cumulative experience. Today’s Maps, nine year later after a rocky start, in 2012, is impressive and as good as other popular alternatives, in my area at least.

Microsoft: Wow. Your Turn, Apple.

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 20:48:09 -0400

Microsoft’s announcements this week are nothing less than impressive. Microsoft is showing courage. Their Surface are striking. These things will probably be hot as hell (pun intended, thanks to Intel Inside). I’m hoping users will have a better experience than many of my colleague who had their Surface replaced in the last year because of over heating issues. Stylus On the surface (pun intended) may not work as well as the Apple Pencil on the iPad. Apple is at their best in that regard. Yet, we have to give them credits for what they are doing. They are iterating with more than incremental updates. They try new things. It’s interesting to see Microsoft aligning itself with Apple strategy: vertical integration (hardware + software: Windows) with a yearly release schedule. Designed for Windows 11. Well done.

Now, looking forward to Apple’s next announcement: the MacBook Pro “redesign”. Don’t expect anything close to what Microsoft is doing. But expect Apple to reintroduce the HDMI port and the SD Card reader. According the latest leaks.

Tim Would Love Stopping the Leaks

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 20:24:16 -0400

Of course the memo from Tim Cook about leakers is being leaked. It’s funny to read a leaked memo from Tim Cook expressing his concern and frustration about leakers working within Apple. After reading it, I do think part of the message is for outside leakers too, knowing the memo would be… leaked.

On iOS 15 Early Adoption Rate

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 20:12:18 -0400

Compared to last’s year iOS 14, early numbers show a much slower adoption rate for iOS 15. The problem? Last year was about the iPhone experience getting widgets. That’s a very material change. This year? Even if widgets now come to the iPad, it is far less reaching than it was on the iPhone. Things like focus modes are not as flashy as widgets but are damn useful, to me at least.

Happy iOS 15 & iPadOS 15 to you all!

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 08:08:32 -0400

After a long summer of beta releases, today we get to see the final releases of iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. Are you feeling as excited as a few years ago at the same time? Personally, even if I think those are great iterative updates, I don’t. There is less to grab by developers it seems. I’m not expecting exciting new releases for any of my apps. What about yours?

Dear @AppleInsider STOP THIS!

Sat, 18 Sep 2021 09:00:08 -0400

I don’t know who got the idea at AppleInsider of putting video auto-play right in the middle of every articles, but this doesn’t enable a great reading experience. Even worst, scrolling the page to the bottom while reading will put the video in the bottom right corner on top of the content. It makes me wonder if I should stop reading their content altogether. Ads are bad but this is even worst. It’s not a good reading experience at all. Please, reconsider. Thanks. A long time reader.

The iterative Apple that delivers

Thu, 16 Sep 2021 06:43:34 -0400

If you think that this year’s updates from Apple are meh, I think, either you didn’t pay attention during the keynote or you’re simply bored. You may not like the iterative nature of Apple under Tim Cook, maybe you forgot to remember that the smartphone (and to some degree) the smartwatch are mature products. Since Apple is paying attention to what the majority of people actually care about, improving battery life, adding more storage, keeping prices steady, not having to wait three months to get a new device, stop expecting folding iPhone to prove Apple is still innovating.

There, I said it.

The future of the App Store According to Marco Arment

Tue, 14 Sep 2021 12:17:03 -0400

One of the best recent take on the possible future of the App Store.

Regarding IAP purchases:

Most apps will be required to also offer IAP side-by-side with any external methods

…

Many games will offer both IAP and external purchases, with the external choice offering a discount, bonus gems, extra loot boxes, or other manipulative tricks to optimize the profitability of casino games for children

…

External purchase methods will evolve to be almost as convenient as IAP

…

The payment-fraud doomsday scenarios argued by Apple and many fans mostly won’t happen

Now, App Store side-loading and alternative App Stores:

Facebook would soon have apps that bypassed App Review installed on the majority of iPhones in the world.

…

Without the threat of App Review to keep them in check, Facebook’s apps would become even more monstrous than they already are.

…

Alternative app stores would be even worse. Rather than offering individual apps via side-loading, Facebook could offer just one: The Facebook App Store.

…

Maybe Google would bring the Play Store to iOS and offer a unified SDK to develop a single codebase for iOS and Android, effectively making every app feel like an Android app

…

Media conglomerates that own many big-name properties, like Disney, might each have their own app stores for their high-profile apps.

…

Most developers would probably need to start submitting our apps to multiple app stores, each with its own rules, metadata, technical requirements, capabilities, approval delays, payment processing, stats, crash reports, ads, promotion methods, and user reviews.

In a few words: what a fucking mess.

I don’t expect side-loading or alternative app stores to become possible, and I’m relieved, because that is not a future I want for iOS.

I’m not so sure this won’t happen, but I’m sure that’s something I don’t want too. If only Apple could better read the room’s temperature and budge a tad.

Readwise.io Reader App — A Potential Game Changer?

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 11:38:51 -0400

In a recent announcement by Readwise.io:

We’re now in position to reimagine aspects of the digital reading experience itself, from how you annotate a document, to how you navigate. Readwise as you know it today isn’t going anywhere, but this is our future.

And:

With the new Readwise reading app, not only will these resurfacing and syncing features not go away, they will be enhanced through tight integration into the reading experience.

There is much more to digest on their published essay. They’ve been thinking about this for a while and judging from a few screenshots, their reading app seems compelling and well done. I’m hoping they will support Safari’s extensions. RSS feeds will be supported too. Sadly, it will probably be another Electron-based app. We’ll see if this doesn’t affect too much the experience.

I’ve been a subscriber of Readwise.io for a while, but I must admit that I’m not taking advantage of it as much as I would have liked. It does get synced with my Pocket account, but that’s about it. Oh, and my saved quotes get resurfaced in my Mailbrew summary newsletter, which is cool.

I’ve subscribed to their private beta testers waiting list and I can’t wait to try it out. If all goes well and is up to what they say on their blog post, this could entirely replace Pocket for me.

E-Bike and the Apple Watch — a Quick Question

Sat, 11 Sep 2021 13:15:26 -0400

So, you’ve got an e-Bike. Good for you. I’m jealous. You’ve got an Apple Watch too. Good for you, just like me. Now you want to go for a ride and record this activity with your Apple Watch. Which activity type will you select? Selecting Bike will probably record wrong data as you can move much faster than a regular bike and getting lower than normal heartbeat rate. Should Apple provide another type of biking activity?

Photo by Wolfram Bölte on Unsplash

Courage, Apple?

Sat, 11 Sep 2021 07:49:41 -0400

John Gruber on Apple’s lack of courage regarding vaccination of their employees:

So where’s Apple on this? Why isn’t 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

Remembering that day

Sat, 11 Sep 2021 07:27:31 -0400

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 didn’t 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 didn’t 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 didn’t fix anything. How much do they spend on guns to try to fix this problem? Fascinating indeed.

Photo by Magnus Olsson on Unsplash

Can’t wait to try this

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 21:13:31 -0400

This is the Opal webcam. For the Mac. Made by Apple people. Can’t wait to try this out. Not cheap, though. Not ready yet either.

Quick Ranting On Medium App Updates

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 07:19:05 -0400

Can Medium stop reimagining their app and fix it?

Consider this screenshot of the Medium.app updates streak. It’s not a joke. At least one update a week for reimagining their app. I used to like Medium but their app, probably a major conduit to their content, is broken on the iPad and it never gets fixed (mainly layout issues).

How are we supposed to take online publishers seriously when for months they let bugs hinder the user experience of… reading their content? I greatly reduced my use of Medium for reading content, partly because of this.

On VMware Not Supporting the Mac Pro

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 06:47:40 -0400

VMware:

Due to various challenges of COVID-19 and the recent announcement from Apple on their transition away from x86 to Apple Silicon, VMware will no longer pursue hardware certification for the Apple 2019 Mac Pro 7,1 for ESXi.

This is sad news and probably not a surprising news. In early 2020, I came close to buy an entry-level Mac Pro in order to build a lab-in-a-box for experimenting different environments and software, all related to my work. I started this thread on my blog about my SDDCbox project, and was nearly ready to make the decision. Somehow, priorities shifted and I dropped my project entirely.

It is one thing to see new apps being non-native to the Mac, like 1Password 8 and maybe the upcoming Readwise Reader app, but it is another when a major player like VMware no longer consider the Mac as a viable platform for things like ESXi. Apple’s transition to its own silicon has obviously something to do with it. The Mac has never been more popular than today, yet, on the software side, I feel there is a “malaise”.

The next #AppleEvent is coming!

Tue, 07 Sep 2021 18:49:39 -0400

Just in time for the upcoming Apple event, my rumours site has been updated to reflect the most recent rumours. New iPhone. New Apple Watch. New AirPods. iOS 15. iPadOS 15. No MacBook Pro updates. That is all.

The (short) story of a scratch

Sun, 05 Sep 2021 09:27:59 -0400

Here is a picture of my 2020 MacBook Air that I recently bought. I wanted to use it as a banner somewhere, but this visual defect on the Apple logo put an end to my intention. Then, I started to think how bad things go for Apple these days and I came to the conclusion that this scratch perfectly illustrates the current status of Apple as a symbol. What a useless post. 🙂🤦🏻‍♂️

A thought on the Apple Watch Series 7

Fri, 03 Sep 2021 07:09:32 -0400

In recent days or weeks, rumours are rampant on the updated design of the Apple Watch: bigger but flatter screen, boxier design are the main themes, with no new health sensors. I’m not so sure about the boxy design. It’s ok for the iPad or the iPhone but for a watch? To me, it could make it less approachable, less jewelry. We’ll see in a few weeks. There is one thing that I’d like to point out about the Series 7: Apple is not only presumably launching an updated design, they are creating a new price point. The bigger screen helps legitimate this. They have been doing this since Tim Cook is CEO.

A typical month on Substack

Thu, 02 Sep 2021 07:16:34 -0400

Five publications each month. Four Friday notes posts, one monthly newsletter. Some new subscribers. No comments. A lot of fun at writing and publishing these posts. I’m writing for myself. I don’t feel the pressure of regular writing schedules. It’s easier than I thought. The more I do it, easier it becomes. Substack is a slowly evolving publishing platform. I wish it was a bit more like Twitter’s Revue. Anyways. https://numericcitizen.substack.com.

And so it begins. What's next?

Tue, 31 Aug 2021 06:37:55 -0400

According to the Wall Street Journal:

South Korea today passed a bill that bans Apple and Google from requiring developers to use their own respective in-app purchasing systems, allowing developers to charge users using third-party payment methods

Now what? How will Apple respond? Will they create a different version of iOS for South Korea? Can they simply appeal this law, if such a thing is possible? How is this going to help other countries and parties to go after Apple’s practices? How much time will Apple be given to change its practices? Three months? A year? South Korea is probably a small market for Apple compared to other places in the world, but this new law seems like a tsunami in the making.

On Apple's M1 MacBook Air energy efficiency

Sat, 28 Aug 2021 08:28:25 -0400

Funny and fascinating to see that 95% of the time, the four energy-efficient CPU cores are doing all the legwork on my M1 MacBook Air. I rarely see the performance cores doing work for a long time.

While waiting for iCloud Private Relay...

Sat, 28 Aug 2021 07:57:25 -0400

I’m using NextDNS.io for a better web experience… not the same but it does a great job of making the web more privacy friendly and a lot faster too. Too bad that we will have to wait for iOS 15.1 or later for iCloud Private Relay. Each year there are features that get dropped from the initial release… remember iMessage in the cloud, anyone?

Late to the party, but...

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 06:40:10 -0400

Just got this yesterday. You know what this mean, right? Well, maybe not. Anyway, I’m a bit late to the MacBook Air party, but this thing is probably THE best Mac Apple ever made. It’s not the best Air Apple ever made, though. A tad too big probably, yet so powerful. And this keyboard… a real and trusty keyboard. 🥰

I’m working on an essay about my new adventure in the MacBook Air land. Stay tuned.

Feeling honored

Wed, 18 Aug 2021 19:55:19 -0400

It doesn’t happen too often but when it does, I feel very proud about it. One of my blog post about the story of 1Password 8 going Electron on https://numericcitizen.me received a backlink from Michael Tsai (look for “JF Martin” and you’ll see the excerpt).

Mr. Tsai does a tremendous work with his link posts in general. I can imagine how much work he puts into this each day.I would love to have a peek at his blogger workflow.

About this “in-public” design

Wed, 18 Aug 2021 19:43:02 -0400

Gruber writing about how Apple mostly fixed Safari 15 on iPhone with beta 6 (emphasis is mine):

The unusual part is that we got to see Apple’s design process play out in public. The Safari team has been kept busy this summer. (There has to be one hell of backstory here, right?) There was a certain pessimism amongst some who perceived the problems with the original iOS 15 Safari design, simply because Apple seldom makes drastic UI changes between their unveiling at WWDC in June, and when they officially ship in the fall. But seldom isn’t never.

I’d love to read the behind-the-scene-story about this “in public” design process that we all witnessed. The Safari team surely scrambled to fix the design issues between beta 1 and beta 6… or was just all planned in advance? I bet on the former. The whole saga was unusual for Apple. They look less confident from a design perspective.

I love Safari 15 in beta 6. They nailed it, and it is an improvement compared to the pre-iOS 15 implementation.

When designers can’t decide...

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 21:43:24 -0400

iOS 15 beta 6 is out and Apple is making great progress with Safari on iPhone. For me, they finally hit the right notes. I think that’s the design they should have included since day one of iOS 15. Yet, I find it funny to see Apple put a new option in settings for those who prefer the pre-iOS 15 release. I guess it’s another case of “If you can’t decide which design is the best, just add another option in Settings so the user decide.”

We will have to wait for these... sadly.

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 21:34:11 -0400

SharePlay, ID Cards, App Privacy Report, Custom email domain, detailed 3D navigation in CarPlay, Legacy Contacts, Universal Control won’t ship with iOS 15.0 this fall. We’ll have to wait for an update later, like 15.1, 15.2 or even later. That’s a lot of stuff missing the deadline. I was looking forward to Legacy Contacts and Universal control… Apple is often a waiting game.

What a bizarre advice

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 06:44:31 -0400

A successful Apple investor, Paul Lane, had advice to give to other Apple investors, as reported on PED: buy Apple gear to return some money to Apple as a sign of appreciation and support. That’s the most bizarre advice I ever heard of from an investor. I would expect something along the line: buy low, sell high. I, personally, own a few Apple shares and a lot of their products. Yet, I don’t feel invested in a mission to show my support to Apple, either by buying shares or their products.

Doing all the things I love

Mon, 16 Aug 2021 14:40:34 -0400

Photo by karl chor on Unsplash

After an emotional week-end, long in coming, today I’m doing all the things I love the most: doing computer stuff — writing in a coffee shop — feeling like a real blogger — doing some photo processing — walking — biking. I know time will fly.

Life is good. Those days are so rare. I’m enjoying every single minutes of it. Work resumes tomorrow.

Photo by karl chor on Unsplash

Apple’s cheap labour: concept creators

Fri, 13 Aug 2021 07:17:08 -0400

Parker Ortolani for 9to5Mac published a two-parts concept on a future version of macOS named Mammoth.

macOS Big Sur did a great job of refining the Mac desktop, but it didn’t fundamentally change any of its behavior. We’d like to see that change with the next version of macOS. With Monterey being mostly full of small refinements rather than big ideas, we’d expect Mammoth to be a monstrous release.

I’m using one of his screen design that pertains to widgets improvements. I recently wrote about those and Apple’s sad design decision to keep them in the notifications center for Big and Monterey. I think Ortolani’s design is interesting and plausible. Freedom of placement certainly makes the experience more satisfying. It’s so true they liberated widgets on iPad with iPadOS 15.

There is so much work going into these visual essays. I mean, there are release notes too! I often considered people doing these mockups has being Apple’s cheap labour. I wonder if Apple’s designers notice those.

On this unexpected and mysterious macOS Big Sur 11.5.2 update

Wed, 11 Aug 2021 18:23:12 -0400

Dear Apple, as an owner of an M1 Mac mini, a MacBook Air and an iMac, don’t you think that I’m entitled for an explanation about what does this update fix? I think I do.

Excited for a… keyboard

Tue, 10 Aug 2021 06:31:20 -0400

I got the new Magic Keyboard with Touch ID. I chose the one without the numeric keypad; the desk space being scarce. Setting this thing up took one minute. I had to read the (slim) manual as I wasn’t sure how the pairing would work: connect the keyboard to my M1 Mac mini with the provided USB-C to Lightning cable, quickly press the M1 Mac mini power button two times to trigger the setup process for Touch ID configuration (Bluetooth is automatically configured). The Touch ID setup screen looks similar to the one on the iPhone when settings up Touch ID for the first time. It’s one of the best Apple keyboard; keys feeling is similar to the previous generation. Touch ID is the star of the show here, and I love it. Only works with M1 Macs. This Magic Keyboard brings to the Mini, a feature otherwise only available to the MacBooks (and the M1 iMac). That’s why I bought the keyboard. It’s not cheap, but convenience has a price for Apple.

About the Store, the Store Tab.

Mon, 09 Aug 2021 20:15:35 -0400

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: “I’m feeling inspired by Apple’s new way of thinking. It’s liberating. Who needs “Apple” when you have “Store”? Generic is just so much easier, don’t 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

(Re)Introducing the Store Tab

Wed, 04 Aug 2021 21:17:42 -0400

Yesterday, Apple made some changes to their website with the introduction of a new Store tab at the top of their website. Not only that, but the store design has been completely redone. I find it a bit disorienting at first, but after a few minutes, I think the elements and general reorganization make sense; I find it easier to navigate in general. Apple chose the horizontal scrolling sections instead of going vertical. I’m not always sure this is the best way to go, though. The bouncing effect is inconsistent, it’s there while going to the right but not when hitting the limit on the left. AirTags have their section, which is surprising for such a small device.

It’s interesting to note that Apple’s top navigation bar is now spanning a store, physical products, services, support, search, and a shopping cart.

Apple is getting ready for this fall slew of new products. Oh, one of the first thing I noticed is that the Magic Keyboard With Touch ID that is bundled with the 24” iMac is now sold separately. I ordered one for my M1 Mac mini. It will take less space on my desk and Touch ID will so much more convenient for the mini. One last thing: convenience has a price: 179 CAN$. Ouch.

I Love This Machine

Tue, 03 Aug 2021 07:05:42 -0400

It is light, fast and an absolute design gem. Small, but not too small. It runs a powerful operating system. It’s highly portable. It is venerable. It is a rare “species”. There is something really special about it. Furthermore, it has a real keyboard that I can trust. Battery life is good. It is out of the way. It’s the perfect device for writing and blogging.

It’s a 2013 11” MacBook Air.

I’ll explain in the coming week or so.

Documenting past home screen arrangements

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 21:07:23 -0400

Matt Birchler had an interesting blog post this week about a screenshot of his 2013 iPhone home screen. There are a few interesting things to note. In 2013, it was the arrival of the controversial iOS 7 redesign. It’s interesting to look at the Camera+ icon design which was still not updated for the new style. The dock design style was pretty basic and felt out of place. A few apps are not longer among us these days: Path (which was really a great design example) but most of the third-party apps are still available today.

I wish I had kept screen shots of previous home screen arrangements in the past. Something that I have kept is many screen shots of my password manager user interface dating back pre-iOS 7 era. Here is an example below. When I saw iOS 7, I didn’t have the courage to rework my design. The development of my app stopped right there. I made five thousands dollars with this adventure, between 2009 and 2013. Now I’m using a combinaison of 1Password and Apple’s passwords vault.

On Safari 15 in iPadOS 15 Beta 4

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 20:52:26 -0400

Apple is slowly but surely getting there with this release of beta 4 of iPadOS 15 and Safari 15. I like what I’m seeing, on the iPad. Yet, “when you don’t know what is best, just add an option to Settings so the user can decide” strategy seems to be the way to go this time. You know what’s my choice, don’t you?

I’ve been invited to test Safari 15 Preview on Big Sur

Tue, 27 Jul 2021 07:08:14 -0400

I’m going to jump in because on macOS, I don’t see the change as controversial as on iOS 15. I find it surprising that Apple seeks feedback on the new design. It’s a good thing but also surprising has they tend to do their thing alone. Now, they look a bit in distress while searching for a solution.

Four days week day? We can only dream it seems

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 21:49:26 -0400

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.

Do you remember when you switched to Apple's ecosystem?

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 07:31:00 -0400

Matt Birchler writing about Apple ecosystem stickiness:

“As I buy more and more Apple products, all of those Apple products get better. My iPhone is more valuable because of the HomePod Mini I AirPlay my podcast to while I’m working. My iPad gets more valuable because it has seamless file sync with my Mac. Reminders is better because it works with Siri in a way no other app is allowed. The list goes on. But this is of course also a bit of a trap. I can’t really get an Android phone, even if I think I would enjoy it more than my iPhone, because then my HomePods become worse, my Mac gets worse, my iPad gets worse, and my Apple services get worse. Because each additional Apple product makes all my other Apple products better, likewise removing something from that mix brings down everything else.”

You cannot use an Apple Watch with an Android smartphone. In Apple’s garden, every product has an extension that takes the form of a service or another physical product from Apple. Did we forget that once upon a time we made a switch from platforms like Windows or OS/2? When a new offering is really making a difference, we tend to switch. Back in the days, a Windows PC was an island, leaving it for the Mac meant that you had to re-buy new software, a few accessories. All things equal, the switch wasn’t necessarily funny. Today’s digital world is quite different, for sure, but pose a similar kind of challenge when switching.

Photo by Miguel Tomás on Unsplash

On iPadOS 15 Photos improvements

Sun, 25 Jul 2021 08:34:13 -0400

I’ve been using Photos in iPadOS 15 since beta 2 and I must say that Apple is in fact offering a major update to their photos application. Beyong the updated Stories automatic creation and management improvements, face recognition has become quite impressive. According to a published article by Apple, people faces should be more detectable and recognizable in more extreme conditions. I can confirm this is actually the case. A large number of new photos were surfaced by Photos’ improved algorithms which brings more potential content for new stories creation. Managing tagged faces is easier too and provides a refined experience overvall. Photos enhancements in iPadOS 15 is a big reason to upgrade.

Moving Adobe Lightroom from one machine to another

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 07:04:40 -0400

I’m finally done moving Adobe Lightroom Classic from my iMac to my M1 Mac mini. A few takeaways: it’s a tricky process involving many folders to copy (presets, settings, photos, catalog, etc.). Lightroom is bad at managing digital assets when things need to be reorganized. The Apple Silicon optimized version is faster but not as much as I thought it would be. My Mac mini never stop to impress me, it’s such a fast device. I’m close to being able to put my 2017 iMac for sale.

iPhone 13 Pro Max or iPhone 13 Pro — That is the question

Sun, 18 Jul 2021 18:06:21 -0400

I’m planning to go big screen this fall with the iPhone 13 Pro (12s?) Max (I currently own an iPhone 11 Pro). I never owned the biggest iPhone (Plus or Max). There is one thing that makes me pause: information density of the Max seems about the same if not a bit higher compared to the non-Max model. There are six row of icons on the home screen on both models (Max and non-Max), which is kind of lame. Am I getting this wrong?

When a 2013 MacBook Air is > than a two-years old Chromebook

Sun, 18 Jul 2021 17:17:35 -0400

I’ll be getting a old 2013 MacBook Air for one of my son to replace an aging Chromebook that I bought about two years ago. Think about it. This eight years old MacBook Air is faster, much better design, much better screen quality, more memory and will be able to run macOS Big Sur and all other apps like iWorks et al. I find this incredible that we can read and hear people saying Apple gear is expansive and that is under Apple’s obsolescence progamming. I call this bullshit.

Moving from Castro to Pocket Cast: 100% completed. 👨🏻‍💻⌛️👍🏻😁

Sat, 17 Jul 2021 09:50:30 -0400

I waited for close to a year for Castro to bring its podcasts app to the iPad. Today, with the announcement of Automattic buying Pocket Cast, it came back on my radar. It didn’t take too long to make the switch. Pocket Cast is a real multi-platform player, feature rich and has an as good design as the other players. After Tumblr, DayOne, now Pocket Cast, I want to give it a try and see how Automattic will build on it. Meanwhile, I’m really enjoying it.

On PC in the cloud

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 06:43:53 -0400

Microsoft announced their PC in the cloud offerings this week. While it is probably based on their previous offering, Windows Virtual Desktop service, it does look like a milestone to me. I’ve been in IT for more than 25 years. I saw the migration from the mainframe to the client-server applications architecture. After that, it was about virtualization taking over with the popular VMware hypervisor. In the last five years, I saw the cloud taking over the IT world. The latter has a much more profound impact than any trend I witnessed or was part of in my career.

PC in the cloud is only offered to business customers, for now. I can see Microsoft offering the service to the general public in a not too distant future. I’ll probably subscribe to an instance for my personal needs. Being able to run the PC in a browser means being able to use it on any of my current Apple devices, from the M1 Mac mini to my iPad Pro. This is something Apple will never enable itself, certainly not within Safari. The future looks interesting.

User Interface design dark age era

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 07:06:52 -0400

We are in the dark age (not dark mode!) of user interface design for sure. We get excited for new animated UI elements (example here), but overall, delight has been lost in translation a long time ago. As Mike Rockwell is a link post say:

“I can’t really identify anything that I’ll be nostalgic for in ten or twenty years.”

I wouldn’t go back to pre-iOS 7 days but there has to be some delightful in-between degree of crafted user interface that had some real joyful elements in them. Apple is not the only one at fault here. It looks like it is a design trend spanning many mediums (print, TV, web, etc.).

Has the industry decided that our devices have reached a level of maturity that warrants making everything minimal, sterile, and utilitarian to help “do work” and “get stuff done”?

Excellent question, Tyler Hall.

Google’s openness isn’t enough apparently (#antitrust #security #cybersecurity)

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 06:53:22 -0400

Wow, that one is close to being hilarious. Big tech companies are the target of hate these days. Google was hit by another antitrust lawsuit by no less than 36 states about their handling of applications side loading on Android. In summary, it is so cumbersome to side load an app on Android, thanks to security measures, that it makes it hard for competing App Store to compete.

Google makes the sideloading process unnecessarily cumbersome and impractical by adding superfluous, misleading, and discouraging security warnings and by deterring users by requiring them to grant permission multiple times for a single app installation (discussed in more detail in Sections I.C. and I.D. below). The effect of Google’s conduct is to practically eliminate competition in Android app distribution.

Android is supposedly more permissive than Apple’s App Store and yet, it looks like it’s not enough. This lawsuit is a prime example on why I don’t like the current trend. People want more open platforms but it’s never enough. If Apple is ever forced to make profound changes to their App Store business, it will be the beginning of a worrisome trend that I prefer wouldn’t happen. I recently wrote about not wanting another Android platform. Now, I should say that I don’t want another Windows platform disguised in a mobile device. To me, it is scary and close in nature to the same problem of who should own encryption keys. Raging ransomeware cyberattacks are signs of what is coming on mobile devices if we open them up too much, just like Windows.

Bye Bye Skylum - I barely knew you

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 07:16:29 -0400

In preparing to move off my 2017 Intel iMac (and put if for sale), I must make sure to re-install remaining applications on my M1 Mac mini. Photography-related apps were the last to be updated for the M1 chip. Lightroom CC is now fully optimized, but none of the Skylum apps I was (rarely) using: Luminar 4 and Aurora 2019 HDR. After spending some time on their support forums, I found out that none of their apps are optimized for the M1 chip. I had to make the call: bye bye Skylum. I barely knew you.

If a software vendor like Skylum is unable to update their apps in a timely matter, more than a year after the M1 chip has been announced, I give up. It is sad because these are the kind of applications that would take advantage of the power of the M1 chip. Too bad. My photography workflow will focus on Adobe applications, for good or for worse.

What comes before the right to repair? (#apple #righttorepair)

Sun, 11 Jul 2021 20:37:29 -0400

The next step for Apple is to design for repairability which goes beyond recycling. AirPods are the worst example of this. When the battery life on these is reached, there is no practical way to replace them without throwing it to the trash and buying a new one. So for me, the right to repair goes way beyond having a choice of where I’m going to take a device for repair. It is about buying a device that was designed for and built to use recycled materials, but also it is about buying a device that can be repaired for basic things like battery replacement.

Going to space… to watch a burning planet.

Sun, 11 Jul 2021 19:38:22 -0400

So Richard Branson went to space. Next, Jeff Bezos. And then, what? Is there any scientific purposes in these flights to space? Nope, not directly at least. Is this a publicity stunt? Yes and no. I’m not at ease seeing billionnaires spending their pretty money on something that don’t bring value to a community except for themselve. Oh, they want to start a new commercial flight in space business apparently, for billionaires:

Branson’s flight — which came just nine days before Amazon bilionaire Jeff Bezos is slated to rocket into suborbital space aboard his own company’s spacecraft — is a landmark moment for the commercial space industry. The up-and-coming sector has for years been seeking to make suborbital space tourism (a relatively simple straight-up-and-down flight, as opposed to orbiting the Earth for longer periods) a viable business with the aim of allowing thousands of people to experience the adrenaline rush and sweeping views of our home planet that such flights can offer.

Is there a better way to spend our resources to see the burning planet from space? Gosh.

A few thoughts on cleaning up my Twitter accounts following list

Sat, 10 Jul 2021 14:00:52 -0400

Since last year, I’ve been making a major cleanup of my Twitter account. I came from following more than 2000 people down to less than 300… and my goal is to drop below 100. I’m slowly getting there. Here are a few take outs from this major cleanup of my accounts following list.

First, there are a lot of stale accounts on Twitter, which tends to artificially increase “followship”. It looks like people stopped tweeting a while ago — they left the building. Second, a bunch of accounts were iPhone developers that I started following during my indie developer era, back in 2009-2013. My interests have since then shifted to writing and blogging. I no longer need to get in touch with the developers community. Third, and this coud be the most troubling take out: Twitter has become less and less useful in my numeric life. Articles readings happens more and more though RSS feeds and Mailbrew. So, what’s left for me from Twitter? Getting reactions from people during specials events, related to Apple’s announcements. That’s pretty much it.

The return of the Touch ID?

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 06:47:36 -0400

A recent poll ran by 9To5Mac gives surprising results about what people would like to see if Touch Id is to return to the iPhone. Touch ID under the screen wins popular favour… personally, I would prefer Touch ID to go on the power button, just like the iPad Air because it is easily accessible while holding the phone.

Here is some relief for Safari 15 users who hate the new design… (#ios15beta2 #apple)

Sun, 04 Jul 2021 21:25:11 -0400

For those like me who despise Safari redesign in iPadOS 15 & iOS 15: here is simple trick to better cope with Safari redesign: keep the number of open tab to ONE. Why do you think Apple thought it was a good idea to include a “Close Other Tabs” in the popup menu while pressing the address bar? With on,y one tab open, this is close to what we had before.

Apple in a weakness position…

Sat, 03 Jul 2021 14:51:16 -0400

I keep thinking of this phrase from Phil Schiller who once said:

“whenever we make a change we do it from a position of strength rather than weakness.”.

The window has closed a long time ago for Apple and they find themselves in a weakness position. I thought Mr. Schiller was still partly involved in the App Store related decisions.

Let’s pretend there is side-loading of apps on the iPhone, then what?

Sat, 03 Jul 2021 09:21:53 -0400

InitialCharge:

The only one that stands to lose anything in this scenario is Apple and that’s why they’re doing everything they can to convince us that side-loading is inherently bad. But they’re wrong.Source: Apple’s Head of Privacy Doubles Down on Anti-Sideloading Stance - Initial Charge

I’m a bit late on this one but, let say Apple does go ahead and allow for side loading of apps. Besides the proliferation of App Stores, what will we get in this scenario that we don’t get today? Proponents of applications sideloading are always shy on providing the real long term benefits of such opening. Let me guess: lower prices for apps? Faster install? Better layout App Stores? Apps that use private APIs? What examples of previsouly missed innovations that we get with side-loading? Apps that can trick differently users in thinking they are safe? Or is this choices for the sake of choice?

Please… stop… using… ellipsis… for gods sake (#apple #ux #design #iosdev)

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 12:11:59 -0400

In the following screenshot taken this morning on my iPad screen, how many ellipsis signs to you catch? I highlighted them for you to make it easier. To all developers, to all designers, to Apple: please, stop this shit NOW and find a better way, use your imagination, stop being lazy at design. Thank you.

I’m starting a new trend: open writing.

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 10:17:11 -0400

If you’ve been paying attention in recent months, did you know that you can have a peek at my upcoming blog posts that I’m working on? Thanks to Craft, You can peak at a selection of drafts, ideas, reference lists, etc. I give a name to this: open writing. Think of this as being this observer looking at a painter while he or she is painting a new artwork.👨🏻‍💻

What would be super cool is if someone interacted with this by posting comments… which is something Craft makes possible.

On Apple’s Hybrid work model — Apple’s employees to become targets?

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 09:27:33 -0400

Dave Mark for LoopInsight:

Did the pandemic make a foundational change to the way we think about where we do our jobs? Or was this a blip, with a slow slide back to the old ways?

I certainly hope that we won’t return massively to the old days. For Apple, it looks like the pandemic was a blip and employees will need to be back at the office at least three days a week. It’s a corporate culture thing, which doesn’t get amended easily. Now, for employees not wanted to return to the previous model, even partially, they could become poaching targets by other companies where remote work is fundamental to them. This is where Apple could have to open up more.

What if nobody really knows what is going on? (#google #privacy #surveillance)

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 16:11:07 -0400

What if nobody at Google knows exactly what their data hungry engine is all about? I mean, what if nobody has a global picture, so nobody can say “oh my god, it’s terrible, we must stop it!”. This makes me think of the nazis in second world war: very few had a global picture of what was really going on. It was devised this way so it was easier to “manage” and keep the machine humming.

Another coat of paint to Windows UI mess? (#windows11)

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 14:16:00 -0400

So Windows 11 is a thing. Is it a revolution to Windows? Maybe, maybe not. It depends if you can install it on your PC, which is far from certain. But let’s say you can, how deep goes the UI refresh? Is it like it was for Windows 10 which was supposedly a redesign of Windows 8 which was tweaks to Windows 7 UI that came before it. Here is a simple question: Did Microsoft really clean up the Windows UI mess that it has become over the years? I don’t care too much about windows transparency level, toolbars, icons. Getting rid of UI legacy feels a more useful and laudable endeavour.

On design trends — sadness

Sat, 26 Jun 2021 09:59:33 -0400

While reading a recent article from Basic Apple Guy about News+, there is this illustration that shows how far Apple News icon has come since its beginnings. I have included the illustration here. It shows how bad design has become in the last five to ten years. That is really depressing to see. As much as things like AR and LiDAR technology help bring real world and virtual world closer together, UI design seems to go the opposite direction. Why is that? When will that trend stop and maybe revert a bit? Why can’t we get visually joyful icons anymore? Is it a matter of design costs being too high?

A few observations on my iPadOS 15 beta2 experience so far

Sat, 26 Jun 2021 08:36:26 -0400

So, I took the plunge and installed iPadOS 15 beta2 on my iPad Pro. A few observations. It’s beta and it shows. Home screen and widgets placement is janky. One springboard crash so far. All my apps are working just fine. Battery life is taking a hit. Text recognition in pictures is jaw breaking and open up all sort of new use cases. The QuickNote feature is a nice addition that will complement my blogger workflow. QuickNotes appear as regular notes on iOS 14. The loupe is back, thanks god, but I think refinements are needed: it is hard to distinguish from the surrounding text. I completely redone my home screen arrangment. I didn’t setup Focus modes yet as I’m not done with home screens setup yet, both are tied together. I love the new notifications design. I’m really liking iPadOS 15 so far. I use App Library a lot, much more than on my iPhone. 1x1 Widgets are replacing application icons on my first home screen page and I love it! Reordering of home pages is alone enough to justify upgrading! Didn’t use the new multitasking a lot yet, just played a bit with it and it’s a good improvement. Alt-tab in split-view will switch focus between the apps, welcome in 2021. Unpopular opinion: I kind of like Safari’s new design, not sure if this will hold true on the iPhone, though. I love the new keyboard overlay at the bottom of the screen; it is no longer as wide as the screen. I like the refreshed design of the shortcuts editor and the suggestions. That’s it for now. Back to home pages setup.

When hackers strikes personal NAS-type devices

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 16:04:11 -0400

Pool Western Digital My Book Live NAS owners… many of them woke up to find out that their content was gone from their devices. Apparently, hackers came in by using an unpatched vulnerability on devices where the last update was issued in 2015 by Western Digital. This brings me to ask the following questions: were those devices directly connected on the internet? If yes, that dumb. If this was a known vulnerability, why WD didn’t issue a patch? Companies should be required to publish security-only fixes for far longer than they do right now. I’m sorry but 2015 isn’t that old for such a type of devices. Finally, I personally own a Synology NAS, obviously not directly connected on the Internet, yet, I have to wonder if it is still secure. I’m planning on enabling 2FA to add another layer of protection, though.

iPadOS 15 beta 2: install or not, that is the question (#ipados15 #ipadod15beta2)

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 15:07:05 -0400

I’m on vacation. I have some time to spare. My vacation time is spent between my home and a rented chalet. The iPad Pro and my iPhone 11 Pro are my main devices. Beta 2 came late this week and reports are starting to come in. In summary, lot’s of fixes, a bit faster and apparently no big show stopper. I’m mostly using Craft these days and Apple’s stock apps like Reminders and Notes. What could go wrong?

My situation is similar to James Rogers’ from iPadInsight. Last year, I went all in with iOS 14 betas on my iPad and iPhone. This year? I’m a bit more caution. I’m looking to test iPadOS more than anything. As I write this, I get a feeling that I’m trying to convince myself of either waiting for the public beta of simply live dangerously and make the plunge. But what happens in Photos memories on non-upgraded devices? What about Messages in the cloud? What if I create a new reminder item on iOS 15 but want to check it off on a non-iOS 15 device? So many questions… Help me with this.

I know that I should put some time in writing my next issue of my monthly newsletter instead of writing this microblog post. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Just got an idea: have a look at the release notes and see if there are any deal breaker in there. Stay tuned. 😅

Are Facetime Links Enough to compete against Zoom or Teams?

Fri, 25 Jun 2021 14:30:21 -0400

Benjamin Mayo on FaceTime 15 in the landscape of collaboration tools like Zoom and Teams:

FaceTime is more like an add-on of Messages, competing against WhatsApp and traditional phone calls if anything. You also see this in how each service handles identity; Zoom and Teams have abstracted user accounts, whereas on FaceTime you connect by sharing your personal phone number or email address — information that you only want to give out to close friends. Source: FaceTime in iOS 15 — Benjamin Mayo

Surprisingly, to use FaceTime, you need to give very personal information like your phone number of your email address… while other competing platform has abstracted that account information a long time ago. FaceTime links represent a step in the right direction, as sharing a link is enough for others to get onboard. Time will tell if this proves to be enough in the enterprise.

One design doesn’t fits all device sizes — Safari in iOS 15

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 09:04:57 -0400

This Safari redesign concept misses the point of Apple’s decision to redesign Safari on iPhone. Apple’s intention was two-fold: provide a better navigation on the iPhone with the thumb and bring the navigation model of switching across open websites closer to switching between apps. Apple’s intention were good but where they fail is to provide the exact same design for things like opened tabs the same across all screen sizes. It’s probably not needed on the Mac, it’s good on the iPad but messy on the iPhone. I wonder how Apple will backtrack on this one and when.

On Gruber’s annotating Apple’s latest white paper

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 19:14:00 -0400

This blog post by Gruber is probably one of its best. He annotates Apple’s publication regarding Anti-Sideloading White Paper. You may disagree with him (I do agree with him), he points to very solid arguments.

By having side-loading available, I can already see a bunch of lazy-scammy developers who will skip the App Store because, you know, it’s a pain in the ass to deal with these app reviews… so let’s drop a bin file with a download link on a Facebook page, that should be just “good enough”. Oh and clusless IT guys who will require those apps to be downloaded because, you know, they are mandatory for this or that… schools would probably be the first in line…. wake up guys, we don’t need this shitty world.

Apple and Architecture

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 14:22:12 -0400

This is one of the many reasons why I love Apple. They put so much money into this building restoration, it is mind blowing. The amounf of efforts that went into renovating this historic site is beyond any public-founded projects could have done. This brings me to this interesting question by Basic Apple Guy:

(…) should corporations be allowed to get their hands on this historic architecture and turn them into private businesses? Rightly or wrongly, the fact of the matter is that many governments don’t prioritize or have the means to prioritize the extensive work required to take on this scale of restoration.

I tend to have a polarizing view on anything related to architecture. My father was an architect and so I’m profoundly sensitive on the subject. Yes corporation can take over abandoned historic buildings as long as they do it under the supervision of an urbanism council or something like it. Here, Apple transformed a building into a store but each time Apple chose to do it in a gentle way. I mean, it is barely noticeable from the outside that this is an Apple Store. It’s a very respectful way to do it.

Apple’s Shortcuts and Photo processing

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 14:08:21 -0400

Now that Darkroom officially supports iOS Shortcuts (and will support Shortcuts on Monterey this fall), I can’t wait to get Pixelmator to do the same, as this is my go-to alternative to Lightroom CC for photos editing on the iPad. I like Darkroom by the way but I do have to make choices. Screenshot from MacStories.

Let me repeat it: we don’t need another Android platform (#apple #privacyprotection)

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 08:57:21 -0400

As I wrote in this essay, we don’t need another Android platform. I understand Apple being on a PR blitz. I know Apple is holding a contradictory position when talking about the iPhone and the Mac. It is well documented that side-loading doesn’t fix the lack of choice issue, quite the opposite actually. I don’t accept the idea of weakening a platform in the name of “choice” for a minority of techy guys.

Reinventing my usage of the iPhone — A start

Tue, 22 Jun 2021 18:29:13 -0400

I’ve been working hard in recent days to reinvent the way I use my Apple devices. The idea being to focus more, be more efficient, increase my experience quality and better grasb how and where I spend time as a blogger and content creator. Tools involved? Toggl, Timery, Shortcuts and Automation. The trigger? iOS 15. 🤓🤷🏻‍♂️

People are underwhelmed by Apple’s updates, yet…

Mon, 21 Jun 2021 17:50:15 -0400

According to a survey by SellCell, people aren’t too much excited for iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. Without trying to read too much in these numbers, I think the next major revision of Apple’s flagship operating systems will grow on people when they start to use them.

There are some profound changes like focus modes that has the potential to change the way we use our iPhone or iPad. It’s hard to judge this feature just by looking at YouTube videos. The new focus mode certainly requires a bit of setup and tuning but me feeling is that it will have a much profound impact on users than what multi-users support could have brought to the table.

Full iOS 15 Beta Schedule Revealed! (#apple #ios15beta2)

Mon, 21 Jun 2021 10:20:30 -0400

As we are probably getting iOS 15 beta 2 this week (today?), here is a probable schedule for this summer betas. RED colour is for developer betas, blue is for public betas. We should get 8 betas for developers, first public beta set for July 7th. Let’s see if these guesses are good or not.

On Antitrust legislation and Apple iPhone experience

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 13:20:00 -0400

I always thought that politicians and their aides don’t really have clues about technology in general. If you want to fuck up something in tech, ask the politicians. This is exactly what could happen if these antitrust legislation proposal become laws.

Imagine that: you take out your brand new iPhone out of its box, turn it on only to be welcomed with an empty screen, no builtin apps, just a simple “Hello”. In the name of what: competition. Developers like the one behind Basecamp and HEY would be so happy, because in this hypothetic world they would feel in better position to compete against Apple. What a bunch of retards.

I just wish this type of legislation would be in effect in the US, so that here in Canada, we would continue to get the standard iPhone experience.

On Safari 15 redesign

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 13:10:13 -0400

Great Safari 15 critic here. I didn’t test the new Safari design yet, but eventually I will (probably when public beta is released). Apple made bold moves with this new design. I’m afraid that, if they change something or revert some of the design decisions, it will come in iOS 16, and present it as the next big thing in internet browser experience. That’s typical of Apple.

On Intel’s market share falling

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 06:59:46 -0400

Intel may see its market share fall to a new low next year, in large part thanks to Apple’s decision to move away from using Intel processors in its Mac computers and instead use Apple silicon. Source: Intel Processor Market Share May Fall to New Low Next Year Due to Apple Silicon - MacRumors

How much Apple business did represent to Intel overall numbers before the Apple Silicon transition started? My feeling is that it wasn’t that big. Ten pourcent, maybe? If Intel share numbers are falling, Apple is not the only culprit in my view. The move to mobile-only devices like smartphones which are not based on Intel’s chip is the culprit.

Is your iPhone really yours?

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 21:47:40 -0400

But the thread running through everything was that if you buy an Apple device, it’s yours. And it’s you. And if you buy, well, anything else, you’re just a slab of meat holding a slab of glass through which the internet will manipulate and extract data from you any way it wants. So, yeah, the garden’s walls may be high, but Apple says that’s only to keep you safe.

— David PierceSource: Apple defends the walled garden - Protocol — The people, power and politics of tech

Many would argue the since you cannot install apps from outside the App Store, your iPhone isn’t really yours. Others would argue that since you don’t have a choice but go to Apple to get “your” iPhone repaired, your iPhone isn’t really yours. what is “your” take on this?

App Clip can be really cool

Tue, 15 Jun 2021 20:03:49 -0400

I’m a bit late to the party but this use of Apple’s App Clip technology is clever: point your iPhone to the Apple Watch band package, an App Clip will pop up on your phone to help you get the matching Watch Face. Cool. Great case of Apple eating its own dog food, and showing a great integration experience.

Michael Tsai: On macOS Big Sur lingering issues

Tue, 15 Jun 2021 19:57:54 -0400

This blog post from Michael Tsai paints a very terrible picture of macOS Big Sur. Unstable, weird design decisions, lot’s of issues in Apple’s Mail, etc. Sounds like the worst macOS incarnation of all time. Personnally, I don’t experience many issues with macOS Big Sur, but I do feel it’s a weird design overall. The next release, macOS Montery, doesn’t appear to fix bad design choices… I’m thinking about widgets handling and notifications dismissal.

Focus — A Game changer feature in experiencing Apple devices?

Mon, 14 Jun 2021 08:02:23 -0400

The more I read and learn about the upcoming “Focus” feature in Apple’s upcoming OS updates, the more I think it could be a transformative feature in experiencing Apple’s devices. The combinaison of notifications and home page configurations assigned to each focus mode has powerful implications. Even though I’m not on the beta train right now, I’m already at work designing the different focus modes I plan to use on my devices. As you might expect, I’ll be writing a detailed blog post about this in the future.

The change that didn’t came (#apple #wwdc21 #developers)

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 07:09:49 -0400

This take from Gruber “App Store: The Schiller Cut” has a sour taste following the WWDC keynote and Platforms state of the union. Did Apple announce something this week to appease developers relations? Nope. Will they announce something in the coming weeks in regard to App Store commissions? Who knows. If they do, they will do it in a position of weakness:

If someday down the road we will be changing 70/30, then I think the question moves from “if” to “when” and “how”. I’m not suggesting we do anything differently today, only that whenever we make a change we do it from a position of strength rather than weakness. That we use any such change to our advantage if possible. And thinking about this long in advance can only help to look at an eventual change as an opportunity (with developers, press, customers, etc). — Phil Schiller in 2011

They missed the opportunity this year. Apple is in a weak position and I don’t see how this could change anytime soon.

That’s clever, Apple.

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 21:30:53 -0400

To run an internal version of iOS, each employee must first install a special profile on the device — just as we do for downloading beta versions. However, each profile sent to employees determines which of these features will be enabled for each person working on new versions of iOS and possibly other Apple operating systems as well.

Source: Apple doubles down on secrecy with a new way to hide iOS 15 features from engineers - 9to5Mac

Time to move off Apple’s Intel iMac? (#apple #adobe #lightroomclassic #applesilicon)

Tue, 08 Jun 2021 12:33:56 -0400

With Adobe finally releasing Lightroom Classic for Apple Silicon Macs, This could enable me to move off my 2017 21.5” Intel Mac for once. The prospect of Lightroom catalogs and data migration is not enchanting though. There the issues of plugins migration too. Is it time for me to go all-in cloud with Lightroom CC only? Not sure it is the right time either.

I have a few incentives for selling my iMac: one being to help me finance a shiny new 2021 12.9” iPad Pro with 1 TB of RAM. This could serve as my iPadOS 15 test bed for the second half of summer. I still have quite some time to think about all this as these devices are back-ordered for at least the second half of July.

You thoughts?

I was over-simplifying quite a bit

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 07:14:35 -0400

After publishing my essay on what I was hoping Apple would do in response to the developers community, Matt Birchler wrote a small response regarding my assertion about payments processing platform being a limited feature in the grand scheme of things. It appears I was wrong. Thanks to Matt blog post, I have a better view of what goes behind the scene here.

That being said, Apple’s payment processing service within the App Store serves Apple’s purposes and is the one that is very narrow, very focused. It’s a good thing. I’m not sure Apple has to compete against this industry. Allowing third-party payment processing services would need to focus on the minimum in order to protect privacy or help guarantee that privacy is in good hands. It’s an attainable goal.

iPadOS 15 to limit certain features to iPad Pro? (#apple #ipados15 #wwdc21)

Sun, 06 Jun 2021 14:37:24 -0400

If Apple ups the game with iPadOS 15 (background tasks, better multitasking, external monitor support, etc.), we could see a situation where iPadOS crawls on lower or mid-range iPad while working like a breeze on the iPad Pro. Could Apple limit certain features to the high end only? Quite possibly. Your thoughts?

Popup Menus — Comments About This Relic of iOS 3 — Could There Be A Better Design? (#apple #wwdc21 #ipadOS15 #ios15)

Sun, 06 Jun 2021 14:12:01 -0400

Consider the previous screenshot showing the popup menu when selecting a word in a document. This menu hasn’t been touched since iOS 3, if I remember correctly. Tomorrow, as we are about to get a peek at iPadOS 15 and iOS 15, I’m wondering if there are better ways to display such a menu. Consider a few design problems and possible improvements.

This menu doesn’t scale well; it isn’t exactly elegant. In some situations, we have to scroll through its options which is not always obvious and is tricky to do with the finger without selecting the option at touch and scroll time. Also, this design involves too much finder travel to my taste; I would prefer a more condensed version. The design is flat and doesn’t allow for hierarchical grouping of options which could help is situations where many options are available. The design is flat and is not as distinctive as it could be. Adding some depth, contour line would help.

Do you have any suggestions on how Apple could improve on this?

The iMac vs a Simple Monitor

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 18:11:24 -0400

The Thunderbolt display is now a vintage product for Apple. When I look at this beautiful monitor, I’m thinking about the recently introduced redesigned iMac. Many people would have preferred to see the iMac chin disappear. We should know better and see this is a distinctive design attribute of the iMac which make it look different than from a simple monitor. It’s an important visual differentiation factor in my opinion. The iMac is not a simple monitor.

Micro.blog > Twitter Blue.

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 12:19:20 -0400

I like how Micro.blog stacks up against Twitter’s subscription. $5: Micro.blog hosting, photos, use your own domain name, categories, bookmarks, themes, CSS, plug-ins, bookshelves, standalone pages, native apps, open APIs. $3: undo tweet, thread viewer, free Twitter features.

Manton Reece https://www.manton.org/2021/06/03/i-like-how.html

Indeed.

Count me OUT then - Twitter Blue #twitterblue

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 12:02:13 -0400

Here is why I won’t subscribe anytime soon (another reason on top of many, btw):

But what is interesting is one thing that you won’t get with Twitter Blue: an ad-free experience. Advertising is still the biggest chunk of Twitter’s revenue, and they’re not going to replace that with direct subscriptions anytime soon. Source: Twitter Blue subscription launches in Australia, Canada – Six Colors

Paying to be a beta-tester and give feedback? Can you imagine paying to get beta releases of Apple’s OSes? No way.

Certainly a massive leak... (#apple #iphone13)

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 17:31:09 -0400

This CAD view of the iPhone 13 shows a bigger than usual camera assembly on the front of the iPhone. It’s massive. Not sure what to make out of this leak. Good news for photography enthusiasts?

One WWDC wish: bring back that loupe! (#apple #wwdc #wwdc21)

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 07:06:15 -0400

Don’t you find it weird and contradictory to see Apple investing so much in accessibility features at the operating system level yet they thought it was a good idea to remove the loupe in text selection interactions? Is this a typical “one team not talking to the other”? Please, Apple, bring back the loop in iOS 15. Thanks.

Another solid update to Craft!

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 06:31:25 -0400

Another solid update to Craft released today. This time, Calendar view was added for those who would like to take daily notes or write meeting notes as this update integrates with Apple’s calendars.

If you pay attention to the Craft’s update page, you’ll see Craft rapidly evolving over time. Who knows what’s next for this essential tool in my blogger and writer workflow.

Oh, and Craft has made it to the Apple Design Awards finalist! Congrats to them!

Time to move off Google Photos I guess (#photography #googlephotos)

Mon, 31 May 2021 17:17:58 -0400

Time is running out to those using and depending on Google Photos for their online photo library storage needs. The free tier is now capped at 15GB for new stuff added. That’s small. Why not consider moving to iCloud Photo Library if you are already invested into Apple ecosystem? And, if privacy protection is something you care about, now is the best time to switch.

About those digital attention seekers ... GTFO (#socialnetworks)

Fri, 28 May 2021 17:40:48 -0400

I hate it when people subscribe to my stuff, to my blog, my newsletters, or whatever, just to grab my attention and wish that I’ll follow them back. That is not the way I operate or think. I’m looking for real content, enlightenment, creativity, singularity. I rarely follow back someone unless they meet what I’m looking for online. Just saying.

Here is a free pro-tip for content creators (#writing #author #protip #tip)

Fri, 28 May 2021 17:24:38 -0400

An easy way to differentiate yourself from the crowd is to persevere with your journey of publishing your stuff out there. There are countless authors who started something only to stop after a while. Be the one who continue and keep it going. Regularity and continuity are key factors to build your online presence. I guarantee you that people will come and stick around if you meet these goals.

A new home for my best photos (#photography #visualarts #creativity)

Thu, 27 May 2021 08:18:52 -0400

I’ve been more silent than usual in recent days. That’s because I was busy building up my new home for posting online my best photos. I’m also writing about my experience while doing so. As you wait for the whys and hows, here is a peek. Hope you enjoy.

https://numericcitizen.smugmug.com/

Where iPadOS Current Multitasking Experience Falls Apart (#apple #iPadOS #ipados15)

Wed, 26 May 2021 10:02:50 -0400

Multi-Tasking on the iPad is Actually Pretty Great - The Newsprint:

Slide Over is genuinely convenient. Certain apps work better than others inside the Slide Over deck, and when they’re optimized, their convenience is unmatched. I keep a calculator app in Slide Over at all times, I keep an iteration of all messaging apps in Slide Over, and I like to keep an iteration of the Files app available at all times. These kinds of “in-and-out” apps are exceptional for Slide Over.

At least one person really likes multitasking on iPadOS. The thing about the Slide over feature is that it requires setting it up. It doesn’t happen “just like that”. I rarely find the right app to use in the Slide over view… I need to “bring it in” and this is where the experience falls apart. This is where I want to see Apple improve things.

Everything Comes From China These Days

Sun, 23 May 2021 13:39:37 -0400

Apple’s Troubling Relationship With China - Initial Charge

This problem isn’t unique to Apple. Most, if not all, of the major companies whose products and services we interact with each day are being influenced by China. And I expect that influence is growing with each day that passes. If you’re in favor of freedom, liberty, and individual rights, you should be concerned about this.

It’s refreshing to see that Apple isn’t the only one where its products are made and a lot of them are sold to. What can we do instead of just bashing on Apple?

Let’s the iPhone Become Android (#apple #android #security #appstore)

Sun, 23 May 2021 11:19:42 -0400

There is apparently no money to be done from having apps on Android; all money being on the iPhone side. So developers are asking for their share of revenues from Apple, by reducing their commission, urging Apple to open up the App Store, weakening the security model along the way, making the user experience worse, making iOS experience more like… Android… we have a full circle.

iPadOS is holding the iPad back (#apple #2021ipadpro #ipados)

Thu, 20 May 2021 12:47:04 -0400

Daring Fireball: The 2021 M1 iPad Pros:

The elephant in the room is iPadOS. It’s just not good enough. In the same way that Intel’s chips were holding back Macs, iPadOS has been holding back iPad Pros. With Intel chips, the hardware was holding back the Mac platform. With iPads, it’s the software holding the platform back. This hardware is indisputably amazing, and iPadOS is fine for casual use. But it still feels like I’m trying to do fine detail work while wearing oven mitts for my day-to-day work.

I like Gruber’s introduction in his review of the M1 iPad Pro. But his review echos other reviews. Nearly all M1 iPad Pro reviews that I have read note the same issue: iPadOS lacks maturity to sustain iPad Pro aspirations. Can’t wait for Apple’s WWDC in three weeks.

About These Apple Watch Series 7 Mockups (#apple #applewatch #series7)

Thu, 20 May 2021 08:00:06 -0400

According to circulating rumours, the Apple Series 7 will go through a small redesign. The Series 4 introduced a bigger screen but the overall shape stayed the same. This time, a more boxy look is expected. I’m not sure that I like what I’m seeing here on this mock-up. To me, the Apple Watch would loses some of its iconic traits. If this boxy design allows for more internal space, hence probably more sensors or new features, better battery life, so be it.

About Those Tiny Release Notes (#apple)

Thu, 20 May 2021 06:35:30 -0400

I wonder when Apple will fix the issue of tiny release notes, on the iPhone. I can’t remember since when the issue started, but it’s been a very long time. It’s all the details, Apple, all the details.

This is so Clever (#apple #applewatch #watchOS8)

Thu, 20 May 2021 06:30:29 -0400

To support users with limited mobility, Apple is introducing a revolutionary new accessibility feature for Apple Watch. AssistiveTouch for watchOS allows users with upper body limb differences to enjoy the benefits of Apple Watch without ever having to touch the display or controls.

Source: Apple previews powerful software updates designed for people with disabilities - Apple

The demo on Apple’s Newsroom website is really impressive. Surprisingly, it looks like the feature will work on recent Apple Watch generations (Series 4 and up).

One question: why announce these initiatives now? We’re 17 days away from WWDC. Looks like WWDC will have more room to announce even more exciting stuff. 😀

Another question: if you look at the following screenshot taken from today’s announcement, we can see that table cells are narrower than what we have on iOS 14. Is this a first glimpse of what is coming in iOS 15? I certainly hope so because it looks much better, friendlier. It reminds me of the pre-iOS 7 era.

I’m Closing my Telegram Account — Here is why

Wed, 19 May 2021 17:39:38 -0400

First:

Apple is very efficient at pursuing their business model, which is based on selling overpriced, obsolete hardware to customers locked in their ecosystem," Durov wrote. “Every time I have to use an iPhone to test our iOS app I feel like I’m thrown back into the Middle Ages. The iPhone’s 60Hz displays can’t compete with the 120Hz displays of modern Android phones that support much smoother animations.

And:

Durov added that the worst part about Apple’s technology is not “clunkier devices or outdated hardware,” but that users who have an iPhone are a “digital slave of Apple.”

”You are only allowed to use apps that Apple lets you install via their App Store, and you can only use Apple’s iCloud to natively back up your data,” he said.

“It’s no wonder that Apple’s totalitarian approach is so appreciated by the Communist Party of China, which – thanks to Apple – now has complete control over the apps and data of all of its citizens who rely on iPhones.”

Source: Telegram founder says iPhone users are digital slaves | AppleInsider.

Mr. Durov can go to hell. Typical talk from an Android guy. Nobody his forcing him to develop for the iPhone. Nobody. He is a digital slave of Apple himself. I can’t stand this attitude and I’m voting with my digital means: closing my Telegram account.

Keep it Simple, Apple, will ya? (#apple #m1chip)

Wed, 19 May 2021 07:30:35 -0400

For the new MacBook Pros, Apple is planning two different chips, codenamed Jade C-Chop and Jade C-Die: both include eight high-performance cores and two energy-efficient cores for a total of 10, but will be offered in either 16 or 32 graphics core variations.

Source: Apple (AAPL) Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps With Faster Chips - Bloomberg(https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-18/apple-readies-macbook-pro-macbook-air-revamps-with-faster-chips)

The “one chip SKU to rule them all” won’t last forever it seems. Apple will take advantage of its ability to decide what goes in its chips to help differentiate each models within the same product line. We already witness this with the 7-core vs 8-core variant of the M1 chip in the 2021 iMac, but this variability will increase over time. My hope is that Apple doesn’t try to hard to be greedy with this strategy and keep the product’s differentiation simple to grasp.

About Apple’s Flaky Bluetooth Devices (#apple #imac2021)

Wed, 19 May 2021 07:13:26 -0400

The keyboard flaked out on me once. I wanted to spend time testing the Touch ID button, so I moved an application to the Trash, which requires authentication. That worked. Then I tried to move the app back to the Applications folder, and … Touch ID just didn’t work. After 30 seconds of trying, I realized the whole keyboard just wasn’t working. I turned the keyboard off and on again, and boom, everything has been normal since — including Touch ID recognizing my finger very quickly.

Source: Daring Fireball: The 24-Inch M1 iMac(https://daringfireball.net/2021/05/the_24_inch_m1_imac)

Ah, ah, another moment of Apple’s Bluetooth device not working as expected. Since I got my 2017 21.5” iMac, I’ve experienced unstable Bluetooth connectivity with Apple’s mouse and keyboard. I don’t know when it started, if it’s related to a certain release of macOS, but it is happening all the time. The worst part is the mouse being jerky while moving on the screen. Bluetooth’s instabilities also impact my AirPods usage with the Mac. My AirPods simply drops from receiving the Mac audio while in Zoom meetings. It is infuriating. Eventually, I need to reboot the Mac to reset the Bluetooth stack.

When I got the M1 Mac mini, I thought Bluetooth connectivity issues would be a thing of the past. I couldn’t be more wrong. It was worst. The mouse and the keyboard are both having instabilities. They need to be turned off and on to temporarily fix the problem, but eventually the Mac needs a full reboot. Again, this is exasperating. It is a well documented issue which macOS 11.1 and 11.2 tried to fix but the problems still happen, albeit a bit less often.

There is something wrong with Apple’s Bluetooth implementation in general. Is it the driver, the firmware, the chip, a combination of these that is at fault? I don’t know but the fact that this shiny new iMac with the wireless keyboard with TouchID stops working like Gruber experienced is not a good sign.

About This White Bezel (#apple #imac2021)

Wed, 19 May 2021 06:55:19 -0400

I know a lot of people are concerned that the white bezel surrounding the display will be distracting. In practice, I found that it just disappears. If there can be such a thing as a muted white — a white that most certainly looks white, not light gray, but yet not white white, this white is that white. I didn’t need time to get used to it

Source: Daring Fireball: The 24-Inch M1 iMac(https://daringfireball.net/2021/05/the_24_inch_m1_imac)

There is a lot of talk regarding the white bezel of the new iMac. I still don’t know what to think about them. They make it look like if there was a white masking tape all around the display. But the thing is, considering the fact that Apple’s macOS overall user interface is so “white-ish” in general, this should help make the bezel kind of disappear in reality and just be an extension of the user interface.

Xcode for iPad — Who’s asking for this? (#apple #iosdev #developers #wwdc2021)

Mon, 17 May 2021 07:26:10 -0400

The iPad is a mighty device considering its form-factor. Many people are asking for Apple to make Xcode available for the iPad. I wonder: who are asking for this? Are they serious developers or just hobbyists? I would find it surprising if it was the former because there can be so many tools besides Xcode that is needed I order to build an app, and not all those things are available on the iPad. Serious developers would need to bring in a Mac to complete the development picture. If this is the hobbyists, does it even matter?

Would it be the full version of Xcode or a diminutive version? If it is the latter, what kind of apps would it be able to create, and what are the others it wouldn’t? Would it be Swift-only with SwiftUI? If that’s the case, are we in the “tech proof of concept” territory or if it is a viable path going forward? What would iPadOS 15 need to make Xcode for iPad a viable solution? Better file management? External monitor support? A link to a Mac for certain tasks and features? Is the 12.9” iPad Pro the only supported device or is the 11” version be supported too?

If you are a developer reading this post, would you use Xcode for iPad to build your apps if Apple made it available?

Can't wait for reviews (#apple (ipadpro2021)

Sun, 16 May 2021 17:19:09 -0400

Can’t wait for Apple’s embargo to be lifted this week so we can get a better appreciation of the 12.0" 2021 iPad Pro. Some people got their device, early. I’ll never be able to get an XDR display from Apple, but the one that within an iPad, seems a bargain. The possibility of getting this device just increased a bit.

On Extending the Home Screen

Sun, 16 May 2021 10:08:09 -0400

Parker Ortolani for 9to5Mac:

But what if you could add other kinds of things to your Home Screen too? (…) Apple could add the same ‘Add to Home Screen’ button to the share sheet in Music, in Podcasts, in News, and in TV. Each content type could have a distinct shape for differentiation. Albums, podcasts and publications could have more squared off icons. Magazines could be more narrow to show off covers. TV Shows and movies could use the same artwork that appears in app.

Frankly, I love this idea. On the iPad, it could be the ultimate playground to play with this feature, thanks to the device size. I can see me adding all kind of stuff like my wife iMessage contact, an RSS feed to my favourite content creators, a shortcut to a podcast or an Apple Music playlist or artist. So much possibilities.

The idea of adding all sort of content on the home screen is not new, yet on iOS and iPadOS, current design feels really restricted. We are ready to go to the next phase in evolution. I want freedom in folder size and placement, I want Apple Watch complication-style widgets. I want freedom. Apple, by any chance, are you listening?

Consider this added to my WWDC, iOS and iPadOS 15 wish list.

Importing HEY World Posts to Substack? @SubstackInc

Sat, 15 May 2021 11:48:40 -0400

Nope. Better chance next time. No easy way to ask for help either. Tried different variations of the RSS feed URL. Nope, doesn’t work. There is no option to expert from within HEY either. As you can see, looking for some easy way out of HEY World. 👨🏻‍💻

My Go-To Internet Destination for Reading: Mailbrew Website

Sat, 15 May 2021 08:17:39 -0400

I recently noted that I’m spending much more time on Mailbrew website for my newsletters reading rather than in HEY Feed. Why is that? Well, I think there are a few sticky features in Mailbrew that helps me better process information tidbits. First, the reading experience is great. The “Read” button next to a URL will bring a nicely formatted version of an article from a URL. Second, A “save” button is handily available for me to use if I want to keep a piece of information for later use. My collection of saved items is growing by the day. There’s also the Save to Mailbrew bookmarklet that comes handy. The website on the iPad is also a joyful experience.

Mailbrew update schedule is pretty fast and brings many small improvements on a constant flow. Now, if only there was a highlighting feature it would make Mailbrew reading experience a perfect fit for my workflow.

By the way, thanks to Mailbrew, you can get a weekly summary of all my publications here.

Are we supposed to cry?

Sat, 15 May 2021 07:23:43 -0400

“I upended my life for Apple. I sold my WA residence which I built with my own hands, relocated myself, shut down any public media presence and future writing aspirations, and resolved to build my career at Apple for years to come,”

Well, now that he has been fired, he is complaining on Twitter that Apple knew in advance… maybe, maybe not. My gut feeling is that the C-Level knew, but not the upper management. When it came to their attention, they acted in accordance to their well-known values.

Source: Antonio Garcia Martinez says Apple fired him, company was ‘well aware’ of his writing | AppleInsider

Mr. Martinez Twitter thread is here.

Only 17K Apps for the Apple Watch (#apple #applewatch #appstore #apps)

Fri, 14 May 2021 07:02:48 -0400

(…) there are only 17k Watch apps: like Amazon’s Alexa, the Apple Watch is a huge success but has largely failed as an app platform. Source: Benedict Evans’ takeaways from the first week of Epic vs. Apple | Philip Elmer‑DeWitt

Only 17K apps for the Apple Watch?? Calling this a failure is a bit surprising. The Watch is a narrow platform compared to the iPhone, the iPad or the Mac. I don’t expect as many apps to be available for the Watch. This form-factor isn’t obviously suitable for a lot of applications categories. I think 17K apps is quite a lot actually because I don’t get a sense of it when I browse the App Store from the Apple Watch itself or from my iPhone. This is where Apple is failing: discovery of Watch apps is miserable, just like it is in general on Apple’s App Store.

This form-factor, this one or… this one?

Thu, 13 May 2021 20:49:02 -0400

One of the cooless by-product of the Apple strategy is the unification of the processing unit among its product lines, leaving the form-factor the unique differenciation attribute.

Previously there were many people who wanted a laptop, but ended up buying a desktop because it would be more powerful. Now the only choice the customer has to make is whether they prefer the MacBook or iMac form-factor, because the internal hardware is the same in each. Source: Apple execs praises how M1 enables same performance for different devices in interview - 9to5Mac

Thought (or frustration) of the day

Thu, 13 May 2021 08:48:28 -0400

Apple’s macOS Big Notifications Center is probably the most frustrating, infuriating and un-Apple experience of all. Man this thing is badly designed. Who at Apple think it ok? He or she is a C player! Hoping for major re-work for macOS 12. There, I said it. 🤬

Here is Why Apple’s Safari Purposely Lags Behind

Thu, 13 May 2021 06:47:59 -0400

Browsers look more and more like operating systems. Apple knows this, and they are probably afraid for their App Store business.

This article from Alex Russell of Infrequently Notes is very convincing: Apple purposely delay implementation of new web standards to refrain developers to build web applications. New web standards are enablers for new kinds of web applications with richer features set. Those richer apps could go against Apple’s App Store profitable business. No wonder why so many people are using alternative browsers to Safari. But that’s not all. Since Apple, in general is a big player, its influence is unquestionably high, the lack of support from them for so many basic and essential web standards discourage new application opportunities. That’s too bad and makes me wonder how sites like Mailbrew who offers a web application could improve if all browsers, including Safari would support most web standards. Mailbrew is already good on the iPad, closely mimicking a native application, yet I wonder.

Can we hope for changes at the next WWDC conference?

Be careful for what you wish for (#apple #appstore #monopoly)

Wed, 12 May 2021 08:22:39 -0400

Apple is under so much pressure on so many fronts these days. It is so fashionable to put pressure on them. The App Store is one big target. I’m getting tired of people wishing for changes that I don’t want to become reality. Sure Apple is far from perfect, yet, people should be careful for what they wish for. I decided to express my voice and started to write on the subject. It will be controversial, but it will be honest and true to my beliefs and wishes. I don’t really care if I’m right or wrong. I expect to publish my article just before WWDC. Stay tuned.

Apple, please, consider us like grown ups (#apple #ios15)

Mon, 10 May 2021 11:41:48 -0400

On Apple’s Shortcuts notifications: I second this! Notifications are not needed for most of us and should be silenced in iOS 15. At least, provide an option to make it quieter. I like the idea of a status bar indicator, just like the localization services when they are trigerred.

Apple Shortcuts Is Great, but It Needs a Notification Toggle - Initial Charge

96%. (#asknottotrack #privacy #privacyprotection)

Sun, 09 May 2021 07:53:29 -0400

I’m so proud of people right now: medias are reporting that 96% of them chose to protect their basic right for online privacy. I wasn’t expecting that many people to select the “Ask Not To Track” option. This is a game changer. This should serve as a clear message to businesses with business models essentially based on personal data mining and online profiling without user consent. Enough is enough. For those who are ok with hyper targeted ads, fine, but not at this cost. I salute Apple for moving forward with this feature in iOS 14.5. Coupled with services like NextDNS, I’m starting to see quite an improvement in my web surfing experience and being more at ease doing so.

Those who selected “Allow” probably didn’t know what it was all about.

Apple: Opinionated and Stubborn

Sat, 08 May 2021 09:36:53 -0400

Ken Segall on Apple’s stubborn attitude:

“It’s disappointing that the modern Apple is so willing to stonewall, and that it can take an inexcusably long time to set things right.”

Mr. Segall piece is baffling. Taken together, those bad apples make Apple look terrible at design. Apple is opinionated and takes bold risks when designing new products and services. This comes at a cost, occasionally. Apple is far from perfect, but they should know that quickly admitting when they fail makes the mistakes more easily forgiven.

What Apple product currently shipping that has baffling design flaws for which Apple doesn’t seem to care fixing, beside the Magic Mouse? I don’t see that many as they silently fixed most of them in recent years.

Photo credit: Maria Teneva / Unsplash

Where is Adobe Lightroom Classic for Apple Silicon? (#photography #adobe #lightroom)

Wed, 05 May 2021 20:25:14 -0400

That’s a serious question. I mean, we do have Lightroom CC for M1 Macs… (performance is good but not stellar compared to Intel version. There’s still work to be done by Adobe to take performance further). The absence of the optimized Lightroom Classic version is troubling. What does it mean about Lr or even Adobe? Is Adobe relying too much on cross-platforms libraries or components that are much harder to re-compile for the M1 chip? I find this fascinating that such a big company is falling behind compared to much smaller players… I’m thinking about Pixelmator here.

I’m waiting for this optimized version to complete my migration from Intel iMac to the M1 Mac mini.

On Apple's Night Shift (#apple #iphone)

Wed, 05 May 2021 06:39:06 -0400

Surprisingly, Apple’s Night Shift does not help in any way to fall asleep, according to a study. Intuitively, I thought of the opposite. When Apple launched this feature, in 2016, they said it would help. It seems it’s not the case after all. Will they backtrack and remove the feature in a future version? I highly doubt it. Many people do like this feature (I do on the iPhone, I hate it on the Mac), others like @Gruber don’t. What I don’t like is when the feature is in action, opening Photos abruptly turn the visual effect off. The effect is brutal as the screen turns blueish and cold because of the contrasting mode. I would prefer a more gentle disabling of the feature.

What the hell is this? (#apple #appstore)

Tue, 04 May 2021 06:35:31 -0400

One evidence taken out of the Epic vs Apple trial yesterday, the above email. This email from Mr. Schiller shows how unhappy he was with scam apps being #1 on the App Store. His numerous questions are expressing frustrations. He saw what we keep seeing all too often today, nine years later. So, where are the reviewers? What value are they adding to the user experience’s bottom line? Apple could strictly rely on machine-based curation only instead, but they prefer the added touch of human-based curation for the editorial content. Does it make a real difference? On the surface maybe. With the scale of the App Store, cracks are obviously possible, hence bas actors are taking advantage of them, to create scams one after another.

Apple doesn’t look good because some of their arguments aren’t backed with proven and irrefutable facts. As a gatekeeper of the quality on the App Store, Apple is failing. Big time. From scams apps to badly designed ones, to never updated ones, beneath the front page surface, the App Store feels and look like a junkyard.

Found! (#apple #airtags)

Mon, 03 May 2021 20:36:02 -0400

Got my four pack of AirTags. Unboxing is simple. Nice to hold and feel in the hands. Easily scratched. Setup is so Apple-esq. Love em! Keys. Backpack. Wallet. On for my wife. For her wallet. Obviously. Tested the Find My to locate my items. Works great. Will report back if I ever lose one of my things and find it back. For real. Can’t wait to use them for traveling.

The Pandemic Effects on my Digital Good Purchases

Mon, 03 May 2021 07:17:01 -0400

I never bought so many applications and utilities or subscribed to so many services since the beginning of the pandemic. For the latter, I had to use Apple’s Number just to keep track of all of them😳🤪. Because I’m working from home since March 2020, my work-related expanses are close to zero. I don’t go buy a coffee or snacks in the middle of the workday as I used to. I don’t buy transportation titles anymore. I no longer commute. Furthermore, I no longer travel. My home office setup upgrade is complete. This mean that I have more to spend on something else. I’m more inclined to buy digital goods. Some are impulse buys. That’s why I invested in many macOS applications and utilities which gave me the idea of writing this article “Tips & Tricks & Utilities for Boosting Your Productivity with Apple’s macOS Big Sur”.

I don’t know if a return to normal will push me to cancel any of my applications or utilities subscriptions. I don’t think so as I think they are needed and useful to my blogger workflow. I return to this commuting world as I’ll keep working from home forever. I’m not alone and this makes me wonder how profound changes caused by this pandemic could be on so many economic levels.

My Apple Purchase Plans (#apple #airtag #mynext)

Sun, 02 May 2021 19:15:44 -0400

It’s been a quiet week-end in term of content creation; I took a small break. As the week-end come to an end, I decided to spend some time in creating a web page using Craft. This web page is about my Apple purchase plans. It’s part of my Digital Garden. As you’ll see, my next Apple device is coming tomorrow: AirTags. I bought a four pack. Can’t wait to try these small wonders.

Happy end of week-end.

Friday musing

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 07:21:20 -0400

TGIF! 🙏🏻 It’s a rainy Friday here. Friday is a slow and strange day for me as a blogger and content creator. I should go more often on Flipboard. In a way, Ello makes me think of Micro.blog. It’s been a long time since my publishing pipeline has been that low. I’m catching up, I guess. My Micro.blog feed is quieter than usual; is the Ulysses effect already fading? I’m not a good podcasts listener. I won’t get my four-pack AirTag today. I didn’t order the Apple TV 4K with updated remote; don’t know when I will. That’s a great question.

Build it and they will come (#ipadpro #m1chip)

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 06:20:46 -0400

The way I look at this upcoming M1 iPad Pro is, according to this interview with some Apple’s top brass, Apple thinks that, by building a powerful iPad (not referred as a tablet), developers will find a way to take advantage of it. Like the old saying: build it and they will come. Did Apple create performance headroom for themselves too, not just for third-party developers? Apple certainly wants some form of future proofing with this year’s iterative design. I’m still pondering the idea of buying such big iPad while keeping my “older” 2018 11” iPad Pro, it will depends of iPadOS 15.

Back to the 2005 Internet — Thanks to NextDNS (#notracking #nextdns)

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 06:38:06 -0400

This is not an ad. I promise. I finally decided to enable NextDNS on all my devices and subscribed to their yearly plan after testing it on my iOS devices. The last configuration applied was on my M1 Mac mini. Oh boy, surfing the web feels like the internet back in the days. Places like CNN or iPhoneInCanada or MacRumors are now without any ads and are crazy fast to load. Now, I can see content without distraction. I feel that I’m back to the 2005 Internet. I feel that I’m winning, for once. Numeric life can be good, thanks to NextDNS.

About My Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 08:07:40 -0400

My next newsletter issue is nearly done. On Substack, I’m not a big name in the blogger sphere or a journalist dropping from places like the New York Times. Yet, I enjoy putting together this monthly newsletter, and I generally like the end results. Subscribers are staying and keep increasing over time. It’s a good sign, I guess. Are you one of them? https://numericcitizen.substack.com

Happy Apple Updates Day! (#apple #ios145 #notracking #stoptracking)

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 13:13:38 -0400

To all my followers, have an successful Apple update day! This one has been long in coming! Don’t forget to disable app tracking as soon as you can. Best way to say “🖕🏻” to Facebook et al. Now turning to iOS 14.6 beta which seems to bring new devices support only (2021 iPad Pro).

About these iPadOS 15 rumours (#apple #rumours #ipados15)

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 16:01:07 -0400

According to the infamous Bloomberg (remember the Big Hack story?), iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 will bring two much requested features. One is, for the iPhone presumably, is a redesigned Lock Screen. I’m in for that one. In fact, I would prefer a customizable Lock Screen, more than a redesign. But, the most interesting part is regarding the iPad. At long least, Apple is about to bring the full widgets experience on the iPad. YES! I do have high hopes for that one. Having full liberty on widgets placement on the iPad screen will be transformative. Even better if they support some form of minimal interactions with the applications behind them. Can’t wait for WWDC 21.

One of those days (#appleevent)

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 07:53:41 -0400

This is one of those days where it will be hard to stay focused, thanks to the first Apple Event of 2021. I’ve got a pretty busy schedule at work, so I won’t be able to catch the live feed with full attention this time around. I know that all these notifications will spoil the show. Rumours and leaks already made a great job already, though. But, what if there is “one more thing”?

Tonight, I’ll catch it all up, partially knowing most of the takeaways. It will be weird. Who likes to go see a movie knowing the story line in advance? I hate that. 😒

On Facebook’s pervasive destruction (#deletefacebook #stopmasssurveillance)

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 07:58:55 -0400

Today I woke up with this idea of hating Facebook and everything they represents. For those who know me, this is nothing new. But today is one of those days where I despise Facebook more than ever.

Let’s face it, again: Facebook has made massive data collection an ordinary thing. Facebook normalized global surveillance a mundane fact. Facebook is killing the pillars of democracy without fanfare. Facebook has turned most of us a beast feeders. Facebook gave voice to those who should have been silenced because of their toxic and extremist thoughts. Facebook is the source of social cancer.

One day, we will wake up. I hope. 😔

HEY World slowly fading... but... (#thoughts #blogging)

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 07:36:49 -0400

From time to time, I use the « HEY World Shuffle » URL to trigger the display of a randomly chosen HEY World user website. It’s funny as I never know what discovery I’ll make. I see a lot of users who made their first try of the service in its early days by sending random thoughts. The vast majority of users didn’t bother to continue but a few did, and there are a few gems to discover. I’m slowly building a list of HEY World bloggers, like a blog roll, by subscribing through RSS feeds. It is fun. That being said, the question is: was HEY World a fad? The jury is still out on that one. Yet, I see a lot of potential growth in features for this service. Will the owners care to make them happen?

HEY World missing button

Sat, 17 Apr 2021 09:16:39 -0400

I wish there would be a “Reply to the author” button on HEY World user website. As it is now, I cannot find an easy and quick way to respond to a past post. I prefer to consume HEY World content through RSS feeds, not by subscribing via email.

I’m on HEY World, by the way. https://world.hey.com/jf.m. ☝🏻👋🏻

iPhone is getting fatter and fatter (#apple #jonyive)

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 07:58:14 -0400

iPhone is getting fatter and fatter (#apple #jonyive)

Since Jony Ive left Apple, a few years ago, the iPhone design adopted an opposite trend of becoming fatter and fatter. It’s not a night and day difference but there is a trend. It is a welcomed one because this gives Apple more “room” to improve the cameras and the battery life. Speaking of the cameras, did you see the camera assembly protuberance on the CAD designs? It is getting bigger too, that I don’t like.

Thinking of the next iPad (#appleevent #apple #ipadpro)

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 20:48:31 -0400

Tonight, using Craft, I’m writing my next piece for “Numeric Citizen I/O” on my 2018 11’’ iPad Pro with the Apple Magic Keyboard. I’m being this multitasking guy as I’m constantly switching between Craft, Soundcloud, Twitter, Safari, Ulysses, etc. Then, suddenly, my thoughts goes toward imagining what can Apple do to make me upgrade to the next iPad Pro.

You see, my current setup is near perfect for my needs and my current use cases. I’m far from maximizing this iPad’s potential. So, ask me again, why should I upgrade to what’s coming next week? I cannot see anything. Maybe Apple has a few well hidden cards, just waiting to be played, one by one at next week’s virtual event. We shall see soon.

My Expectations for “Spring Loaded” Virtual Event (#apple (#appleevent #springloaded)

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 14:15:54 -0400

At long last, Apple is calling the first virtual event of 2021 for next week. I have mixed up feelings about this one. AirTags, if they are real, aren’t game changer and really are complementary to anything Apple is doing these days.

I wrote a few times that for the iPad, the next major step won’t come in the form of hardware upgrades but in software, with iPadOS 15. And this, happens every year on June at the WWDC conference. So, unless there is a last minute surprise from Apple’s updated iPad Pro, my attention will be for the next WWDC, not this spring event.

Oh, about this rumoured iMac redesign, THIS I will be looking forward to it, but somehow, I think it is more a WWDC thing than anything else.

On Apple Arcades dubious Games quality (#apple #appstore #applearcades)

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 10:13:02 -0400

Consider the following App Store screenshot of a recently introduced game in the Apple Arcades service.

Reviews of this game are really bad because the game doesn’t load on people’s devices. Does Apple really test their stuff before putting them out? Tim Cook et al. brags all the time about being a mandatory gatekeeper for iPhone security and quality control with the App Store. In this illustrative case, and there are many others, Apple is failing big time to play his role. I just can’t understand why this shit is possible.

About those two icons (#apple #iOS15)

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 17:54:34 -0400

New Apple Music icon design language?

New App Store icon design language?

I rarely comment on rumours from highly speculative reports, but this report from MacRumors is different:

“The Apple Music for Artists app now features a simpler, streamlined icon with a pinkish red music logo rather than the multicolored logo that was used before. The icon also has an embossed look that makes it stand out from other Apple icons.”

and

“App Store Connect in October was updated with a refreshed icon that’s similar to the ‌Apple Music‌ for Artists icon, which means Apple has now updated two app icons with this new design.”

The simple fact that two icons got updated with similar look at several months interval could signal a trend leading to the upcoming design update with iOS 15. I much prefer the right version of these icons, particularly the embossed design. This 3D effect adds some depth and dynamism to the design, and yes I like the fine line marking the icon boundaries.

I wouldn’t be surprised if those two icons were part of an A/B testing program, within Apple. Second, what Apple has done with macOS Big Sur was only the beginning destined to encompass all platforms, in some form or another (icon design wise).

On Tim Cook’s interview by Kara Swisher (#apple #timcook #privacy)

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 12:43:47 -0400

There is a lot to like in the recent Tim Cook’s interview with Kara Swisher (link to Podcast). It’s a must-listen. Here are a few observations and remarks.

I love Tim Cook’s stance on issues like privacy protection. But at the same time, I have a hard time understanding how Apple can continue to sign a search deal with Google while advocating privacy protection. This is simply unsustainable and hard to defend if you ask me. I know… $$$. Yet… will they ever try to make their search engine or buy one like DuckDuckGo and kick Google out as the default search engine? That would be such a powerful message to send.
Today, Apple under Tim Cook, has never been so well positioned to represent the best corporate defender of many of my core values: privacy protection, careful attention to details in design, openness to diversity, environment protection, sustainable development, great user experiences. Apple is not perfect, far from it. Yet, there is nothing like them these days.
Tim Cook is candidly answering the question of where he sees himself in ten years from now. I wonder what are the plans for his or her successor? Does he and Apple’s upper management actively put as much thought into it as Steve Jobs did in his last few years at Apple? I wonder and I hope this is the case.
This interview maybe seen as a bit self-serving, yet it is what it is. We, Apple’s customers like me, pay Apple to make calls on issues like encryption and privacy protection, environmental protection, etc. That’s the way I see my voting dollars anyway. As soon as I like most of their calls, I’ll be fine and be one of their customer. I dearly hope it stays that way because alternatives are scarce to say the least.
Is Apple playing the same rules for ALL developers? I doubt it. Is Apple’s curation of the App Store perfect? Far from it: 80% of the stuff in there is pure junk.

I think it is important to stay critical about Apple. We must keep them on their toes.

My trick to read more (#reading #writing #tips #tricks)

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 15:58:33 -0400

In a word: Pocket. I’ve been rediscovering this application in recent days, and I’m loving it a lot. I no longer read articles within Safari or News Explorer. As soon as I think the article is interesting, I save it to Pocket and continue from there. The reading experience is simple and is frictionless. Being able to tag and highlight each article helps me organize and add value to my readings. Above all, Pocket will become a repository of all my past readings. The recommend feature creates some exposure for the authors. Each of my recommendation is accompanied by some text. I love it.

You can have a look at my Pocket profile here. Enjoy.

Remembering... (#techmemories)

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 11:07:27 -0400

Today, I’m remembering things like Turbo Pascal, TRS-80, ResEdit, 6502, LDA #$69, Inside Macintosh, Z-80, TI 99-4A, Logo, Commodore 64, Apple //c, ATZ modem command, eWorld, POKE 63280,0, COBOL 85, PDP-11, Choplifter, Broderbund, Multiplan, 4th Dimension, Sprites, Omni Database, Think Thank, Mac Draw, PageMaker.

These are some of the most significant souvenirs of numeric artifacts of my past numeric life. What are yours?

It’s been a long time... (#apple #iphone12)

Sat, 03 Apr 2021 13:27:24 -0400

Today, I have come to realize that, since its introduction, I didn’t see the iPhone 12 lineup in person. It’s the first time that I didn’t go to an Apple Store to see, manipulate and experience a new Apple product release. How big is the Max? How small is the mini? What about this new edge? The same goes for the Mac Pro.

The pandemic has really put a dent in our lives in some unexpected ways, big and small. But, do I really miss something? After all, the iPhone 12 is the return of the beloved iPhone 5, which I owned. I guess I’ll have to wait for the iPhone 13 or whatever it is called.

Curiously Entering the World of DJing (#music #dj #mixing #electronicmusic)

Sat, 03 Apr 2021 09:40:37 -0400

I’m no musicien. I know barely nothing about music theory. Yet, I always wanted to do some form of music. Synthesizer would be my instrument if I was to do music. Yet, I’ve been fascinated by music, especially electronic music since I was a teenager. I’m a big listener of techno and house music. Recently, I started to use my iPad while exercising on the treadmill to play video on YouTube of DJ doing mixes. This got me curious about the equipments and software DJs are relying on. I downloaded Algoriddim’s Djay app and stared to play with it on my iPad. I was really excited. I started to read more about the world of music mixing. So, I learned about DJ mixer, controllers, DJ software, music sources, digital record pools, file formats, MIDI, etc. Then, yesterday, unexpectedly, while visiting a music instruments store to see these equipments in person, I bought a Pioneer DDJ-400, a pair of small speakers, went home, enabled a trial of Djay Pro AI on my iPad Pro and started to plug all the pieces together. I feel like it’s Christmas time. Will see where it goes from here. Expect more details on my endeavour soon.

And so it begins (#apple #wwdc #wwdc21 #wwdc2021)

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 10:04:44 -0400

Apple just kicked off the 2021 season of high expectations, endless wishes lists, criticism, betas, crashes, deception, no-show products, expected hardware refreshes, iPad deceptions, etc. Again, this year, it will be a digital-only version, thanks to the lingering COVID-19 pandemic. I’m happy with that. As I wrote in the past, my hope is that this type of event stays digital. I’ve never been to a real WWDC so I don’t miss anything.

Now, trying to read into WWDC’s announcement art: sure, there is this reference to last year’s Craig Federighi with its MacBook Air, but it is also clear to me that Apple is set to announce their AR Glasses. Yep. Remember, you read it here first guys. 😜

My micro.blog instant joy

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 17:21:34 -0400

Friday thinking… I find is so refreshing to be able to have decent conversations on the open web. There is no drama here, everything seems so… simple. It brings back some confidence about human’s capabilities to engage in respectful conversations…. That’s be because there are lots of nice guys here on Micro.blog… it is lacking elsewhere (no finger pointing here, I won’t name a platform… but, well, ya know, right?).

Returning to normal programming.

On Intel’s Tick Tock Strategy (#intel #apple #applesilicon)

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 19:24:30 -0400

How funny is that? It seems Intel is applying its “tick-tock strategy” to its relationship with Apple. One week, Intel is slamming Apple’s M1 Macs with highly questionable ads featuring Justin Long, the week after Intel is luring Apple’s business to make their future processors.

So obviously you’ve seen some of the competitive energies resume because there’s a lot of great innovation to be done, and we haven’t seen PC demand at this level for a decade and a half. The world needs more of that, and there is competitive fun going on with Apple and the Mac ecosystem” — Gelsinger

I don’t know if this competitive landscape is fun like Gelsinger is mentioning, maybe we could ask Tim Cook?

Beyond the HomePod (#apple #homepod)

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 06:51:21 -0400

AppleInsider:

Apple needs to release new products to compete in the home. Be it an “Apple TV 6” or “HomeHub,” something needs to change the customer’s perspective in order to get traction in the space.

The article fails to mention a feature a HomePod replacement could and should include: home networking. I wrote about this many times. Apple left home networking market at a time where it was transitioning to WIFI 6 and home automation really started to pick up pace, thanks to things like HomeKit.

Mesh networking is something critical these days with the new work-from-home trend caused by the pandemic. Only Apple could create an easy to use networking product, à la Ubiquity or something like the AirPort product line. Speakers like the HomePod mini could evolve to be mesh extenders. I don’t really care if this product does have a screen or multiple mics. Sure it has to be HomeKit integrated. No, I don’T want it to be a successor to the Apple TV. Pricing would be too out of control. It has to be a separate product.

Leaving the home networking space could be one of the worst Apple decision in recent years. We keep seeing the consequences of it now.

Image credit: taken from AppleInsider’s article.

Fuck Facebook — Dear Parents RESIST ! (#facebook #masssurveillance)

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 20:01:36 -0400

From BuzzFeed:

Executives at Instagram are planning to build a version of the popular photo-sharing app that can be used by children under the age of 13, according to an internal company post obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Sorry for the bad words, but this is beyond any shit ever spit out by Facebook. They literally scrap anything they touch: Instagram, WhatsApp, society. WTF are Facebook’s Instagram leadership thinking? I’m so tired of this shit! I’m utterly angry! Now, since those people can’t figure out reality, what’s good, what’s bad, this message is for parents: RESIST! You hold the destiny of your children, just say NO! Don’t allow your children on social networks. Period. Enough, already.

Is bloatware coming to iPhone? (#apple #iPhone #russia)

Sun, 21 Mar 2021 08:12:48 -0400

According to 9to5Mac, users from Russia, upon setup of their brand-new iPhone:

Apple users will see a dialog box upon initial setup of new devices that features web browsers, antivirus, messenger, email clients, and more to be installed by default. The list of apps is provided by the government.

At first, I thought it was a bad decision from Apple, to allow this to happen. Bending to state laws from a country like Russia doesn’t look good. Who’s next? China? What about smartphone carriers?

The headlines are scarier than the reality, though. Users will be able to uninstall those state-sponsored apps. Otherwise, it is easy to imagine many scenarios like the dreaded PC bloatware we had to endure in the nineties from Microsoft’s OEMs. Or even worse, what about state surveillance applications? How will Apple say no to those? Are PCs subject to the same requirements? If not, why?

On the flip side, I can see some situations where apps could be suggested that would make sense, like contact tracing apps. It could have made a difference if we had this feature implemented before the pandemic. Another case is to suggest a government sponsored app that gives access to services sponsored by the government (immigration, finance, security, etc.). Finally, what are those apps that will make the list when setting up a new iPhone in Russia? I hope someone will share their experience once the law comes into effect.

Photo credits: Steve Harvey on Unsplash

Something is Going with the iMac (#apple #imac #applesilicon)

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 13:44:48 -0400

Current iMac design

Well, rumours abound, changes to the Apple Store options for the iMac, the demise of the iMac Pro, something is really going on with the iMac line. As Apple is currently in the midst of their transition to a full Apple Silicon future for the Mac, we may find what’s coming next, sooner than later.

I always loved the iMac because it is the most truthful version of the Mac original vision. I owned a 24” 2005 white iMac, then a 2007 aluminum version before my current 2017 iMac, on which I work on every weekday, for my day time work. I’m really looking forward for Apple to inject a new dose of design language in general, but especially for the iMac. The chin, the bezels, the rounded back all feel quite dated and tired. The ultimate form factor is to get a screen, nothing more. Think of it like a big iPad Pro on a svelte stand. The next design has to be iconic. It should differentiate itself from the current iPad Pro or the ProDisplay XDR. Apple’s industrial design team must enter new territories, they have to put a clear mark on Jony Ive’s era. Everything in Apple’s current Mac product lines look and feel like Jony Ive’s team work. We are due for a new beginning.

Will this new machine come in April? I feel like Apple should use a more important event like WWDC or one of the fall keynote to release such a landmark product. Current movements on the Apple Store and recent discoveries in Apple’s latest beta software points to a sooner than later release. We shall see very soon, I guess.

About these Read Later apps or services

Fri, 19 Mar 2021 20:26:40 -0400

Thought of the day: read later lists are useless for me. I tend to forget about the items I save in them. It was true with Instalaper, Pocket, Safari and now Reeder. I don’t read more because I save things in them. The trick for me is to read it now or else. Simple. The longer I wait to pick an article out of these lists, the less likely I will read it. So, I end up with a mass of unread and expired content. Are you more successful than me?

On the upcoming iPad Pro update (#apple #rumour #ipadpro)

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 06:43:57 -0400

IPad Pro with Magic Keyboard

As reported by MacRumors:

“Apple has tested ‌iPad‌ Pros with a Thunderbolt connector that would make them compatible with additional external monitors, hard drives, and peripherals, plus it brings faster data syncing speeds. Apple’s Mac machines have featured Thunderbolt technology for years now, but current ‌iPad Pro‌ and iPad Air models have standard USB-C ports.”

Such an iPad feature has to come with much improved operating system support for external devices, like external monitors, which is currently very limited under iPadOS 14.4. Expect an iPadOS 14.5 surprise support (something along he line of mouse support with iPadOS 13.4 at around the same time last year) or iPad 15 with profound improvements compared to iPadOS 14 which was limited in new features.

Personally, the key for a possible upgrade from my 2018 iPadPro lies in the software, not only the hardware. Also, rumours all points to the 12.9” iPad Pro, what about the 11”? I highly wish that Apple will make the 11”, just a smaller version of the 12.9” version.

Dear Justin — You’re So Funny (#apple #intel #ads #advertising)

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 20:30:11 -0400

Honestly, I like these Intel ads with Justin Long. The one with the dongle, at the very end, is priceless. These ads are fun. Not as fun as the “originals”, though, but still. Intel hits the nerves. Intel is playing the Apple playbook, simple as that. It’s an interesting moment, a blip, in the advertising world. Nothing more. Will it make a difference? I doubt it.

RIP iMac Pro, HomePod (#apple #imacpro #homepod)

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 08:41:00 -0400

What does the iMac Pro and the HomePod, two entirely different products, have in common? It’s not the fact that they are no longer being sold. The iMac Pro and the HomePod were created by Apple when they were caught off guard by market trends. In the case of the iMac Pro, Apple tried to answer pro users who were demanding a replacement to the aging trash can Mac Pro. Apple didn’t read the temperature room correctly. They acted urgently and responded with the wrong answer, the iMac Pro. The right answer would have been to fix the Mac Pro instead by creating another more modern version of the expandable Mac Pro, which they finally did later in 2019. The HomePod was created when Apple (finally) realized the smart speakers market was a thing. Apple misread the room temperature again with a high-end smart speaker which wasn’t that smart but sounded good. In such a market, pricing is everything.

Apple is at its best when they create products they want to use for themselves, just like they did with the iPhone. The Apple Car is such a thing really exists), the AR glasses (if such a thing really exists) are a potential case of such products. The Apple Watch was also built on the same principles of the iPhone: something they really want to use themselves.

I own two HomePod, paired together and two HomePod mini, placed in two different rooms. I love them all, but I prefer the mini for hard to explain reasons. It is sad to see the HomePro go. It could have played so differently.

What’s the next Apple product to be killed? The iPod touch?

Afterthought: what is Apple comes out with a new HomePod with an integrated wifi 6 router and maybe some storage, something along the line of the AirPort Extreme a few years ago? A new HomePod mini could also be released with wifi extender built-in. I would buy that in a heartbeat.

Image credit: Basic Apple Guy. I love this guy’s blog.

Not one but two newsletters (#news)

Sat, 13 Mar 2021 09:13:45 -0400

For those who didn’t know, I have two newsletters. One available from Substack available at https://numericcitizien.substack.com on a monthly basis and the other one entirely made with Mailbrew. On every Saturday morning, a newsletter is built using the RSS feeds of my blogs as a source to create a summary of all my publications in the last week. So, take a look at the latest issue of “Numeric Citizen Newsletter”. There are currently 30 subscribers to this newsletter.

If you plan to subscribe to Mailbrew to build your own newsletter, please, do me a favour and consider using the affiliated link to do so.

Guilty of Digital Consumerism (#apps #services #workflow)

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 21:08:37 -0400

Greg Morris on digital consumerism:

The level of consumerism and marketing tricks being used to sell apps and services is growing over time. They all promise to fix that gap in your work life, just like adverts promise to fix the one in your love life, or improve your happiness, or whatever it is. It’s all lies.

I cannot talk for others, but for me, when I’m jumping on another service or a new app, it’s because it offers a seizable improvement. Going from Notion to Craft is my latest example of such move. I’ll elaborate on this at length in a feature post in the very near future.

I recently wrote “Are we digital nomads?” My answer is yes. It seems we cannot stay in one place for a very long time, looking for the new, the latest and greatest, all the time. We’re bored. This is what it is. Form takes over function. Or is it? Again, my blogger workflow is full of moving parts and I consider it is an ongoing experiment.

About those WebP images (#google #usertracking #nonstandard)

Sun, 07 Mar 2021 08:18:55 -0400

WebP image format goal, according to Google:

WebP is a modern image format that provides superior lossless and lossy compression for images on the web. Using WebP, webmasters and web developers can create smaller, richer images that make the web faster. WebP lossless images are 26% smaller in size compared to PNGs. WebP lossy images are 25-34% smaller than comparable JPEG images at equivalent SSIM quality index.

I’ve seen more and more WebP images in recent months when I try to download an image from Safari. It’s frustrating. It’s not a standard. Making the web load faster so tracking scripts can run more easily, that the reason behind all those “initiatives” from Google. WebP is a terrible idea. AMP pages was a terrible idea. And FLOC is a terrible idea. Google is full of terrible ideas. Even for searching, Google is bad. Boy, I hate Google.

I’ve been using WebP Converter recently.

HEY World, it's now official! (#hey #heyworld #blogging)

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 15:49:32 -0400

They flipped the switch to ON. HEY World is LIVE! I’m so glad, curious and already excited to use this other channel to share my written content with the world. I’m already thinking about my first post on this new platform. Furthermore, I think this addition brings even more value to an already useful service, on which I depend every single day. Recently, I asked: How many websites can a blogger have? Well, as soon as a newcomer doesn’t add too much friction when publishing content, it’s ok to have many. HEY World seems to be such a service. Count me in.

On Spoonbill (#twitter #mailbrew)

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 07:42:00 -0400

I recently published a long piece about transforming your Twitter experience by using Twitter lists instead of following a bunch of accounts. As noted in the article, one side effect of this approach is that services that look for your Twitter account’s list of people you follow won’t really work. That’s the case for a new service called “Spoonbill”.

Keep updated on your friends’ and family members’ bios, websites, locations, and names.

Spoonbill will send you a summary of changes that occurred on Twitter’s bio of people you follow. I wonder if this service can be tweaked to use Twitter’s lists instead. What about Mailbrew, maybe they could come up with a similar feature, which would be really cool.

In the meantime, I’m not coming back to following two thousands people.

On iCloud Photo Library migration (#keyword)

Wed, 03 Mar 2021 21:12:54 -0400

In a surprising move, Apple starting today allows people to export their iCloud Photo Library to Google Photos. Why not provide a download to a local computer, outside the Photos app. I can see many use cases for doing so: backup purposes or simply to dump photos in a structure of directories for archiving purposes.

Bye Bye Weather Line (#weather #weatherapps #iOS #iosdev)

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 17:53:29 -0400

Breaking news from 9To5Mac, but official announcement here:

In recent months, we were approached by a buyer. They saw the uniqueness of Weather Line and the strong foundation we’ve built. While we aren’t able to provide further details on their future plans for the app, we hope you can understand, and will look forward to it.

I’m kind of in shock right now. I recently posted an article about my “go-to” weather applications. Weather Line wasn’t part of the line up, but I did have it installed on my iPhone, and I’m currently a paying subscriber. Too bad to see the application go. But, why? The same happened to Spend Stack recently.

What’s going on? How many developers invoked paid subscription model as being the only road to sustainability? Does it work or not? Is this the start of a new trend? There is something going on here.

When, as users, invest money and time in using applications or service, the last thing we want is to see our beloved apps go like this. I’m currently heavily investing in Craft (coming from Notion). What if the same happens to Craft?

Dear Google, this time you win (#google #YouTube)

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 14:49:29 -0400

This shouldn’t be this way. Thanks to the numerous ads, my YouTube experience was a calculated nightmare. As my usage grew in the last few weeks because of my daytime job, my time on YouTube felt light a nightmare with no end. I decided to put an end to all this by subscribing to YouTube Premium. I feel in full contradiction to my values.

YouTube Premium so much better. But it shouldn’t be this way. Yet, it is. I feel that I’m sleeping with the enemy. Tell me that it is ok, will you?

The state of non-optimized apps on my M1-Mac mini (#m1chip #applesilicon #universal)

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 07:49:26 -0400

Here is the current state of yet to be updated apps to fully support Apple Silicon Macs. It’s been close to six months now and yet, those apps aren’t yet universal. Surprising to see things like 1Password 7 still not there yet. Notion, an Electron-based app, not surprising. The Mac client for HEY hasn’t been updated for a while. Many of those apps are subscription-based, a model toward development sustainability. Can we say they are failing to meet their obligations, now?

Apple’s impressive traction (#apple #ios14 #ipados14)

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 20:51:50 -0400

Two very telling graphs from Apple’s development portal:

A few takeouts. First, iOS 13 is close to become a bad souvenir. Second, people keeping their iPad longer, it is reflected in the percentage of people still using devices with iPadOS prior to version 13.

Quick Poll on Writing During the Pandemic (#blogger #writer #poll)

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 08:24:01 -0400

Today, I would like to do a quick poll among my blogger / writer friends here on Micro.blog. How did the pandemic influence your writing habits? Do you write more? Less? What could be the reasons behind the change of habit?

To help you out and start the thread, I’ll answer to my own poll. The pandemic brought me closer to be what we call “a writer”. I write a lot more. I do put more efforts into each piece. I use more tools to help me. My research goes deeper. I have many pieces in the works, all the time. I spend around 5-10 hours for writing each week.

Now, why do I write more? Because there is less noise in my life in general, thanks to the restrictions (no travels, curfew, work from home: no commute). This “silence” created a pool of free time. My creativity took over. So, I write. And I love it.

Tell me your story? Let’s discuss.

I Tested HEY World! (#hey #heyworld)

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 19:58:25 -0400

Today, I tested HEY World. This is my non-review. It could have worked great, but it’s not ready yet. One could say “Nice try, buddy”.

I love their response to my test message. One thing stands out from their response, though:

“For now, HEY World is just an experiment. …

“Assuming there’s demand, we’ll begin opening it up for more people soon. And then, hopefully, for all HEY for You customers. Personal blogs will finally be as easy as sending an email.”

It seems to me that they are on the fence. They already have their tag line. They keep the door wide open. Could it be closer than we think or want to say it?

Now, what I’d like to see is how many emails like mine they get each day and what are they saying?

If they actually turn the switch on, count me in. I’ll find a use of it. For sure.

Ghost’s Killer Feature (#ghost #blogging)

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 19:36:44 -0400

After reading “Ghost on the iPad, a Review” from Tablet Habit, I tried to remember my experience when I tried the service myself. It wasn’t a good one for the thing I wanted to do with it: create a photography-oriented blog.

In recent days, it seems that the “Ghost” name is gaining traction in the blogging arena. I have to wonder if Ghost is better at this than what I experienced for photography. I don’t think I’ll try it again, but I think they do have one killer feature that other platforms don’t have: the combination of a blogging platform and a newsletter publishing tool. They really look to be well integrated.

One could argue that the difference between blogging or sending a newsletter is small (Think of HEY, World). I could easily agree. But sometimes, the actual implementation of the integration between those two features can make a real difference.

I’m currently using Substack for my monthly newsletter (Numeric Citizen Introspection Newsletter) and WordPress as well as Micro.blog more my blogging needs. Sometimes, I do wish there would be less friction when I’m publishing my work. A single platform doing all of this in a basic manner would be certainly very enticing.

How many websites can a blogger have? (#blogger #blogging #bloggerlife)

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 08:02:14 -0400

How many websites a blogger can have? Good question. I do have (too?) many, each filling their own niche. On that subject, something caught my attention yesterday in the public announcement of HEY’s experiment: “Hello, World!”. Jason Fried explaining why he never had a blog:

“It was primarily because setting up a personal blog was just too much of a hassle. It felt formal, it required yet another tool, yet another place to write, yet another platform to pay for just one feature. I had to pick a template, I had to think up a name, I had to make the relationship official.”

Sure, setting up a blog can be a hassle. For me, it is some kind of challenge and an exercise in creativity. This brings me to something I want to share with you. I’ve been working on something new in the last few days. I’m very excited about it. I started a “metablog”. Yes, another place to publish content. What is it? Well, it is a blog about blogging.

Let’s see what Wikipedia has to say about the word “meta”:

Any subject can be said to have a metatheory, a theoretical consideration of its properties, such as its foundations, methods, form and utility, on a higher level of abstraction. In linguistics, a grammar is considered as being expressed in a metalanguage, language operating on a higher level to describe properties of the plain language (and not itself).

Why do I feel the need to create yet another numeric space? Well, I believe in focused channels in general. I wanted a dedicated space for writing about being a blogger, using tools and services to put things together and out to the world. In other words, it is more about the “how” than anything else. I believe people like to get a look behind the curtain. I certainly do. So, I created this space where I’ll post my updates to my blogger workflow, in more detail.

So, there you have it: Numeric Citizen I/O. You’ll be able to comment on each individual post (I’m using Commento, a privacy-friendly commenting service.). I dearly encourage you to engage in discussion, ask questions or leave your comments. Thanks for visiting!

Happy birthday, Steve. (#apple #stevejobs #remembering)

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 18:09:00 -0400

Steve would have been 66 years old today. Even if I love what Apple has become over the years since he died, I miss him dearly. What a great picture of him. It is nice to see Apple and Tim Cook paying a small tribute each year.

Hey, World (#hey #newsletters)

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 18:43:53 -0400

Each day, it seems there is always something new happening in the world of newsletters. When it’s not someone famous who joins Substack, a company out of nowhere offers a brilliant idea built around supporting newsletters in one way or the other. I’m thinking of Hey in particular.

“Email is the internet’s oldest instant self-publishing platform. Except you have to define a small audience every time you write. But what if you didn’t? What if you could just email the web to reach the world? Introducing the HEY World experiment” - Jason Fried from HEY

Yesterday, the company behind the popular HEY email client tentatively announced a new service for their customers. The idea behind is to allow any HEY users to create newsletters and publish them just by sending them to world@hey.com. The service would then post these newsletters on the web, complete with the author’s name. A simple static page, no tracking, no nothing more. I call this: simply brilliant.

The service is not currently available, only in some form of alpha-stage for internal use only. They announced it to read the room and see if there is some interest in something like this that could become some soft of hyper-distributed publishing platform.

I’m personally interested in this kind of service simply because it removes friction in the publishing process. What could be simpler than just writing the newsletter like we do with emails and then hit “send”!? Simply brilliant. For the reader, they can subscribe by email or by using the available RSS feed.

You can read the announcement here. I like the simplicity of this implementation. Very clean. Very lean. I’m in love. Too bad this isn’t available — yet.

What’s next for the iPad Pro? (#apple #ipadpro)

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 22:25:20 -0400

9to5Mac published a nice comparison between the iPad Air and the 2020 iPad Pro. The latter still hold the crown with its 120Hz ProMotion display and LiDAR. Rumours are pointing to an update for the Pro line in March. The question that comes to my mind is: what’s missing from the iPad Pro, from the hardware point of view? I mean, speed, screen, form factor are just close to “perfect”. The main challenge for the iPad line is on the software side. To me, iPadOS 15 and Apple willingness to cross boundaries can’t come soon enough. Better multitasking and external screen support would really help fix long standing issues with the iPad.

HEY, Hey just got updated (#hey)

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 21:56:34 -0400

My go-to email client got an update today. Hey version 1.2 brings a few tweaks in the compose mode. In recent weeks, updates are more frequent as they finally delivered support for corporate email. Now, the other thing I’d like to see is a collapsible view in the feed view. I don’t see how pinch-to-zoom can be added without implementing the opposite to bring a collapsed view.

Crafting something with Craft (#craft #rumours #apple)

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 20:53:47 -0400

In my quest to better understand the full potential of note taking application « Craft », I’ve come up to something different, a website about Apple’s related rumours. You can hit this link to have a look. You can leave comments, no registration required. Enjoy.

Are we digital nomads? (#blogging #internet)

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 17:33:14 -0400

In the last few months, on Twitter and on Micro.blog, I’ve been witnessing something that takes the shape of a small phenomenon: people are moving from one place to another in the digital space. Many are writing about their experience of moving from one hosting site to another. Some are leaving WordPress to return to Ghost. Others are proudly putting together their hosting solutions. The same happens in the newsletters hosting space: people are leaving Mailchimp to go to Substack or Revue. People are looking to get better return on their investment both in time and money. Others are simply trying to optimize their blogging workflow. There is a myriad of reasons why people decide to leave a place for another one.

I find these numeric movements quite fascinating. Are you one of those guys?

Learning Blot.im the hard way (#blot #selfhosting)

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 09:13:35 -0400

So I started another experiment involving Blot.im. For those who don’t know Blot.im, it is a static web site generator that seems popular among the crowd here. On paper, the process of publishing is very simple: you drag and drop files on a specific folder on your computer and they get instantly published on the web. Sound great, right? That’s what I thought.

My goal with Blot.im is to do some “meta blogging”; a place where I could write about the tools, services and my blogger workflow. So I registered a new domain with GoDaddy: numericcitizen.io. Then, I opened my Blot.im account and stated experimenting. The initial setup is pretty simple. And then challenges pretty quickly started to emerge.

First, I wanted my new domain to point my Blot.im domain. Tried to follow the Blot.im instructions to make it work but all attempts failed. GoDaddy doesn’t support ALIAS DNS records as Blot.im ask me to create. I asked for help from Blot.im support. Still a work in progress.

Second, I chose to use Git as the “client” to push content on the service because I don’t want to use Dropbox, a service I despise. By using Git, I need a Git client on my Mac. I’m tentatively settled on Nova. So far so good. After cloning the Git repo from Blot.im to my local machine, I can then use Ulysses to write my posts and push them with Nova. The workflow is very geeky: create .MD file in Ulysses, “commit” within Nova then hit “push” to publish. Not as seamless as I would like. But here another issue: inserting images with a Markdown file is not as easy as it seems. Again, trying to figure out instructions on Blot.im site doesn’t work. The other thing is that if you drop an image within a folder, it will trigger Blot.im to create its own blog post, something that I don’t want. Not cool. Again, I’m asking support to help me here with this supposedly trivial task.

Third, I would like to use Github as the source of truth. Setting up a new repo is simple and cloning it to my local machine too. But, now, how do I make Blot.im to use the Github repo as the source of content? Again, trying to figure out Blot.im instructions but failing to make it work. Still trying to figure that out.

Fourth, tweaking the visual appearance is not as easy as I would have liked. There is a theme editor and I still need to be pretty knowledgeable in HTML and CSS. I did fork one of the theme to make it mine and started to do some tweak but it is a painful trial-and-error process.

All in all, I’m far from positive about Blot.im right now. I spent way too much time on these issues. I’m not sure where this is all going. If you are using Blot.im, please, do me a favour and chime in!

Testing, testing, 1.2.3. (#webmention #indieweb #openweb)

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 09:28:13 -0400

I’m still new to the Indieweb world. Today, I’m learning about webmentions. I like the idea of linking reactions back to the origin. So, after enabling a plugin on my main blog, I’m trying to link back to one of my recent post and see what happens. One day, I wrote “The Journey is the Reward”. I don’t post personal things very often. Thanks for your feedback.

Love and hate (#microblog)

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 08:09:15 -0400

I’m in love with Micro.blog. It’s simple, not too busy. Based on open web standards. But today, I’m a bit frustrated with the bad sad of being too simple. My most important grievance is the lack of design flexibility. Built-in themes are too basics and unappealing. You have to be a HTML and CSS expert to try to figure out how to make simple tweaks. This frustration is behind my recent desire to look elsewhere for hosting the whole thing. I’m willing to invest quite a bit of my time to gin control of the appearance of my online presence. I’m patient. The guys behind Micro.blog are working on the next features and I hope they will address some of my complaints.

Looking behind the scene. (#blogging #Hugo #html #git #github)

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 08:22:15 -0400

It all started with the idea of tweaking my micro.blog visual theme. I don’t like it, but this is the best that I could find from the included themes. After reading for a while and seeing people writing about their blogger workflow, I found out that Micro.blog is using Hugo, a static website generator. Then I started to learn about Hugo by searching for introduction videos on YouTube. Then, I learned about Hugo themes and how they are constructed, and at the center of how a website is displayed. Since static websites need a place to be stored, GIT and Github came into the picture. So, I started to read about GIT and Github. Git and Hugo both can be installed on my Mac mini to locally create content and generate a microblog from that. It a great experimentation place to learn and dig a bit deeper. Github is also a place to find new Hugo-based visual themes. Then I learned that I can import one of those themes on my machine so can change the visual appearance of my local Hugo microblog. Then, came the idea of publishing this content on the web, on Github, for free. To close the loop, services are available to take Github content and generate a static website, again using Hugo, behind a domain name of my choice. Then came the question: why do I need Microblog then? I could own the whole widget! It’s not that simple.

All this because I’m not satisfied with my current Micro.blog visual appearance. The next step is to dig within Micro.blog custom templates and see how I can update them. I’ll have to refresh my memory about HTML and learn a bit of CSS. The latter seems a bit an arid subject. Oh well.

Dear Micro.blog, where do you plan to go next? (#microblogging #microblog)

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 08:17:46 -0400

Thought of the day for @manton and @jean: there is something that could be improved regarding micro.blog: opening up the evolution and improvement roadmap of the platform. I do appreciate when a service do put out their roadmaps so the community get a better look at where things will be going in the future. Mailbrew, Plausible and Craft are very vocal about their future plans, you just have to find the place where they talk about it.

So, where is Micro.blog heading? In particular, how do you plan to expand on themes support and customizability? Why the web editor doesn’t allow support for Grammarly? Do you plan an opt-in option to see how many followers a user have? Those are just a few questions that I have regarding Micro.blog future plans. Thanks in advance.

Welcome back to the Mac computer club @mattbirchler (#apple #macbookair #applesilicon)

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 08:03:22 -0400

As much as you can like to work on the iPad, there are edge cases where the iPad falls short. Since I got an Apple Silicon powered Mac, and thanks to many nifty Mac utilities, I rediscovered what it really means to be productive and efficient on a computer platform. This blog post by Matt Birchler is an example of an edge case being better served by a traditional yet powerful computer.

On the subject of small and focused Mac productivity utilities, The list of application purchases I made since moving to this Mac mini is pretty long. Here it goes, in no particular order.

HazeOver
Unclutter
Keysmith
Bartender 4
DefaultFolder
Hush
StopTheMaddness
Alfred
Hazel
CheatSheet
PopClip
Downie
Permute
SafariMarkdownLinker

There is something those utilities have in common: in one way or another, they augment the macOS experience. Such things are not quite possible, yet, on the iPad.

This could be my next... (#iphone #apple #rumors)

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 22:15:18 -0400

As reported by MacRumors, the next major revision of the iPhone looks promising for me:

“Weinbach claims that the always-on display will look like a “toned down Lock screen,” where the clock and battery charge are always visible, and past notifications are shown through “a bar and icons.” When users receive a notification, the notification will “pop up normally except that the screen will not entirely light up.” Instead, “it will display it just like you’re used to right now, except dimmed down and only temporarily,” according to the leaker.”

An always-on display is on top of my wish list. How would Apple take advantage of this, at iOS level, is more interesting. Then comes the return of the Touch-ID. I would love to see go in the power button. A smaller notch? What notch?

As shown above, 9to5Mac ran a poll where more than 7000 people chose what feature are the most interesting to them. The return of Touch ID was #1 request at the time of casting my vote. Does COVID-19 have something to do with it?

Last year I skipped iPhone 12. This year, with iPhone 13, things could be different.

Two simple yet really useful tricks using HomePod mini (#apple #homepodmini #ios144)

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 20:50:19 -0400

Here are two simple but very useful tricks using an iPhone with a U1 chip, iOS 14.4 and an HomePod mini.

Trick #1: set a timer with Siri on your HomePod mini to, let’s say, 10 minutes. Then, bring your iPhone close to the HomePod mini, the iPhone will show how much time is left on the timer (make sure the iPhone screen is on).

Trick #2: let’s say music is playing on your HomePod mini, and that you want to, silently, see what’s playing. Again, bring your iPhone close to the HomePod mini, the iPhone will show the currently playing title.

What a great example of: the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. This is Apple at it’s best.

Bye Bye Spend Stack - I barely knew you (#apps)

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 16:10:25 -0400

Spend Stack Screen Shots

It is a bit of a sad day: I decided to delete the excellent expense tracking app Spend Stack from my devices and revert to using a simple Numbers spreadsheet to track my subscriptions. Why did I delete this app?

First, the developer sold the app to somebody else. Since last September, no more updates. Second, there is no clear roadmap announcements by the new owner. Nothing. I can’t rely on ephemeral applications even for simple things.

Sadly, this is something that happens all the time these days. Some developers are building great stuff but on the wrong business model. Others are just finding new priorities in their life which have side effects on their personal development projects.

I’m back to Apple’s Numbers and a simple spreadsheet. Sometimes, the best is still in the most basic form and function.

Who remember Motorola 68000 Assembly? I do. (#apple #history #macintosh)

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 09:36:45 -0400

I dug out my ancient Inside Macintosh reference books from storage. Remember when Apple’s developer documentation came as paper books? Volumes I-III on the original Mac APIs, IV on Mac Plus, V on color Macs, and the truly massive volume VI on System 7. 📚

David Sinclair https://dejus.com/2020/12/21/0927/

I did some 68000 assembly using my 512Ke Mac back in the days. Can't remember what was the development environment, though. And I remember these Inside Apple Macintosh books so well. That was a lot of stuff to learn. Time flies.

Looking for Micro.blog friends (#microblog #socialnetwork)

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 09:17:56 -0400

Yes, the title says it all: I’m looking for new friends to follow on Micro.blog. After my big Twitter cleanup, the noise in my numeric life has dramatically decreased. I feel zen and I think this is what Micro.blog is all about: a zen place to meet virtual friends sharing the same passions.

So, I’m looking for friend suggestions. Let’s call this “the community-fed referrals day!”. To help you make such referrals, please do remember about my passions: Apple, photography, privacy protection and climate change.

This brings me to something that I’d like to see improved about Micro.blog: discoverability. When looking to discover new people to follow, we do see a posts count on each user profile, but we don’t know « how recent » the last post is. We know about stale accounts on Twitter, I don’t want to follow stale accounts here. Next, I’d like to see some kind of « behind the scene » analysis of how someone could be interesting for me. I do understand that this is entering a dangerous territory of « algorithm fed reality ». I guess it is har to strike a balance in that respect. Finally, the categories are lacking a bit of breath. Where is “Tech” or “Privacy” or “Climate”?

So, I’m waiting for your referrals. Thanks for taking some of your time to do so. 🙂

What happened to my Twitter usage? (#twitter)

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 09:56:52 -0400

I don’t know what happened to my Twitter usage. It fell off the cliff recently. Since I’ve completed my Twitter experience transformation as fully documented here, I barely open Twitter once a day. Do I miss it? Nope. Why? Probably because I’m getting a distant view by using Mailbrew which draws the most relevant tweets for me on a daily basis.

On Apple’s rumoured VR headset (#apple #rumours)

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 08:01:42 -0400

A mockup of Apple’s VR headset based of rumours

Here is a simple one: Apple, please, no.

I don’t get the idea of such product. The audience for this seems to be too small for Apple. I do understand that Apple research in VR can have broader ramifications, but to build such a limited appeal product for the mass, I don’t get it.

I think Apple’s interests has much more potential in augmented reality products, services or features. Their work is already bearing fruit with AirPods spatial audio and transparency mode. These are much more appealing to the mass than a VR headset.

Mapping Apple’s mapping efforts (#apple #maps)

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 08:26:06 -0400

Apple Maps is so much better than it was when it first launched back in 2012. It’s my go-to apps when in comes to finding my way. I never use Google Maps. Over the years, Apple upped its game. Recently, Apple added the detailed mapping and the look around feature for Canada, and it made such a big difference. But how much different? Well, look no further than Justino Beirne’s latest essay: “WHY DOESN’T “LOOK AROUND” COVER MORE AREAS?”. It is a massive piece of work detailing Apple’s every advances regarding its mapping efforts. I wonder if anyone at Apple ever looked at his work. It’s just mind blowing how much details and analysis goes into this essay.

Giving without asking in return (#bloggerlife #blogging #writing)

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 18:55:41 -0400

Greg Morris recently on his blog about trying hard as a blogger to make something out of all this:

“I asked, I’m giving, and I am still blogging — now more than ever.”

Strangely, pure coincidence I guess, I wrote this last week-end “The journey is the Reward” in which I said:

“It doesn’t 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. It’s all the small moments where I had to pause, think, read, learn and write. It’s about feeling creative. Alive. The rest is just another tiny drop in the numeric ocean. A few will taste it, and most won’t. That’s the life of a blogger and a writer in a sea of abundance. So, I’ll keep doing it, no matter what.”

The journey is really the reward for me.

The look of desperation (#intel #benchmark #m1chip #apple)

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 08:02:45 -0400

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 doesn’t know about Apple. It’s 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.

The iPad legitimacy (#apple #iPad #computer)

Sat, 06 Feb 2021 16:56:58 -0400

Photo by Daniel Romero on Unsplash

Matt Birchler is writing yet another post about the iPad. The last paragraph (emphasis is mine):

“We live in a world where we’re surrounded by computers. People have a home computer, a work computer, a phone, a watch, a smart TV, and smart speakers. Hell, even the iPad’s 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.”

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.

It’s Rosetta 2’s fault (#apple #rosetta2 #bigsur)

Sat, 06 Feb 2021 14:47:59 -0400

According to a recent small survey by AppleInsider, 53% of apps are running natively on M1-powered Macs. What about the remaining 47%? Well:

“Without 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.”

One of the problem is that Apple’s Rosetta 2 is too good at running non-native apps. It’s so good that they can run faster than on an Intel-powered Mac.

A lot of things are on developer’s 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 doesn’t care, think it’s good enough or they don’t 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 don’t 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.

On the Lack of Safari’s extensions support (#apple #safariextension #browserextension)

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 09:44:00 -0400

It’s becoming quite frustrating to see Apple’s 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 Safari’s engine. Thanks to privacy protection, Apple is forcing the game here, but this has real consequences.

Apps cannot be installed errors (#appstore #apple #bug)

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 07:55:38 -0400

Since running macOS Big Sur, I quite often get these “Unable to Download App” 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 didn’t fix the issue. And it’s not related to an app being open or in use.

Is anyone getting these too? It’s kind of annoying.

Desktop vs Laptop vs Mobile vs Tablet (#blog #bloggerlife #analytics)

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 22:29:06 -0400

Here is something absolutely fascinating and surprising to me. According to my main blog’s 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. I’m still in love with this form factor after all these years. These numbers doesn’t jive.

Apple’s macOS Big Sur updates on the path of iOS updates? (#apple #macos #bigsur)

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 22:37:28 -0400

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. We’re not used to that, as before Big Sur, macOS updates used to be mostly about bug fixes. I’m happy to see Apple change course for macOS, if this update is any indication.

And here goes beta 1 of iOS 14.5 (#apple #ios14.5)

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 21:01:10 -0400

iPadOS 14.5 and iOS 14.5 beta 1 is out!

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 “finally” moments. In the tweaks category, the Apple logo of an iPad booting up iPadOS “finally” follows the device’s orientation. Updates to Apple Card too to support shared cards. Now, if only this could come to Canada!

Our secret? Optimizing workflows (#blogger #writer #tools)

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 14:24:21 -0400

I like to see other people talk about their own writing or blogging workflows. Here’s an interesting tidbit from Greg Morris about using Apple’s Shortcut to publish to WordPress:

“Shortcuts is a really robust way to publish to WordPress and not have to use the WordPress app or third-party app.”

Apple’s Shortcuts are also an important part of my blogger workflow. Since I’m using Ulysses, which supports publishing directly to WordPress, I don’t 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.

Design is how it works (#apple #design #ux #ui)

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 21:09:00 -0400

From John Gruber’s Apple report card:

“I’m reminded of all the UI and interaction designs and changes in iOS and MacOS that are just bad. There’s a real sense that _ Apple’s current HI team, under Alan Dye, is a “design is what it looks like” group, not a “design is how it works” 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 now — harder to use for people who use them, and much harder to discover for people who don’t yet know about them.”

Gruber often has an effective way of putting out his take on Apple’s 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.

Apple in 2020 (#review #apple #appletv)

Sat, 30 Jan 2021 21:50:48 -0400

Really insightful score card report from Six Colors. Take out for me: Apple TV is the new 2013 Mac Pro.

What the hell is going on with Flickr? (#Flickr #photography)

Sat, 30 Jan 2021 10:24:17 -0400

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! It’s quite a change from the usual “Bug fixes and improvements.”. Even if I’m 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 don’t get me started with the general design of the app and the website.

Today is about data privacy (#privacy #dataprivacy #privacyprotection #apple)

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 08:11:22 -0400

Today, January 28th, is data privacy day. I didn’t know that. Now I know, thanks to Mr. Phillip Schiller. I paid a visit to Apple’s privacy web page. What I found is a super nicely designed page with highlights of Apple’s ecosystem privacy focused features. To me, Apple’s privacy stance is a product, not a feature.

“Privacy is a fundamental human right. At Apple, it’s 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. It’s not always easy. But that’s the kind of innovation we believe in.” — Apple

I could play with this forever (#snowflakegenerator)

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 20:52:30 -0400

Please, do yourself a favour and go to this website, a snowflake generator. If you like winter, it will make you smile a bit.

What is worst than Facebook? (#privacy #privacyprotection)

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 08:22:00 -0400

Apple made mandatory privacy protection “nutrition” 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, it’s hard to escape suspicion.

On Tweetbot 6 update (@tweetbot #update #subscription)

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 21:12:53 -0400

Tweetbot 6 for iOS

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 Twitter’s client and exposes a few features that aren’t available otherwise. Design-wise, Tweetbot contains a lot of nice touches throughout the app. Compared to that, Twitter’s 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 I’m 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 I’m very happy with it.

Being robbed, again (#stealing #robbing)

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 08:22:34 -0400

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 “The Ultimate Twitter Tips and Tricks for Mastering Your Twitter Experience”. By doing so, he forgot to remove one of the URL pointing back to another previously published article, “My Review of Mailbrew: a Powerful and Time-Saving Internet Information Aggregator”, I was notified via a pingback. I paid a visit to the “publisher” 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 “published”:

I also posted the same thing on the comment section but comments being moderate, I don’t 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. 😃

The challenges with online speech and publishing (#socialnetworks #socialmedia #platforms)

Sun, 24 Jan 2021 17:02:00 -0400

A recent article by Benedict Evans exposes how hard it is to “fix” social networks.

“The 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.”

I often think about issues that platforms like Facebook brings to our society. I don’t pretend to have any solution. I can’t 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 “feature”. 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 doesn’t make as much sense in tact hypothetical context.

If two people don’t see the same thing, it’s because the choice was made by an individual wishing to control his or her exposure, not by a corporation’s algorithm or an arbitrary group of people.

That’s my wish. Let’s try it and see if things change for the better.

If true… (#apple #timcook #theclown)

Sun, 24 Jan 2021 16:55:56 -0400

… I want to scream, I want to puke. Not Tim Cook’s best gift.

That one was hard (#blogging #writing #article)

Sun, 24 Jan 2021 10:48:23 -0400

I just published one of my most difficult to write article in a long time. It is about transforming your Twitter experience to make it more focused, enjoyable, tailored to your personal interests. I’ve been working on it for the last few months. Along the way of writing this long piece, my Twitter experience was profoundly changed. I’m pretty happy with the end results. If you’re on Twitter, consider giving a look to this guide. Hope you’ll like it.

“The Ultimate Twitter Tips and Tricks for Mastering Your Twitter Experience”

@numericcitizen on Clubhouse (#clubhouse)

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 21:25:48 -0400

I’m always curious to try new things, especially in the numeric world. In the case of Clubhouse, I don’t know if it’s a good idea. I’m curious to try it out, anyway. I wonder how it will compare to Twitter’s Spaces, currently in limited beta. Now, waiting for an invite.

Dear bloggers, let’s not forget about the link posts (#blogging #writing)

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 08:02:02 -0400

In “A Love Letter to the Link Post”, CJ Chilvers lament the lost of link posts from the blogosphere. Link posts marked the debut of so many websites raison d’être back in the nineties:

“At that time, they weren’t even called blogs. You’d simply update the front page of your website every day with a few interesting links you discovered since the day before.”

I love link posts. I follow many bloggers just to have a peek at their discoveries and comments about them. A big portion of my monthly Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter is built around sharing a curated content of links that I find interesting. They generally fit within the boundaries of my deep interests. Link posts within newsletters = 🥰

In summary := Link posts > comments on a social network.

My daytime job reality (#IT #computerscience #tech)

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 21:02:27 -0400

Countless meetings

First, do me a favour, watch this YouTube video (less than 8 minutes of your time), then come back. You probably know that I’m working in IT as my official day jobs. I’ve been working on a project in the last 18 months to assist and direct one of our customer to implement a disaster recovery plan. This is not a trivial thing, generally speaking. In that particular case, it was an exercise of extreme frustration all along. If you did watch this YouTube video, this is me, the expert. So spot on. No wonder IT projects can’t be finished on time with so many bozos around the table.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication (#apple #airpodsmax)

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 20:44:37 -0400

AirPods Max disassembled

iFixit completed their usual teardown of one of Apple’s latest product. This time, the AirPods Max were taken apart. This thing is so complicated! No wonder why we pay $550 for. It is fascinating to see how such a device from the outside is so complicated in the inside. This makes me think of the Apple Pencil exterior beauty but interior complexity. I still love mine, even if I’m not an audiophile. 🤓

Another Massive Update to @CraftDocsApp (#craft #writer #writing #blogging #tools)

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 20:38:44 -0400

New export options in Craft 1.2.2

What a pleasant surprise today: a big update to Craft was released. Version 1.2.2 brings a lot of improvements on the table. This release should have been numbered version 1.3, not 1.2.2! All platforms (iPad and macOS) received attention and improvements. One of the most important thing for me being the addition of direct export to Ulysses, DayOne, OmniFocus among others. We could already export in TextBundle or PDF and Word but these exports options, I feel my data can freely move out of the platform. My blogger workflow is simplified.

I’m still working on my review of Craft by the way. It takes longer than I would have liked. Stay tuned.

Apple is Undoing the MacBook Pro (#apple #macbookpro #rumours)

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 21:02:17 -0400

Photo by Bram Nau - Unsplash

Bye bye dear TouchBar. Hello MagSafe power connector. Here’s some more ports. Rumours are pointing toward the same thing. Apple will revert many of its controversial decision of the last five years. Many will be pleased. Function is winning over form. I think Apple is following the trend they started with the 2019 Mac Pro which essentially erasing five years of non sense with the 2013 Mac Pro. Apple is fully back to the Mac. And down on earth, with all of us.

Clearly, actual creatives and professionals disagree with Apple’s soul-searching because if all of these rumors come to fruition, Apple will be returning to what was already considered the MacBook Pro’s zenith. Coupled with Apple Silicon and Apple could experience Mac growth that it ceded to PC laptops during these past years of stumbling. — Raymond Wong for Input magazine

Something we won’t get, though: a touch screen. We can’t have it all, right?

Improving my Apple Watch Heartbeat Readings (#applewatch)

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 17:29:00 -0400

A different way to wear the Apple Watch

Since getting my Apple Series 6 last fall (see my review here), my heart readings aren’t working as expected. I’m not alone who is experiencing this problem (just google it!). During a workout, heartbeats readings are not available for the first 5 to 10 minutes into the workout. On a 30-minute workout, it can make a big difference.

I think I found a way to greatly improve the heartbeats readings. Simply by wearing my Apple Watch as shown on the picture above. I must say that it is not perfect. As shown below, I do get a few minutes of lost readings, though, but not as much as before. The problem could be related to the presence on some fur on my front arm. Also, always making sure the Apple Watch band is tied close enough to the wrist is a must.

A few minutes of lost heartbeat readings

Are you experiencing the same issue? Let me know if you permanently fixed it.

The Insurmountable Problem for Intel (#intel #apple #applesilicon)

Sat, 16 Jan 2021 20:43:00 -0400

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger

Let’s start with a quote from Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger (as reported by The Oregonian)

“We have to deliver better products to the PC ecosystem than any possible thing that a lifestyle company in Cupertino. We have to be that good, in the future.”

The fundamental problem with Intel is that they will never make the whole widget (the products) like Apple does. That’s the key for insanely great products. Intel’s CPU are small enablers at best. The vertical integration of the whole stack (hardware, OS, apps, services) makes what Apple is all about. There is no way for Intel to emulate that by cooperating with hundreds of OEMs.

Sorry, Pat, nice try.

Telegram a Signal to iMessage, Please (#messaging #privacy #apple #parler #signal #telegram)

Sat, 16 Jan 2021 08:57:15 -0400

Telegram on macOS

DHH on Twitter seems happy that the messaging app, Signal, finally has its moment. I don’t really know about Signal, but I do know about another one, Telegram. Now that Parler is out of this world, I’m wondering if people prefer Signal over Telegram. Is Signal more secure than Telegram? According to this website, Telegram, is apparently not as secure as its maker pretends it is.

Now, I’m wonder how these movements between messaging platforms would be affected if Apple decided to make iMessage cross-platform: on iOS, on macOS, on the web and on Android. Maybe this year the dynamic is different enough for Apple to make the move? Are they afraid that people will leave the iPhone if iMessage is available on Android? What is more sticky for the Apple ecosystem: the Music app or iMessage? In my opinion, iMessage is much more powerful than Music for keeping people inside Apple’s walled garden.

Reminder, you can find me on Telegram here.

Persistent Rumours about Upcoming MacBook Pro Redesign (#apple #macbookpro #m1chip #applesilicon)

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 08:23:00 -0400

MacBook Pro

The latest report from MacRumors about Apple’s upcoming MacBook Pro redesign is quite interesting and intriguing.

First, the removal of the TouchBar and the return of the MagSafe technology is utterly surprising. If this is the case, Apple would be undoing five years of design decisions. A side effect of the TouchBar removal would be a more competitive pricing of the MacBook Pro line.

Second, the rumour about Apple opting for an all-out flat edge design makes me think the new MacBook Pro would be similar to two iPad Pro linked together with a hinge. Obviously, the screen parts would be thinner than the lower body of the MacBook Pro. Intriguing.

Now, if these rumours materialize, to me, it would mean that the current 13” MacBook Pro would be no longer necessary with a 14” model in its place. If that’s the case, the 13” MacBook Pro was only a transition and temporary move from Apple.

We are at the beginning of another exciting year for Apple.

Apple’s Big Moments (#apple #m1chip #intel #transitions)

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 07:50:20 -0400

Apple’s M1 chip

I like this quote from Ken Segall:

“In 2005, Apple moved to Intel to gain equality. In 2020, it’s moved away from Intel to gain superiority.”

I remember so well when Apple announced their move in 2005. It is a privilege to have witnessed all these big Apple’s moments. Many interesting thoughts about these transformative transitions in this article. Must read.

Mailbrew is getter better and better (#mailbrew #newsletters)

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 08:18:13 -0400

My Mailbrew profile page

Mailbrew received a big update this week. The change log is pretty extensive. The most important change is that the home page and the whole user experience for that matter is now more about reading your digests than the brews edit view. I like this change a lot. Digests are presented in the order they were received. You can go from one issue to another easily for a specific brew. You can also select a specific brew to see associated digests. The reading experience is better overall compared to HEY’s Feed view. The only missing thing is a “save clip” option.

Beside links to external content, within a digest, when it is appropriate, there is a button for entering a reader view. In this view, a minimalist browser will let the reader immerse himself to limit distractions. It reminds me of the Safari reader view. There is always the save button available to put aside an article in case you don’t have time to read it at the moment. Mailbrew provides a separate list for those saved items.

There are a ton of other small change and improvements. Sharing our brews is easier. Sharing a digest also is closer at hand. All in all, this is a solid update to an already excellent service. You can read my initial review of Mailbrew here. If you want to subscribe, please do me a favour and use this link.

Optimizing my blogger workflow (#writing #tools #workflow)

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 22:41:53 -0400

This is a test with (redacted) currently in alpha, which introduces support for posting to Micro.blog. I’m a big user of (redacted). This new feature alone could significantly enhance and simplified my blogger workflow. I’ve been waiting for this feature for a long time. When the update is ready, on iPad or the Mac, it means that I’ll be able to start the initial writing in Craft, then export to (redacted) using the TextBundle format, finish the editing in (redacted), then publish to Micro.blog. On the Mac, the same sequence applies, rendering MarsEdit unnecessary. How cool is that? Optimizing my workflow is very satisfying. 😎👨🏻‍💻

_This is a first post with (redacted), things could break. _

A fix is coming (#apple #M1macmini #bluetooth)

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 12:36:08 -0400

At long last, relief is in sight. My M1 Mac mini is not able to keep a stable Bluetooth connection with Apple’s Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse. It’s very frustrating. While waiting for a permanent fix, I’m using a USB PC mouse, and I keep my Magic Keyboard connected via a USB-C to lightning cable connected on my LG Ultra Fine 4K monitor. What a messy experience for such a small performance wonder.

Mac sales booming but the best is yet to come (#apple #m1mac #applesilicon)

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 10:58:05 -0400

Thanks to the small wonder, the M1 chip and the Apple silicon transition, Mac sales are booming. According to a recent IDC report, Mac sales are up by nearly 30% compared to the same period, a year ago. Apple’s market share increased globally by 1%, which is quite impressive for Apple.

My take: I have the feeling that we ain’t see nothing yet. As the work-from-home trend continues, with the rest of the MacBook Pro line still to transition to the M1 chip, a long-awaited redesiged iMac, 2021 could be a monster year for the Mac and Apple. And beyong 2021 and the pandemic? Ask Horace Dediu.

Programming, mathematics and brain activities (#research #computers #computerscience)

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 19:47:20 -0400

What does it take to be a hood programmer? Or better yet, what does it take to like programming hence writing or reading algorithms? Math? Language? Arts? A combination? When I started in computer science at the University, my friends thought that I was good at maths. It wasn’t the case. Before deciding which field I would like to study, I was afraid of computer science, thinking myself that we had to be really good with mathematics. My experience shows that it is not the case. I’m average at maths but good at programming and in computer science in general. Is it surprising? According to this article, no. In fact, computer programming isn’t the same thing as doing maths from a brain activity perspective. It is more like something very demanding where a totally different part of the brain is solicited. Fascinating. It may (or may not) explain why you can be good in computer science but not as good in mathematics. Who knows.

By having a better understanding of what parts of the brain are solicited, we may find common ground with other disciplines. It is really hard to attract people in computer science and knowing what it takes from a brain perspective could help direct efforts of recruiting the right people who will like to read and write algorythms but are not good at maths!

Ten Reasons to love RSS feeds (#rss #openstandard)

Sun, 10 Jan 2021 21:09:38 -0400

Alan Ralph, in a blog post, exposes ten reasons why he loves RSS feeds. I agree on all accounts. When I look closer, it all comes down to: control. Control is something we don’t have these days on social networks and social media. We live in a numeric world full of algorithmically-generated feeds and content. We lose control of our feeds. George Orwell was right.

RSS feed, a simple and open standard, is the key, within an RSS reader, of a more open and user-centered and mostly ads-free Internet. RSS feeds are important.

On the original iPhone, back in 2007 (#apple #iPhone #blackberry)

Sun, 10 Jan 2021 10:01:37 -0400

Thirteen years already. Gosh, time flies. Steve Jobs announces the iPhone. One of his best presentation. I remember it so well. At that time, I was a huge user (and fan) of the Blackberry. After using a RIM two-way pager for a while, I upgraded to Blackberry with a bigger screen with a monochrome display. But, with the iPhone, I knew, deep within me, this would be a real game-changer. My feelings were the same as with the launch of the Macintosh. What I didn’t know, though, was how profound and long-lasting the iPhone-effect would be on the rest of the tech world. We still feel its effect these days. I had to wait until the iPhone 3GS, in 2009, to get my hands on one for my personal use. I was still using a Blackberry for the office. Yep, I had two smartphones with me all the time.

How to turn me off big time (#signin #services #facebooklogin)

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 22:53:59 -0400

What’s out for 2021? These “Connect with Facebook” screen. Please, stop doing that. It’s 2021. If a service, in order to create a new account, offers a “Connect with Facebook”, it is a no go for me, no mather if alternatives are provided. Facebook is like cancer. Period.

Unsplash is growing fast — and I like it even more! (@unsplash #photography)

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 13:08:24 -0400

Unsplash started the year 2021 with a bang; they are introducing a visual search feature. How cool is that! Use cases for this feature are aplenty. Imagine you come across a great picture on Unsplash and would like to see if there are any more variants of it. Here comes the new visual search feature. Here is another one that could be a game-changer. Suppose you happen to find a picture online that is tied by a very restrictive license. Copy this image URL and paste it in the visual search of Unsplash to see if there are any similar pictures. Voilà! As the Unsplash library doubles every year, the probability of finding an alternative image increases. Lastly, the visual search feature helps you determine if a specific image on the way comes from Unsplash. It is useful to find the creator of the image when no credits are given.

Next week - back to a "normal" day job (#blogging #writing #personalnews)

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 18:21:57 -0400

Next week marks the end of a three-week vacation. I’m lucky. Three weeks where I forgot about my work and became a full-time blogger, writer, content creator. Time flies. There is a need for normality, I guess, and this means returning to work.

Expect a less frequent publishing schedule. Don’t worry; I won’t go very far, thanks to our new confinement and curfew starting this very Saturday. Oh well.

About My Friday Notes on @Medium (#writing #blogging #medium)

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 13:21:27 -0400

Today, I decided to remove my Friday Notes stories from Medium paywall. In other words, you can read them without paying a penny to Medium. They can be found here, in my Numeric Citizen Tidbits Newsletter. Please, if you like ’em, give ’em some hands claps! Thanks.

Use case for multi-user support on iPad (#apple #ipadOS #iPad)

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 11:20:41 -0400

In his predictions for iPad in 2021, iPadInsight puts multi-user support on top of its list for iPadOS 15 without mentionning a real use case beyond the obvious. Let me explain.

Do we ask multi-user support on iPad because it is something we take for granted on “traditional” computers? Or is because there is a real use case for that feature, beyond the classroom or the conference room? Does the multi-user support solve the problem of your friend borrowing your iPad while keeping him or her from seeing your stuff?

Enabling multi-user support on the iPad has profound implications. How would the instant-on, instant-use experience be impacted by having multi-user enabled? Is the security enclave capable of holding more than one user FaceID? How iCloud Drive data be handled if users both have their data in icloud, the same way as on macOS? What about apps collections being different from one user to the other, how the iPad homescreen change upon logoff-logon? How fast? What kind of pressure does this feature put on the iPad system memory? Would this feature enabled on the Pro line only?

For me, the iPad is a personal device, just like the iPhone. Apple likes it this way, for their bottom line. That’s my guess.

Another wild Microsoft rumour about Outlook (#microsoft #rumours #outlook #office365)

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 14:54:05 -0400

Here is another wild one: Microsoft is reportedly working on making Outlook a progressive web application for all platforms. Progressive web application isn’t new and Microsoft already makes a version of Outlook in this format. What is new is that it would replace all native versions of the Outlook client: no more are native versions of Outlook for Windows or the Mac.

I’m not sure if this is good or bad news. I’m always wary about cross-platform tech. There is always something lost in translation. The other question that comes to my mind, why is Microsoft moving way from native applications in its ecosystem?

Yet, not all is lost, a good side effect of this move would be to reduce memory consumption on the client. As use can see in this tweet, the native version of Outlook can use large chunk of your computer memory.

The port-less iPhone is coming (#apple #iPhone #rumours)

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 11:33:32 -0400

With patents like this, we can see clearly into Apple’s vision for the future of the iPhone. Apple is committed to remove the Lightning port from its iPhone line. I don’t expect them to go through USB-C. This is Apple. By adding more ways to charge without contacts, Apple removes the friction points off the user experience in a world of port-less iPhone.

About this rumoured big Windows visual overhaul (#microsoft #windows)

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 16:52:49 -0400

If only Microsoft could finish the job started with Windows 7. Windows 10 user interface is a bunch of previously used visual elements that Microsoft doesn’t care to clean up. For example, consider the computer settings area. On the surface, the iconography speaks the recent visual langague defined by Microsoft. But, as you try to go deeper to change a less frequently used setting, you’re back to a pre-Windows 10 era. I don’t believe Microsoft will do this “major” refresh as recently reported by Windows Central, not in a way they refused to do in the last ten years, anyway.

As a side note, colour me Apple fanboy if you want, but many pundits will grumble when Apple is actually refreshing the user interface like they did with macOS Big Sur (or iOS 7, remember?). At least, it is either consistently clean or consistently ugly, depending of your aestheticism tastes. You won’t as easily find a macOS Yosemite visual asset in macOS Big Sur or even macOS Catalina. Inconsistencies do exist in macOS but they are usually limited to very specific visual tweaks (like to trafic lights placements).

Wordpress.com: six years already (@wordpress #blogger #bloggerlife)

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 14:31:15 -0400

I got this notification in the Wordpress.app this morning. Six years already. Over the years, I became a paying subcriber of their Business plan. Automattic offers great support when you need it. But in the least year or so, I noticed a change in the way they do business with us, paying members. There are a lot of reminders about additional services available to us. which aren’t free, by the way. They keep advertising their ExactMetrics service that I don’t need with tricks that I don’t appreciate as shown in the second screen shot above. Recently, they started to advertise WordPress courses on the main admin page on WordPress.com. I really don’t like the trend. And this story by Alan Ralph doesn’t help either.

Thoughts on Flash and the iPad (#apple #iPad #adobeflash)

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 14:11:22 -0400

I want to pick from this blog post from Initial Charge. I remember a small story when the iPad came out in 2010. After a few days of playing with it, I went to the office to show it to a few of my coworkers when I got my iPad. After a few minutes of demonstration, I got two remarks. One was about the lack of a USB port. The second was about the lack of support for Flash-enabled websites. On that one complaint, I remember arguing about the simple fact that moving your mouse cursor around would trigger some flash-based animations like making a button bigger or showing up a menu on many websites. There was no such thing as a “mouseover” event on the iPad, so those websites that were dependant on this would break the interaction experience. At this very moment, I thought Adobe Flash was doomed. More than ten years to get rid of this crasp. That was long.

Don't forget about RSS feeds (#blogger #rss)

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 15:26:55 -0400

Paolo Amoroso writes on his blog:

Back in the early days of blogging, the tech press bashed RSS out of existence as it was supposedly too complex for ordinary users. To the point new bloggers don't even know what RSS is, some recent blogging platforms don't support RSS, and the blogs of new startups sometimes don't provide RSS feeds.

It’s a shame in a world where open standards are on the way out. RSS feeds are another important part of Podcasts, another open standard where big tech would like to monetize, i.e. make it proprietary.

Amoroso continues:

The readers who subscribe to your RSS feed always see all of your posts. No matter what Google, Facebook, or Twitter decide.

A long time ago I decided my blogs feeds would push the complete content of the articles. As I don’t have ads on my blogs, I don’t really care if the readers consume the content from the RSS feed only. RSS feeds are conduits who escape any algorithm-based feeds. It’s the most direct connexion between a blogger and their readers.

For the best part, Amaroso nails it:

They are the readers you want. The superfans who share your work. They may be bloggers themselves and link to your posts from theirs, or enable other opportunities such as guest blogging or podcast interviews. Those few RSS subscribers are much more engaged and valuable than the many who don’t even click links on social media.

If you know how to use RSS, you’re my best friend, you are more then welcome.

You can find my main blog feed here. For my micro blog, the feed is here. Hope you enjoy.

A new kind of goal for me - writer engagement (#writing #blogger #bloggerlife)

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 13:12:41 -0400

Writing is an important part of my life. It’s all about feeling creative, thinking, taking a pause of everything else. As a blogger, I like when people stop by and take the time to read my blog articles and then response with a comment. It doesn’t happen as often as I would like. I would say, one percent of my visitors will do it.

For 2021, I decided to set a new goal for myself: stopping by, taking the time to drop a meaningful comment on a blog post or an article from someone else. I call this goal writer engagement. Some platforms are easier to interact with than others. I like both Medium and Substack for this. Responding to an article or a newsletter is just a few clicks away.

So, today, I dropped two comments. One comment to a post from MG Siegler about writing more often on medium. The other comment about a way to consider the iPhone 12 Pro Max as a tool for photography, from a too technical point of view.

So, will you drop a comment today? Feel free to engage too and maybe start a conversation, why not!

Why I didn’t write a personal year in review for 2020 (#blogger #bloggerlife #writing)

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 09:52:07 -0400

The year 2020 came to an end without me posting my personal year in review. You might wonder why. I read many reviews in the last few days. Most of them are delightful to read as they contain gems about personal lessons learned, personal discoveries, etc. To write those reviews, you have to be prepared for that particular intention to write about it later. Without notes, it’s nearly impossible and takes too much time to prepare. It also would be too easy to miss essential tidbits.

What about 2021? Good news, for 2021, I want to be ready. Now it’s the best time to get organized. All year long, I’ll be using the excellent notes taking application called Craft. I already started to put things down. The picture at the top of this post is a glimpse at my journaling space structure, where personal notes will be confined all year long. I’ll use a monthly section for each domain or theme I want to touch on in this future year in review. I’ll see where it goes.

Pinboard, Pocket, Raindrop, Instapaper, Notion? Which tools is best for you? (#blogger #bloggertools #writers)

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 09:21:07 -0400

Alan Ralph on Why I Use Pinboard As My Reading List

I’ve mentioned before that I use Pinboard for bookmarking webpages of interest so that I can refer to them later. I realize this might seem like an odd choice, given that there are more obvious candidates such as Pocket or Instapaper, so I’ve decided to summarize my reasoning

I could add other apps and services like Raindrop (which I tried) or even Notion (which I love) as places to save bookmarks. It’s tempting to use more focused tools to fill a very specific part of a workflow. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of preference or workflow optimization (you can read about my recent workflow update).

I'm afraid your maths are right, @brentsimmons (#covid19 #vaccination #usa)

Sun, 03 Jan 2021 14:36:32 -0400

Brent Simmons trying to determine where the US should get back to normal. After some maths, he asks:

“(Is any of my math wrong? There’s no point in being overly-precise here — but please tell me if I’ve made some error that changes things significantly.)”

I’m afraid his maths are right, even if they aren’t precise. Things could change, though, after Biden is officially in his Office. Even though, change of government takes a lot of time in the US.

I said it in the past: COVID-19 shows how weak the US is as a country to fight this non military war.

So many questions lefts unanswered (#apple #iCloud #death #legacy)

Sun, 03 Jan 2021 14:28:15 -0400

In What to do about Apple devices and iCloud content when the owner dies from AppleInsider, there are so many unanswered questions. For example, are the requirements from Apple different from one country to another? Something critical when someone dies, having access to his or her smartphone with a PIN. Without it, the challenge is close to impossible to meet. That is one of the many requirements explained in A Guide for Preparing to Leave Your Numeric Legacy.

Bluetooth issues is killing the M1 Mac mini wonder (#apple #applesilicon #m1ship)

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 10:47:12 -0400

Two times today, I had to restart my M1 Mac mini because of the bluetooth devices being unresponsive. macOS 11.1 came out late in December without a fix to this issue. My hope is that this can be fixed via a firmware update from Apple. I’m not alone. No fix in sight. Very frustrating. 🤬

Grading Apple's response to COVID-19 (#apple #covid19)

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 10:02:14 -0400

From Basic Apple Guy’s top 5 of 2020:

“I appreciated the stewardship Apple has taken this year in balancing their product interests while also supporting the fight to respond to COVID-19.”

Two things. First, Apple’s response to COVID-19 was and continue to be faultless. Some governments should take notes. Second, the closing-reopening-closing dance of their physical stores didn’t impact their bottom line, not in a significant way, apparently. In a way, Apple is not only making and selling products, they are the product, it’s not only how they look, it’s how they work.

Microsoft + ARM: Why it took so long? (#microsoft #arm #surface #intel)

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 09:32:34 -0400

About Microsoft being Years Late to a Party They Tried to Start on iPadInsight:

“According to a recent Bloomberg report, Microsoft is finally getting into the custom silicon business. It looks like they are starting down this road primarily to aid their cloud and server business, but it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t have future plans to bring these new ARM-based chips to their Surface Pro X and other future models, replacing Qualcomm’s SQ1 and 2 processors.“

and

“The $10,000 question is, why did Microsoft wait this long? Why did they bother messing around with Qualcomm to produce ARM chips for the Surface Pro X only to get mediocre results from a chip that still isn’t fine tuned to both the hardware and Windows 10? Those results were completely and totally predictable. They took the easy way out and the Surface Pro X, while a really slick looking device, isn’t going anywhere because of it. Who wants to pay more and still have to make compromises in both performance and compatibility?”

Maybe Microsoft didn’t want to piss off Intel?

Documenting our numeric life (#journaling #tools)

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 09:26:32 -0400

Basic Apple Guy on DayOne, a popular journaling app:

“My current journaling habit is to make one entry per day, typically at night. However, I may add multiple timestamps to the entry throughout the day to capture a specific occurrence or thought. This daily journal is currently on a 2,668-day streak, with 4,325 total entries, and 3,297 photos.”

A streak of 2,668-day to capture thoughts, events, etc., manually? Consider me impressed. I used to write my thoughts too in DayOne, but eventually I stopped as I couldn’t keep up because of all my writing projects. Yet, I found a way to keep using DayOne, by automatically documenting my numeric life. I wrote a piece about it in 2018 that is still absolutely valid today: “Documenting my Numeric Life”. I’m using IFTTT as the engine to push updates into my many journals, inside DayOne. Works like a charm.

The Substack "clique"? (#substack #writers #newsletters)

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 10:46:32 -0400

Is Substack the Media Future We Want?

“on Substack, the most successful newsletters are almost always written by people who have already cultivated an audience at traditional publications or built up a following elsewhere.”

and

Substack is a natural fit for the influencer, the pundit, the personality, and the political contrarian.

Starting from scratch on Substack is quite a challenge. From the graph shown above, this is the curve of my subscribers count. It plateaued. The new reader feature coupled with the discovery tab didn’t move the needle at all. We have to wonder if Substack is just a clique in disguise.

You can read my past newsletters by visiting my Substack page. Be sure to subscribe, it’s free!

Not the best way to build brand loyalty, @LGUS (#smarttv #airplay2)

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 09:47:44 -0400

According to an article from MacRumors, LG is rolling out a software update to its 2018 Smart TVs to enable AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support. I personally own a 2016 model and I don’t expect to receive such update anytime soon. As a software-only solution, I don’t see why they couldn’t make it happen for 2016 models too. When you think about Apple supporting iPhone models dating back to 2015 with iOS 14, we have to wonder who’s playing programmed obsolescence here. As someone who’s looking to upgrade its 2016 LG Smart TV to a 2020 model, which will support HDR, Dolby Atmos, AirPlay 2, HomeKit and have a 120 Hz refresh rate, I don’t appreciate LG approach to brand loyalty building.

I don't care about the Apple Car (#apple #applecar #rumours)

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 16:44:58 -0400

According to Goldman Sachs, Apple doesn’t care about the car itself. I don’t care either. I’m fed up of these rumours. M.G. Siegler is fed up too according to a recent Medium article. Period. Enough. A car is the least personal product Apple could ever make. Apple’s products are about exhencing experience, life.

I can see Apple investing in in-car experience and selling it to cars manufacturers. But wait, there is a big gotcha: cars manufacturers doesn’t care about the user experience. Maybe Tesla, but that’s it. I cannot see them coming in drove to Apple to add the “Apple Experience” as an option anytime soon.

Thinking of closing my Google Analytics account − who knew (#googleanalytics #privacy @mailbrew @plausiblehq)

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 14:58:20 -0400

Mailbrew shared a blog post about the services they use internally for their needs. As a die hard fan of Mailbrew (see my profile here), it’s interesting to see what SaaS they use for their internal use. Especially interesting to me, Plausible, a privacy-friendly analytics. I’m currently using Google Analytics which is free but, you know, it’s Google and it’s too complex for my needs. On the eve of a new year, it would be a nice time to start fresh in that regards. I’m currently testing the service as I write this! I never thought closing my Google analytics account could be a thing. Every new year is the occasion to do things differently, don’t you think?

A visual reference to the iPod in iOS 14.3? (#apple #ipodclassic #applehistory)

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 14:43:17 -0400

Someone on Twitter thinks iOS 14.3 mediaplayer control is a nod to the iPod Classic. I think this redesign was introduced in iOS 14.2. Up until now, it didn’t came to my mind the design was similar to the iPod Classic. Nonetheless, it a step up compared to the previous version both in design and features. As Gruber puts it, it’s probably the best way to layout music controls on a small screen.

The original iMac — best of them all? (#apple #iMac #history)

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 13:25:51 -0400

When the original iMac came out, in 1998, a first tangible and public sign of Steve Jobs return at Apple, I was perplexed yet intrigued. It was so unique compared to everything else, just like for the original Mac, in 1984. There was a retro look to this machine that was seducing to me, especially when looking at it right in front of it. I never owned the iMac G3 and any of the following designs. I came back to the Mac in 2005 after a 10 years pause. This concludes the long series of “20 Macs for 2020” from SixColors.

Thoughts on my first contact with Disney+ on Apple TV (#appletv #disneyplus #streaming)

Mon, 28 Dec 2020 11:50:08 -0400

Yesterday I had my first real experience with the Disney+ streaming service on my Apple TV 4K. In a word: wow! I wanted to see the latest movie from Pixal: Soul. I decided to try Disney+ for the occasion. It’s the best streaming experience I ever had. From the mandatory signup process to browsing content and watching movies, I’m sold. Rightfully, Apple named the Disney+ Apple TV app the best of 2020. Not only Disney knows how to create great movies, they also know how to create great user experience for the Apple TV. Apple should take some notes here. Google, with its crappy YouTube app should just start over. Now the 9$ a month question: will I keep the Disney+ subscription?

On Apple Fitness+ Launches (#apple #services #fitnetsplus)

Sun, 27 Dec 2020 10:04:02 -0400

Benjamin Mayo on Apple Fitness+ Launches

“They did a good job with this. It’s not a deeply technical proposition but sometimes simple ideas and good execution are all you need. Fitness+ is high quality and well produced workout videos overlaid with live metrics readouts from a connected Watch. Straightforward, technologically trivial, but effective.”

I started to use the service since day one. For now, I’m doing treadmill workouts ranging from 10 min to 30 min. I like the whole thing so far. The next thing I’d like to try is the dance workouts.

Was this lab setup real? (#apple)

Sun, 27 Dec 2020 09:38:36 -0400

In 2020, we started to get a better peek at Apple’s labs, at least, this is what Apple wanted us to believe. My question: was this setup a real lab or was it entirely made up? I tend to think they were real. If that’s the case, in this particular image, can you spot a very old Macintosh?

Best wishes to all my followers and readers

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 16:31:53 -0400

Original image from Unsplash, the wishes are from me. LOL. Done with Adobe Spark Post.

I don’t buy commercial Christmas cards. (#adobe #sparkpost #creativity)

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 12:08:51 -0400

Every year, a few days before Christmas, I spend some time to create all my own and original Christmas cards for my beloved ones. It’s a pretty simple process involving two different apps. One is Unsplash and the other is Adobe Spark Post. I usually start by browsing Unsplash for finding the right photo for inspiration. Once I settle on one picture, I download it and launch Adobe Spark to create the initial montage. I make sure to reserve some space for the best wishes text. This year, I’ll do things a bit differently as my cards will be digital-only. I’ll send them via iMessage. Some people would prefer to have a printed version, but 2020 being… well… 2020, I’ll go ahead with a digital version only.

I’m a big fan of Adobe Spark Post. For some reason, I don’t see a lot of noise around it on the web. I use it for many other things than creating Christmas cards, as the picture above can show. You can read my review of Adobe Spark Post here on my main blog.

Learning by example can be addictive (#photography #adobe #lightroomCC)

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 16:42:33 -0400

After installing Lightroom CC on my M1 Mac mini, I spent some time with the Discovery feature. It’s a place where you can see other photographer’s photo edits. I find it fascinating and very helpful in learning how artists decide to process their photos. There are probably as many ways to edit a photo as there are photographers. The discovery feature has been introduced this year and can be very addictive. Be aware.

You can one of my many edit session by hitting this link.

ProRaw and the Gradual Gradation of Grays – On my @Om (#photography #iphone12promax #proraw #apple)

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 14:05:14 -0400

ProRaw and the Gradual Gradation of Grays – On my Om:

When reviewing these images on a big iMac Pro screen, I was gob-smacked by the details that were visible to the naked eye. I was able to get my shades of black and whiter whites from the files. The gradual gradation of grays is part of my editing process, and I didn’t need to do anything much to achieve that. You can feel the fog dancing among the trees. You can feel the sunshine trying to fight its way through the damp.

Man, I wish I had an iPhone 12 Pro Max, right now. From this article, my favourite pictures are the ones with trees, proudly standing. And yes, black & white is often my favourite way to look at a scene. The pictures above are mine.

Tempted by Vimeo, again. (#vimeo #YouTube #experiment)

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 10:55:25 -0400

I have too many projects on my plate to complete and experiments that I want to try. Today, I’m thinking about subscribing to Vimeo, again. I used to have an active account where I would publish photo processing session recordings with voice over. These sessions are still available by the way (one example here). I stopped doing those because they were time consuming to create and publish.

Subscribing to Vimeo’s first paying tier is not cheap. I know what you’re thinking, why not use YouTube which is free!? First, I don’t like YouTube and the business model behind it. I don’t like to depend on Google for my stuff. Vimeo is better in my opinion as a video content platform, for what I want to do. I prefer their embedded video player compared to YouTube’s. I don’t want ads on my feed and on my content. For all these reasons, Vimeo > YouTube.

My Vimeo page: https://vimeo.com/numericcitizen

Now you know. 😎

My current Applications folder on my M1 Mac, what is yours? (#apple #m1chip #applesilicon)

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 18:32:12 -0400

I’m mostly done with the re-installation of all my most used and mandatory apps on my Mac mini. To give you an idea of my apps collection, here is a screenshot of my applications folder. Most are universal apps or Apple Silicon only.

I’m curious, what is yours?

I'm less and less using my Intel-based iMac. And that's ok. (#m1chip #applesilicon #apple)

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 12:35:54 -0400

As more and more applications get the universal binary treatment to support M1 Macs, my iMac usage outside of my daytime job has decreased significantly. The list of apps that I cannot use on my M1 Mac mini is shrinking every week. It’s a good sign. Things are moving faster than I initially thought. Yesterday, I decided to let go the weird idea of not installing Intel-only applications on my M1 Mac mini, and everything is really working just fine.

What do you use as a shortcut menu utility on macOS? (#apple #macOS)

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 11:59:34 -0400

I’m currently writing a piece about the tools and services I use to help me be more efficient in my blogger workflow. Currently looking at Shortcut Bar - Instant Access on the Mac App Store. I had this utility in my list that I never bought but the features are exactly what I would like to get. Is there any alternatives to this utility? It’s a bit on the expansive side and is not yet updated for M1 Macs and Big Sur look and feel.

My still pristine M1 Mac mini is a thing of the past 😔 (#apple #m1chip #macmini #rosetta2)

Sun, 20 Dec 2020 16:36:30 -0400

Can you believe it, up until today, I was still resisting the installation of any non-native applications on my M1-based Mac mini. I refrained myself from letting in any Rosetta-dependant apps to run. I shouldn’t have made a big story about this non-issue, but it’s was more psychological than anything else.

The list of non-native apps is small, but it started to negatively affect my ability to complete specific tasks. These apps waiting in line were: SafariMarkdownLinker (Safari Extension), Grammarly (Safari Extension), Adobe Creative Cloud installer (required to install the native version of Lightroom CC), 1Password.

Today, I finally let it go and went ahead with installing these remaining pieces of my application landscape. I feel good, and everything is working just fine, as expected.

A few thoughts on Twitter's Space feature (#twitter #experience #audio)

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 15:26:57 -0400

Today, unexpectedly and for the first timr, I had a chance to experience Twitter’s Space. It’s a virtual room of twitter users who can speak to each other. When there is an open space, a small icon appear at the top of your timeline among twitter fleets. Tapping on it allows you to enter the space. By default your mic is disabled. You have to request permission first in order to be able to speak. There is a speaker who controls people’s requests to speak. People who are listener can react using emojis. It’s pretty interesting, much more interesting than audio tweets in fact.

I spent maybe ten minutes chatting with the space owner about things like COVID-19, confinement in Christmas time and how to use Twitter space. Others in the room were just listeners. It was pretty cool. I can see myself using this instead of doing a podcast for example. It’s easier to setup up, doesn’t require a distribution platform to maintain. I could setup a space to talk about Apple, photography, privacy or climate change. Can’t wait to try it out with my followers, once the feature officially rollout.

Where does our data go when we die? (#digitallife #death #legacy)

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 12:28:24 -0400

What happens with your numeric assets when you die? I mean, think of your online presence: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Where all that stuff ends up a few years after you die? That’s the type of question “Where Does Our Data Go When We Die?” tries to answer. It’s something that I find interesting and a big challenge, something that I wrote about in my piece titled “A Guide for Preparing to Leave Your Numeric Legacy”. Long read yet very important subject.

On Apple's ProRAW: extending the range of possibilities (#apple #proraw #photography)

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 12:11:28 -0400

From “ProRAW Is Here!” By Austin Mann:

I suggest turning on ProRAW when you are shooting in extreme conditions of any kinds (extremely low light, extremely high dynamic range with super bright highlights and dark shadows, mixed light temperatures, and so on). Also, use ProRAW if you plan on enlarging the images (on screen or in print).

ProRAW is about extending the possible scenarios where you can take great looking pictures. Just like in traditional photography gear, adding different lenses allow for more possibilities. It’s incredible how far iPhone photography has come since 2007. I’ll have to wait for fall of 2021 before being able to take advantage of all this as I’m not planning to upgrade to the iPhone 12 Pro. If all goes well, I should be able to bring a shinny iPhone 13 (or whatever name they give for next’s year iPhone) with me on my next trip to Europe, on October of 2021.

Time for something. Again. (#me #avatar)

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 16:18:21 -0400

Introducing my new avatar for 2021. It was made by hyxcreations, available on Fivrr. I wanted something along the lines of this one. I’m very happy of the end results. It is a blend of the previous avatar and the other one I use for @numericcitizen, my official Twitter account.

Expect a slow rollout over the next few weeks. ☺️

The shear power of Apple on its install base (#apple #ecosystem #installbase #iPadOS #iOS)

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 14:36:49 -0400

Is this new? I mean the format in which Apple is presenting the current iOS and iPadOS usage? The last time I paid attention to this, Apple was using a pie chart. I prefer this level of details. A few thoughts about these numbers are in order.

First, iPhone users are quicker to update their devices compared to iPad users. Second, Apple makes a clear distinction between devices recently introduced (in the last four years) from the rest. In both categories, the numbers shows that a vast majority of users adopt the latest release of the operating system. Third, even though people keeps their device longer than before, Apple keep supporting older devices (older than four years). All of this helps keeping the adoption rate at very high levels. Kudos to Apple.

These numbers also tell another story: Apple’s shear power over its install base is impressive. Apple has the ability to move it in new directions pretty quickly as users are quick to embrace new features, either by buying new devices or by updating their current ones because they are still supported by Apple. Will 2021 bring a different tone to this story with iOS 15? Maybe, maybe not.

The big problem with Sign in with Apple (#apple #security)

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 08:43:19 -0400

Here is an issue that I ran into yesterday with “Sign in with Apple”. I suspect I’m not alone in that situation.

The excellent website building tool, Universe, came out with an update that introduces Sign-in with Apple. After updating the application on my iPad, I launch the app. I’m welcomed with a sign-in screen. The Sign-in with Apple option is prominently displayed. I tap on it. I’m then presented with the typical panel to decide if I expose my real email address and my real name. Now the troubles begin.

I’m already a user of Universe, which email did I use to create my initial account? I can’t remember. What if I choose the wrong one? I try one of my email address that I decided to reveal. Hit sign-in; after a few seconds of working progress, I’m met with welcome screen for new users. Duh. I’m trying to get back, to no avail.

This issue reveals a big flaw in Sign in with Apple: when you are already a user of a service, switching to the more secure sign-in option makes it hard to associate this login to your existing account. I ran into the same issue with most of the services where I tried to make the switch. I suspect this is hindering the adoption of an otherwise secure upgrade to traditional authentication service. Too bad.

My first contact with Apple’s Fitness+ 😍 (#apple #fitnessplus #service)

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 18:11:26 -0400

Yesterday Apple launched their latest service offering: Fitness+. I gave it a try, and I fell in love. The first step was to update all my supported devices: the iPhone, my Apple Watch and my Apple TV. After spending a few minutes glancing at the different type of workouts, I elected to do a twenty minutes treadmill workout using my iPhone and my AirPods Pro. For this session, Jamie-Ray was my coach. As you can see, I think I made pretty well. I liked everything about the experience, from onboarding to the actual workout session with on-screen feedbacks and the finale. The music choice was good too! After my session, I gave a look at the Apple TV Fitness application. Upon launching the app, you have to select the Apple Watch associated with the person who will interact with the service. One note, if your Apple Watch name is too long, spacing on the screen won’t allow you to easily see which Apple Watch is which; you’ll have to wait so see the text to scroll, it’s a bit of an annoyance. I checked a few workout previews and sure enough, the video quality is exceptional on the Apple TV 4K.

All in all, this is a great start for Fitness+. It’s probably the best example of the whole being larger than the sum of its part. The combination of great devices, great content, great user experience, impeccable execution are the ingredients and enablers for the best experience. Bravo Apple.

Oh, I’ll try to exercise five to six days a week.

Thanks, Apple (#apple #privacy #privacyprotection)

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 11:46:25 -0400

Thanks to all the teams at Apple for putting this App privacy feature together. Just like food labels, application labels were long overdue. Apple is far from perfect, I wrote about that a few weeks ago, but at the very least they do move the needle quite a bit. Bravo.

What happens when an M1 Mac starts up? Fascinating. (#apple #m1chip #applesilicon)

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 21:01:30 -0400

What happens when an M1 Mac starts up? – The Eclectic Light Company:

You can learn a great deal from the unified log entries of a system startup, and that for an M1 Mac is even more fascinating for the insights it gives into the hardware in the M1 system-on-a-chip (SoC). These were obtained from an M1 MacBook Pro with 8 CPU cores and 8 GPU cores running macOS 11.0.1 fairly clean, and in full Secure Boot.

I always liked low level stuff in computers. I learned 6502 assembly language (if we can call this a “language”) when I was a teenager. If you’re into these type of things, it is a fascinating short read that opens the door to what is going on in your M1 Mac.

The unexpected good side effect of COVID19 on me as a blogger (#writing #blogging #blog)

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 14:14:13 -0400

Who knew COVID-19 would have a very positive side effect on me. It started on March 13th of 2020, and it’s still going on nearly uninterrupted. What is it? I have more time than ever to focus on my writing and publishing activities. Why?

As I’m working from home from mi-March of this year, I no longer have to commute. I save countless hours per week just because of this. On top of that, consider many activities on the weekend that no longer can take place because of the on-and-off restrictions in place.

I never wrote or published as much stuff in the last nine months as in the last year or so. I have a lot of projects in my head, small and more significant. I did spend quite a lot as I no longer travelling on software, services, work-from-home equipment. I also have more time for reading than before, it makes a difference.

COVID-19 is transformative at the society level but also a personal level. There are things that I don’t want to return when COVID-19 is no longer among us. Time is a precious resource, once you have it, you don’t want to mess with it.

Remember de Macintosh Quadra 700? (#apple #vintage #Mac #Macintosh)

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 09:31:59 -0400

Working from home at 25MHz: You could do worse than a Quadra 700 (even in 2020) | Ars Technica:

The '040 was a substantial upgrade over the '030 that had previously been used by Apple. It featured 1.2 million transistors, over four times as many as its predecessor. This processor increased the L1 cache size by a factor of eight to 4096 bytes, and it was the first 68k processor to have an on-board floating-point unit (FPU). While not without its drawbacks, the '040 processor was an obvious candidate for Apple's next line of premium workstations at the time. And this line would become known as “Quadra,” starting with the Quadra 700 and 900 models in late 1991.

In 1990-1991, I was working for an Apple authorized dealer. I remember the Quadra line, in particular, the 700. It was the most popular machine among desktop publisher. It was fast. I liked its vertical and boxy look. It was different. What is interesting is the description of the Motorola 68040 processor. Compare this to the Apple Silicon, it’s simply unbelievable. The M1 chip comes from an alien world.

Uniformity across diversity (#youtubers #YouTube #design)

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 08:37:55 -0400

Recently I spent more time than usual on YouTube for different reasons: to look at AirPods Max first impressions, to learn more about Synology DSM 7.0 beta, etc. After a while, it’s easy to see a trend that bugs me: design uniformity across the board. See the previous image gathers a few popular YouTubers channel content pages. They all look about the same or at least designed by the same designer. On top of that, there seems to be a trend where the weider you look, the better. When did that trend start?

When no new features was a feature (#Apple #macOS #snowleopard #2009)

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 13:39:08 -0400

Published by BasicAppleGuy, a short survey of his experience with MacOS Snow Leopard, back in 2009. I remember Steve Jobs talking about this release of MacOS as a pause in new features introduction in order to build the foundations for the next decade of MacOS (now spelled macOS). In fact, I would argue that, no new flashy feature was a new feature in itself. Something Apple could do these days. Their operating systems are muc more complex and feature rich, Apple is not standing still either. I cannot see them doing this.

The Apple Health Index (#apple #finance #marketplace #products #expectations)

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 12:21:36 -0400

For a while, I used to maintain a table of measures related to Apple that were in four categories: Finance, Products, Expectations, Market Landscape. Each attributes had his own ponderation. I wold give a scope from 0 to 10 on each of them. A formula would calculate something call the Health Index. I would revisit this table four times a year. It was obviously totally subjective but it was fun to do. Today, their score would be 9.140 out of 10. Not bad.

It's time to call out @iphoneincanada (#tracking #ads)

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 10:54:35 -0400

Wait for the previous gif to load and animate. What the fusk is wrong with the owners of iPhone in Canada website? This animated gif shows how wrong the web can become. There are 21 trackers on this website. The more trackers, the more ads, the less content there is. What a pity. For this reason, I don’t visit their website, I only subscribe to their RSS feed and Safari notifications. They should know that at some point, they cross the inflexion point where too much is like not enough.

Here is a throwback... (#Apple #iOS6 #iPad)

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 10:08:31 -0400

During my digital assets cleanup this weekend as I’m preparing a move to Synology, I came across this screenshot of my iPad running iOS 6. Looking carefully to this image, it’s fascinating to see all the things we lost since then. First, many of those apps no longer exist. Second, design.

Enjoy in all its glory.

Did you know... ? (#apple #iOS #tips)

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 09:48:08 -0400

When you get an update from the App Store stating a size of, let’s say 179.4 MB, this doesn’t represent the actual amount of data that will be downloaded. In fact, depending of your device, the size will be much smaller. If you want to see this in action, turn on Low Data Mode. Then, go to the App Store and download an application update and look at the actual size of the download in the alert box. Tadam!

A broken Apple timeline (#apple #history #myarchives)

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 19:00:51 -0400

I use to keep a time of all the news and announcements emanating from Apple, Cupertino. It was fun but time-consuming. I failed to find a good use of it, so I stopped updating it. Maybe I should have continued, as a blogger, it could have been really useful.

Detailed Apple Maps comes to Canada 🇨🇦🗺! (#apple #applemaps)

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 11:34:32 -0400

At long last, Apple’s detailed maps is now available for Canada! Not only we get more details in maps and better driving directions, we also get guides and the look around which is, in my opinion, way better designed than Google’s street view. I wasn’t expected them but they are certainly nice bonuses! Detailed maps were first introduced in iOS 13, more than a year ago.

Now, if only we can get rid of COVID-19, I may start to use Maps more frequently. 😔

The end of the “hackintosh” era? 🥷🏻 (#apple #applesilicon #m1chip)

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 10:35:47 -0400

Ernie Smith writing on Tedium about the hackintosh necessity in a world with the M1 chip for the Mac:

”I hope, now that Apple has a chip architecture that doesn’t get in the way, it ramps up its industrial design … and more importantly, it reads the reviews and iterates more thoughtfully and consistently.”

That’s exactly what I’m hoping too. The iMac and the MacBook design in general were highly influenced by the thermal pressure the Intel chip was imposing. The next iMac design revision will certainly take advantage of the Apple Silicon low thermal dissipation and put Apple in a more creative mode when it comes to imagining what a desktop computer should be.

Too bad @AppleNews, this could have been fun 😔 (#applenews #blogger #bloggerlife #writer)

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 10:12:56 -0400

Now it’s official, Apple is no longer accepting blogs on their news platform, Apple News. I got my rejection mail today (read about my original submission). I understand Apple News as being a… news platform, yet I think Apple is missing an opportunity here. Why? One word: Substack. Another word: Medium. Apple could have done to the written space what they did for the audio world with podcasts. Apple could have created a special place on Apple News for individual writers, not only bloggers per se. This would have been a message of inclusion, diversity and openess. Instead, Apple is again sending a message about begin a walled garden, exclusion, elitism. Too bad.

Where are you all? 🤔 👀 (#blogger #bloggerlife)

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 16:56:11 -0400

Fridays are always slow, it seems. Are people simply taking time off social networks, blogs, etc.? Maybe. In any case, I want to send a “have a nice week-end” to my dear readers and followers. 👈🏻 I do have a lot on my plate for this week-end: writing, writing, writing. And some time off too.

Photo credit: Jonas Jacobsson / Unsplash.

What came before the diagram (#blogging #tips)

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 22:57:41 -0400

I use Apple’s Notes app to jot some ideas, all the time. When the concept is clear in my head, I go ahead and select my tool for the next phase. In this case, it was Apple’s Keynote which proves to provide a quite capable environment for diagramming. The subject: how I process information that eventually will enable me to write blog posts. More details here.

Dear Adobe... (#adobe #lightroom #creativecloud)

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 22:31:25 -0400

Wanted to give a try to Lightroom CC on my new and still pure Mac mini (no Rosetta installed). Guess what? The creative cloud installer needs Rosetta as it is not yet native. I know, it’s no big deal, it will be fine. If that wasn’t enough, Adobe installers put a lot of things on your system that I don’t like. Then, I remembered about “Suspicious Package” utility which inspect an installer and show what it is actually doing. But, again, this software has yet to come in a universal binary. It will be hard to resist longer.

I'll take the blue ones, no, the white ones, no, the black ones (#apple #airpodsmax)

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 21:57:03 -0400

The AirPods Max is exactly the kind of product that needs a visit to the Apple Store before making a final buying decision. Photos don’t always do justice to Apple’s colour choices and textures. The weight of the AirPods Max are also an important factor to consider if you plan to wear them for long period of time. In other words, I’ll wait to buy one of these, if at all. Demand will ease, production will catch up and eventually we’ll be able to return to Apple Stores, like we used to, a not so long time ago.

Remembering Desk Accessories (#apple #macosbigsur #iosapps)

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 17:29:55 -0400

I’m currently trying a few iOS or iPadOS apps on my M1 Mac mini. I came across the Castro Podcast player for with I pay a subscription. Castro doesn’t support the iPad, yet, which is a bummer. On Big Sur, the application looks like what we used to have on very old versions of MacOS: Desk Accessories. Depending of your age, you’ll know what I’m talking about. I kind of like the use of small apps like this.

A Substack reader, really? (#substack #mailbrew #hey #newsletters)

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 09:26:07 -0400

From Chris Best, Substack CEO: “Something that we think about a lot is readers tell us, ‘Hey, I’m subscribed to six different Substacks now, and I want to read them all, and it sucks that they’re in my email inbox along with all my other stuff,’" 😳🤦🏻‍♂️

A reader app from Substack would certainly be a good idea. I’m already on the private beta. I wonder if Mr. Best knows about Mailbrew? Or Hey? While waiting for such a reader app, Mailbrew is certainly capable of doing just that: consolidating newsletters in one place. Read my review of Mailbrew on my blog. https://linktr.ee/numericcitizen

We’ll certainly take speed gains we can possibly get (#adobe #lightroom #photography #m1chip)

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 22:44:44 -0400

Adobe Lightroom 4.1 is now available with native M1 support. We didn’t see a lot of comments about the speed increase beside Apple’s during their “One More Thing” special event. Adobe’s software on the Mac is not always the best in class in regards to pure performance. So, this release for the M1 chip will hopefully bring a meaningful increase in performance. I didn’t test it yet on my M1 Mac mini as I’m still slowly installing my stuff, one app at a time. I’ll certainly report on that subject later in the month. Stay tuned.

Someone had to do it! 😍 (#apple #airpodsmax)

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 20:28:45 -0400

There is a maximum of 25 combinaisons available. Someone on MacRumors forums posted an image of them all. To get a different color, you’ll have to lay more money on the table. Anyway, I expect Apple will sell a boat load of these in the coming months. Are you planning of buying the new AirPods Max?

Oh I love their retro look! 😍 (#apple #airpodsmax #design)

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 13:43:32 -0400

Many were expecting an update to the aging and expansive Apple TV 4K. Instead, we got a brand new retro-looking and expensive AirPods Max. I can see people already calling out how absurd it is, and the lack of charger or any cables, bla bla bla. Put that aside and enjoy their lovely retro look. Oh, and since their ear cushion can be replaced, I guess they don’t have to match the colour of the over-ear “cups”, right?… Lots of possibilities here. Shipping dates are already slipping in 2021… expect to see them everywhere next summer, when covid is behind us (most of it) and people can return to a simili normal life.

How Synology NAS can improve my blogger workflow (#synology #nas #storage #blogger #tools)

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 08:40:11 -0400

As an IT guy, looking at what Synology has in store for 2021 makes me pretty excited. I wrote about that yesterday but I took a deeper look at what is coming in DSM 7.0, their NAS operating system. I didn’t pay too much attention to their photo management software that comes with a Synology NAS, but that might change. In my blogger workflow, there is something I can optimize is the use of a photo management to store all my screen shots, stock photos, visual assets, etc. Synology Photos could be the tool I was looking for for a long time. I don’t want to use Apple’s Photos application as I don’t really like to see screenshots intermixed with family pictures. If Synology Photos is as solid as it looks, if their mobile application is much improved to their current version, I’ll certainly give it a serious try. On top of that, this photo feature also enable remote access to the photo library. Very interesting.

I’ve been shopping around for a home NAS for a long time and only made the plunge this year. After much thinking and reading, I settled on Synology because I saw a mature company offering mature products with a solid reputation. Again, DSM 7.0 brings a lot of new features and improvements which makes me feel happy about my choice of going with them. Can’t wait to try what’s new.

1.0 vs 14.0 - So different, yet similar (#apple #iOS #iPhone)

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 21:57:15 -0400

Jordan Singer on Twitter posted this picture showing the iPhone with iPhoneOS 1.0 side by side with an iPhone 12 running iOS 14.0. The original iPhone home screen design was durable and endured the test of time. Some people will find it depressing to see so little changes but I do think it is a sign of an initial good design. iOS 14 brought the most significant upgrade, even more profound than the iOS 7 disaster.

Massive update coming to Synology NAS users 😍 (#synology #dsm #update #nas)

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 13:32:01 -0400

I’ve been using a Synology DS720+ NAS for a few months now and boy do I like it! On my blogger to do list is a review of this device. The breath of features never stop to impress me. I’m a big fan. I use it for archiving, space reclamation on my Mac and much more. It’s fast and reliable as I had a chance to test the repair feature after losing a hard drive (yes, already!). It worked flawlessly.

This week, Synology will make DSM 7.0 available for beta testers, the braves. Looking at the announcement web page, it looks like a massive update. Refreshed screens, more cloud integration, admin rights delegation and added feature like Active Insight will certainly be exciting additions. One question: I think Synology is about to add a subscription for this, which I’m not sure I’ll pay for, depending of its usefulness in its final form. We’ll see.

Here is a stressful user experience (#apple #iphone #ux #ui #design)

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 13:15:33 -0400

See that UI of the iPhone when you receive a call while being on another with someone else? Pretty confusing, right? You stress out to understand what to do while hoping you’ll have enough time to not miss the call. it is a stressful user experience. Why is Apple not giving any attention to this very specific UI is beyond me. They made notable change in iOS 14 with the notification-like interface for incoming calls, which was more than welcomed.

The way I came over this challenge is to concentrate on the icon labels instead of the icon itself. It does help a lot in my case.

Of course they do! Duh (#apple #applesilicon #m1chip #macpro #imacpro)

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 12:14:45 -0400

An article today by the infamous Bloomberg news site reports that Apple is working on much more powerful Apple Silicon chips for higher end machines like the Mac Pro and the iMac. We all know 2020 was in fact the entry point for next year’s act two of this transition. From what we can read in the article, Apple could make high-end PC obsolete from a RAW power perspective with as many as 32 cores. Does anybody wonder if Intel has good sleep these days?

Apple's Sidecar to the rescue (#apple #macos #sidecar)

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 09:20:42 -0400

I’m currently using an iMac with a 23.7” LG UltraFine 4K external monitor (read my review here). With the M1 Mac mini coming today, this setup will have to change. The LG screen will transit to the Mac mini and I’ll lose the pleasure of the second screen working environment. Using the macOS virtual desktop feature is nice but not always the best solution when working on many different things at once. This is where Apple’s Sidecar comes into play. Prior to this, I rarely used Sidecar, but not anymore. I’ll use it with the Mac mini or the iMac, depending of the current work session. As a bonus, I get to use a “soft" Touch Bar at the bottom of the display, which is cool because I love the Touch Bar.

The modern business card? (#blogger #writer)

Sun, 06 Dec 2020 16:05:56 -0400

Over the last two years, I expanded my online presence. Maybe a bit too much; it’s hard to keep up. I came across something interesting recently: Linktr.ee. According to their website, the purpose of the service is to “Connect audiences to all of your content with just one link”. It’s exactly a case of “you don’t know you need it until you see it!”. Building the mini-website is quick and easy. There are enough layout options to make your page look like your own. I opted for the paying tier which enables more design choices and better analytics. Hope you like it and pay a visit to learn the breath of my online presence. I think of it as some form of a modern business card.

I started to replace my links to the following one which makes things simpler in places like my Twitter profile page. Check it out: https://linktr.ee/numericcitizen

The Unifi Dream Machine gets a major update! (@ubnt #udm #update)

Sat, 05 Dec 2020 14:08:38 -0400

My home router got an update this week, version 1.8.3. I’ve been running the Unifi Dream Machine since spring without any issues. This update was long in the works and highly expected. Among the changes, a redesigned and simplified controller dashboard with real-time statistics which are really helpful. The device management UI also received a redesign. Some of the previously available information has been removed or moved around. CPU, Memory consumption and internal temperature are higher than before (around +10%-30%), though. Overall, its’a solid update. Oh, and it is running an 4 cores ARM processor.

Remember, this router replaced an aging Apple AirPort Extreme. If you are still looking for a great home router, please, do yourself a favor and buy this one. This post is not sponsored.

Getting ready for the M1 Mac mini (#apple #applesilicon #m1macmini #m1chip)

Sat, 05 Dec 2020 08:53:45 -0400

How do you get ready for an M1 Mac mini when you’re a power user of a 2017 21.5" Intel-based iMac? First, I know the M1 Mac mini speed will make the iMac seem slow in comparison. That, I’m ready. I’ll keep my iMac for a while as my gateway to my legacy software and apps for my work. Second, upon the first boot of the Mac mini, I’ll set it up as a brand new machine. No Time Machine restore. I can’t remember the last time I started fresh on a new Mac. I’ll depend on Apple’s iCloud to bring back all my stuff on my 1 TB SSD drive. Then, I’ll meticulously pick which app will make the cut for installation on this shiny and speedy machine. I’m building a list of universal apps I want to install on it, but I’ll also need the help of the excellent website, “Is Apple Silicon Ready?”. Only “Universal” apps will be allowed on it. Even if Rosetta 2 is a technical marvel, I don’t want it to contaminate my Mac. I want the pure M1 Mac experience. Oh, one last thing, if an application’s icon is not good enough, I can search for a better one of places like https://macosicons.com/ and https://www.macosicongallery.com/ or Michael Flarup’s excellent icons pack.

According to Deliveries, my M1 Mac mini will arrive this Monday.

Using Twitter Fleet, why not! (#twitter #creativity)

Fri, 04 Dec 2020 13:38:15 -0400

As you know, Twitter came out with « Fleets », its clone of Snapshat’s Stories. People don’t really like it. Or do they? My timeline is constantly filled with my followers posting fleets. I guess some do like them. I decided to give it a serious try. I think they add another dimension to Twitter that I happen to find interesting for highlighting purposes. It’s simple to use, just enough design flexibility. There are is one drawback: they only show up on the iPhone (not the iPad or the web), which I find strange and somewhat arbitrary.

Following are screenshots of my experiment. Let’s see where it goes from here.

Let's meet! Here is a free idea for calendaring app makers (talking to you guys! @macguitar @flexibits)

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 18:14:30 -0400

Let’s play a game. One of your customer calls you and ask for a meeting (virtual or in person). Before answering this request, you have to look at your calendar to see your free/busy time. It’s a time consuming and error prone process. What if your favorite calendaring app could generate a map of your weekly schedule with all sensible information masked out, like in the following example (made with Fantastical). This could be sent as a PDF file to the customer, would save a lot of time. It’s surprising that, to my knowledge, no calendaring app offer this option. I would pay to get this.

Oh I love that one from @gruber (#apple #applesilicon #m1chip)

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 09:16:24 -0400

Gruber publishes a piece today about how hard it can be for some people to accept that Apple is yet again did the unthinkable.

This one is simply priceless: “Intel and AMD have learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make decent PC chips. Apple hasn’t just magically figured this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

It’s a liberal transposition of a famous quote on how Apple, a PC guy, just can’t walk in and make a great phone. With the M1 chip, yes, Apple just walked in and did it. Again.

Many pundits were quick to jump the gun on software compatibility issues, the translation layer called Rosetta, the meager 8 GB of RAM, the lack of ports, etc. As proven by the numerous independent reviews, none of these “issues” are affecting the value of what Apple just did.

It will take a few years before Intel and their friends finally realize what just happened in late 2020 and recover from it. Years.

Dear Microsoft... (#microsoft #privacy #privacyprotection #surveillance #office365)

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 18:31:47 -0400

Following this statement from Microsoft, here is one question for you, Microsoft: why haven’t they thought, at the very beginning, that this Office 365 feature wasn’t a good idea to begin with? Here is another question: Who do you think you are to devise a “Microsoft Productivity Score”? “a tool that helps organizations measure and manage the adoption of Microsoft 365” — Microsoft

There is a difference in semantic here: measuring adoption vs measuring productivity score. What is “being productive” anyway? The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say.

What is holding back the hardware, again? (#apple #iphone #ios)

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 11:48:32 -0400

“…until there are some changes with either iOS, the iPhone or both, bigger isn’t really better. It’s just bigger.” — James Rogers writing for iPad Insight about the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Things like picture-in-picture is a step in the right direction on the iPhone. The situation is obviously better on the iPad, yet there are still many low hanging fruits.

I'm already afraid (#apple #m1macmini #applesilicon #intel #imac)

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 10:33:50 -0400

Just saw that tweet today. It’s too late. I’ll be installing my new M1 Mac mini along the side of my 2017 iMac. Thwy will be both in direct competition. I’m afraid that I’ll find my beloved iMac too slow. I’m not there yet. I’m still waiting for my new thing to get delivered. I’m getting myself mentally ready for the shock. I’ll have to keep my iMac for a while for my daytime job.

About those iOS Apps screenshot on the App Store (#apple #appstore #iosdev)

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 10:11:28 -0400

I hate those screenshots montage. They lack emphasis on the application itself, the product. They waste precious space. At the very least, why not put a video showing the application in action. People don’t like to read long application description page. Is it Apple’s fault. Probably. Not sure. Apple is not enforcing their own rules on these screenshots.

This post was triggered by another Matt Birchler post.

Don’t touch this screen (yet!) (#apple #mac #macos)

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 21:10:19 -0400

Steve Jobs once downplayed flash memory based MP3 players when the iPod was just beginning its ascension. We know what came after the iPod with a small drive. The iPod nano, an MP3 player using flash memory. If you see a stylus, they blew it. The iPad eventually came with support for a stylus… oops, a pencil. What came after that? Support for a mouse with iPadOS 13.4. See the trend? Are you getting it?

Now, about the Mac. Sure Apple could have used this historic moment to a add touch screen to the M1 MacBook. It didn’t happen. I, myself, was one of them, thinking it was about to happen as exposed in this blog post. My short experience with macOS Big Sur updated design screams out loud that we are far closer to a touch supported Mac than Apple is willing to admit.

I don’t know when, but it will come, in a perfectly chosen moment by Apple. Apple likes to move forward, one step at a time. The next window of opportunity is next year with a redesigned MacBook body. This year’s was about the internals while keeping familiarities: performance, battery life and transition. Next year is about redefining the way we look at the MacBook and enhance the way we always knew how to interact with it. The Big Sur update this year is just the first step toward a touch friendly operating system. In a typical Apple way, they will have thoroughly thought about all this and we will be amazed about why it wasn’t done this way before. Next year has the potential to be exciting.

This blog post by Matt Birchler triggered this one you just read. 👀😎

The Mac mini renaissance? (#apple #applesilicon #m1chip #macmini)

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 14:40:20 -0400

I don’t know if this is because I’m eagerly waiting for mine, I’m in a distortion of reality, but the Mac mini seems on the verge of a major regain of popularity. Sales of the little box are booming in Japan and now AWS is offering an Intel version as an EC2 instance… while waiting for the real deal, a M1-based version. The latter brings renewed interest in a platform a lot of pundits were considering dead a few years ago, thanks to Apple’s apparent lack of interest.

Apple’s Reminders is so underrated (#apple #ios #ipados)

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 10:02:48 -0400

How many To Do apps are available on the App Store? A lot. They all have a different take on how we should create, manage and check our To Do. The best one maybe just in front of your eyes, on your iPhone and iPad: Apple’s Reminders. Here is why for me it does the job quite well.

I’ve been using OmniFocus and Things in the past, but after Apple redesigned Reminders in iOS 13, I came back to using it. Besides supporting basic things like URL, images and notes, you can group To Do lists in folders, lists can be shared with others, Shortcuts are supported, it synchronizes seamlessly across my devices.

Apple’s Reminders is one of the app at the center of my blogger workflow to help me process information and publish content online.

Why getting a Mac Pro can still make sense (#apple #macpro #applesilicon #mac)

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 08:15:45 -0400

In light of all the raving reviews about the M1-based Macs, you might wonder why someone would still need and buy an Intel-based Mac Pro? For many reasons. First, some high-demanding pro software might not be compatible on M1 Macs. Second, if you run software who takes advantage of multiple cores, the Mac Pro with its Xeon processor is hard to beat. Example of this is VMware Fusion. Other use cases demand the most powerful CPU you can get, and they come in the Mac Pro, for now. Third, the Mac Pro is still the most expandable Mac out there. I’m one of those contemplating the Mac Pro for my SDDCbox project, but I must say that my priorities shifted a bit. I’m a few days away from receiving a M1 Mac mini. It will keep me busy until the beginning of 2021.

Did Apple just killed the Mac resale value? Oh yes. (#apple #applesilicon #intel #mac)

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 18:43:45 -0400

The M1-based Macs ramifications are far reaching as we are still pondering about their impact on the future. Reading this tweet from Parker Ortilani, we have to wonder if Apple, with its M1 chip introduction, just killed the resale value of any Intel-based Macs. Credits: Tables from the author. Simple answer: YES.

AppleOne - Expired or Tired? (#apple #appleone #subscriptions)

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 13:52:27 -0400

My AppleOne signup went weird when it was announced by Apple. I was billed for some of the individual services as well as the bundle. I’ve been looking for credits since then, which are still yet to come. I think it will be a mess to fix unless Apple gets their act together before then. Now, it looks like my subscription has ended and I cannot renew it. Something bad is really happening. I’m not alone feeling the pain, according to MacRumors.

Building his ideas and pushing boundaries on the way (#apple #iosdev #developer #designer @jsngr)

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 08:04:09 -0400

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the TestFlight App Store and how cool it was. The guy behind it, Jordan Singer, is also on Substack. I’m already a big fan of his work.

As a former indie iOS developer (2009-2013), I find it interesting to see other people’s ideas, work and initiatives. This guy is on a roll and tests some App Store review process boundaries, which is more than needed these days. I wish him success with Airport.

Apple is no longer doomed. Intel is. (#apple #intel #applesilicon)

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 18:26:18 -0400

Who is winning between Apple’s M1 chip and Intel’s Tiger Lake chip? Well, if benchmarks are to be believed, Apple is winning, by a wide margin. The results are pretty worrisome for Intel which seems incapable to go beyond a 10 nm process. Intel will become the emblematic image of inefficient processors for years to come. Dell, HP et al. should be worried too because they are in the exact same position Apple was just before their M1 announcement. The only thing now favouriting the Wintel world is the need for Windows for a vast majority of users.

Shortcuts to frustration (#apple #shortcuts #ios #ipados)

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 16:17:57 -0400

Let’s put it straight: Apple’s Shortcuts are the weirdest, most cumbersome and utterly frustrating thing to build, test and eventually use. I cannot count how many hours I spent trying to understand their intricacies and most useful use cases. As much as I want to get empowered by them, it often ends in frustration. Here is why.

You cannot disable old shortcuts that are no longer used but that you want to keep as a reference. There is no way to export them in a clean and readable PDF format. There is a lack of some form of runtime debugging tools. The editor doesn’t scale beyond a few dozens instructions. There is no way to write shortcuts in a text editor à la AppleScript. Share sheets bad design and organization make shortcuts invocation a trial and error experience. As your shortcuts collection grows, it hard to remember which shortcut does what in what context and what is required to launch it. And the list goes on and on. Documentation within the Shortcuts editor is lacking, very limited. A big part of the story is dependant on the willingness of developers to support them. It’s so frustrating to see an app lacking any form of exposure to the shortcut engine.

Make no mistake, I like the idea of automation on the iPad or iPhone. I’m happy to see Apple improving on them with each release of their operating systems. But, there is so much left to cover.

On using Lightroom on a Mac (#apple #adobe #applesilicon)

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 10:50:09 -0400

Let’s set the tone: Adobe software, Lightroom in particular, is not a very efficient piece of software to use on the Mac… even on a higher-end configuration. Recent updates in the last year or so tried to improve things a little bit, but there is still a long way to go. It’s not clear why Lightroom Classic is so bad. Is it because it is a multi-platform software? Probably. If so, we pay the price at every single use.

Does the M1 chip in a Mac can change the game? Well, yes and no. The following YouTube video compares Lightroom Classic running on an Intel-based MacBook Pro to an M1-based MacBook Pro. With Rosetta 2 translation layer running to support the non-optimized version of Lightroom Classic, we could think the experience would be awful. In fact, not only it isn’t, the M1-based Mac makes the experience a bit better. Who would have thought.

Now, Adobe is working on a native or universal version of Lightroom for the M1 chip. Note that I’m referring to Lightroom CC here, the cloud version of Lightroom, not the Classic version. Depending of who you are and what is your relation to photo processing, it may be a good or a bad news. Nonetheless, the prospect of a universal of Lightroom CC is certainly exciting. Will Adobe take advantage of the GPU cores or the ML cores of the M1 chip? I highly doubt it. If the iPad version of Lightroom CC is any indication, though, not all is lost. We’ll see.

Selling a piece of my Apply history (#apple #imac #2007 #elcapitan)

Sat, 28 Nov 2020 15:04:22 -0400

Today I sold my oldest Mac in the house: a 24 inches 2007 iMac running El Capitan. When I look at this computer, I see many similarities with the current iPad Pro design: round bezels, boxy frame. I hope Apple will return to this design, albeit in a refreshing way, for their upcoming M1-based iMac.

Now, waiting for my M1-based Mac mini. 24 days before adding another piece to my long story with Apple products.

A must have utility for Mac: HazeOver. (#apple #mac #utility #minireview)

Sat, 28 Nov 2020 12:53:41 -0400

Just bought a Mac utility: HazeOver! How come I didn’t know about this one?? What is it? It’s a small utility which helps bring better focus to the active application on your Mac. It does this by dimming the out-of-focus application windows. It works with multiple displays. If you prefer to work in Light mode over Apple’s Dark Mode, it will make things a lot easier on your eyes. Think of it as a visual compromise. Makes Big Sur even better. Highly recommended.

The M1 chip never cease to amaze (#apple #applesilicon #m1chip #tech #amdryzen)

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 17:45:42 -0400

Another excellent Twitter thread about the M1 chip. This time, it is a comparison with the AMD Ryzen. From a thermal design power, the M1 chip is simply unique and unmatched. On a per-core basis, top of the line AMD Ryzen chip and Apple’s M1 chip are of equal performance. On top of that, the M1 chip is much more than a standard CPU. Oh, and it is only the beginning. Who thought 2020 was such a bad year.

The future of widgets on iOS (#apple #ios #ipados #widgets)

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 17:32:57 -0400

There is a lot to like from this short video showing vivo’s OrigiOS in action. Expandable widgets, user-adjusted widget size, dynamic content, super clean animations, a few touches of skeuomorphism where it counts, dynamic icons, immediate feedback on touch, all those things which are lacking on iOS home screen could see the light if Apple choose to. Widgets 1.0 were long to come for us, iPhone and iPad users, but here they are. Yet, there is still so much untapped potential.

What are your thoughts?

The future of the iPad, according to an M1 chip (#apple #ipadpro #applesilicon #mac #m1mac #ipados)

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 09:14:35 -0400

In a blog post “Your Move, iPad”, by Becky Hansmeyer, the author asks “So if raw power isn’t enough, and new display tech isn’t enough, where does the iPad go from here? Will it be abandoned once more, lagging behind the Mac in terms of innovation, or will Apple continue to debut its latest tech in this form factor?”

In light of the massively successful M1-powered Macs, what can we infer for the future of the iPad Pro?

Apple doesn’t need to add touchscreen to their MacBook line if they unleash the iPad with a much more complete iPadOS experience. I think Apple missed the occasion with iPadOS 14 by not adding a more flexible widgets experience, by refusing to improve external display support and by not revisiting the multitasking interaction model. See? It’s not only a matter of adding 5G wireless support or LiDAR or a second USB-C port. These will only be as good as the software will allow them to be useful. The just begun new era for Mac with the M1 chip combined with Apple’s tight software integration should give us answers on why the iPad Pro future lies in the software.

A fascinating Twitter thread about Apple Silicon Wizardry (#apple #applesilicon)

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 08:05:44 -0400

Here is a super fascinating Twitter thread that I reproduce here. Find the original tweets here. It’s is about Apple Silicon wizardry. For techy people only!

“In case you were wondering: Apple’s replacement for Intel processors turns out to work really, really well. Some otherwise skeptical techies are calling it “black magic”. It runs Intel code extraordinarily well. The basic reason is that Arm and Intel architectures have converged. Yes, the instruction sets are different, but the underlying architectural issues have become very similar. The biggest hurdle was “memory-ordering”, the order in which two CPUs see modifications in memory by each other. It’s the biggest problem affecting Microsoft’s emulation of x86 on their Arm-based “Surface” laptops. So Apple simply cheated. They added Intel’s memory-ordering to their CPU. When running translated x86 code, they switch the mode of the CPU to conform to Intel’s memory ordering. With underlying architectural issues ironed out, running x86 code simply means translating those instructions to the Arm equivalent. This is very efficient and results in code that often runs at the same speed. Sometimes there isn’t a direct equivalent, so the translation results in slightly slower code, but benchmarks show x86 being consistently at least 70% of the speed. In any case, a surprising number of popular apps already run on it. Apple seeded developer systems a few months back, allowing people to get their code ready. Normally, that wouldn’t have been enough time. When you recompile code for a new architecture, it usually breaks. But as I said above: Arm and Intel architectures have converged enough that code is much less likely to break, making recompiling easier. Apple has made surprising choices. They’ve optimized JavaScript, with special JavaScript-specific instructions, double sized L1 caches, and probably other tricks I don’t know of. Thus, as you browse the web, their new laptop will seem faster and last longer on battery, because JavaScript, even though other benchmarks show it roughly the same speed as Intel/AMD. The older MacBook Air had a dual core CPU that ran at 3.8 GHz, but when in low-power mode, 1.2 GHz. Switching between fast and slow modes is how it conserves power for mobile. But it’s ultimately inefficient. The Intel CPU is designed to run at 5 GHz. Downclocking to 1 GHz saves power – but not as much as if you’d designed the processor to run at 1 GHz to begin with. Apple’s strategy is to use two processors: one designed to run fast above 3 GHz, and the other to run slow below 2 GHz. Apple calls this their “performance” and “efficiency” processors. Each optimized to be their best at their goal. When they need to conserve power, they turn off the “performance” processors and run code on their “efficiency” processors. They have 4x performance processors (twice that of their older Macs) plus 4x efficiency processors. All 8 can be active. When doing something that can use 8 processors, such as compiling code, it goes real REAL fast. 8 processors vs. 2 processors in their old notebooks make a difference. A big part of this story is that Intel is about 3 years behind on Moore’s Law. Apple Silicon uses the latest 5nm tech from TMSC, while Intel uses the older 10nm/7nm generation. Much of Intel’s product line uses the even older 14nm/10nm generation. None of this is actual “black magic”. It’s all pretty understandable. It’s just all the various things have been executed really well, leading to a combined result that is a great leap forward. Another “magic” trick is how their “Swift” programming language uses “reference counting” instead of the “garbage collection” in Android. They did something in their CPU to double the speed of reference counting. …even when translating x86 code, all that reference counting overhead (already more efficient than garbage collection) gets dropped in half. Yet another weird performance enhance to add to all the others.”

Overwhelming reactions — When Apple makes history, again (#apple #applesilicon #m1chip #mac)

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 08:25:53 -0400

After Apple announced their M1-based Macs and people started to get their hands on them, reactions were enthusiatic and unanimous. At one point, I wanted to create an archive page that would have gathered the most interesting reactions, but it was too late and overwelming. Well, someone else did it. Here is a great blog post: “Apple Silicon M1: Black. Magic. Fuckery” gathering reactions to these new machines from Apple. There are many gems in there. Check it out! I really have the feeling that Apple is making history, again.

Apple's worst ad in years? (#apple #applead #advertising #christmas)

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 13:43:29 -0400

Apple this year is back with a long and… weird (?) Christmas ad. I must say that’s a quite different and ordinary one compared to previous years. It’s no longer about touching hearts but just having fun and selling you something. This doesn’t reasonate as much with me as it used to. Contrary to previous years, Apple is focusing on one product, the HomePod mini. Again, I prefer when they don’t try to sell us something this way. There is plenty of other companies who do just that. Please, Apple, no.

Mac nano (#apple #applesilicon #m1macs #macmini)

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 08:30:24 -0400

Following my read of this article published by Macworld, the propect of a Mac nano looks more than possible. It is inevitable. Apple’s focus this year was on the internals but I expect them to switch to the outside on the next iterative evolution of the Mac mini. Besides physical compatibility reasons, a much smaller Mac mini, close to the size of an Apple TV for example could be in store. One possible constrain is the number of ports Apple will have to squeeze on the back. If they keep the same number of ports, the newly redesigned Mac mini could be something in-between the current one and the Apple TV. We’ll see. Meanwhile, I’ll patiently wait for my own M1-based Mac mini to arrive in 28 days. Its external size won’t matter much to me.

Better recovery options (#apple #applesilicon #m1macs)

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 07:57:39 -0400

According to an article published by SixColors, M1-based Macs offer a much different and improved boot and recovery options. Looking at the picture below, and I noticed the same while testing Big Sur, the icon for the boot disk is one showing an old mechanical HDD, not an electronic SSD. Was Apple feeling nostalgic when they designed this icon?

How ironic (#apple #ios14 #widgets #android @notionhq)

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 20:18:04 -0400

Read on Twitter today: “Notion widgets are only for iOS 14 for now. We’ll get there, Android 😓 Our mobile team is heads down on offline mode right now, but we learned a lot during development that we can use for an Android widget down the road. Thanks for your patience in the meantime 🙏” - Notion.

Widgets came to Android in 2008-2009. What am I missing here? How ironic is this? A lot if you ask me. I’m not calling out Notion, far from it. My observation is all about the fact that, despite Android having widgets for so many years, they were probably not as good, well designed and useful as there are now on iOS 14.

Saving at least 2 Billions a year (#apple #applesilicon #intel #m1chip)

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 08:06:02 -0400

A lot has been written on Apple switch to their own processors already. But one side of the story is still lacking some insight. Apple is probably saving a lot of money by putting their own Apple silicon in each Mac they sell. According to this Medium article, Apple could save at least $2 billion a year with just three entry level MacBook sporting the M1 chip. We can only try to approximate the amount of money Apple is no longer paying to Intel. We can also start wondering the amount of money Apple has directly invested in developing the M1 chip and how fast they wil recoup their investments. My gut feeling says that it will be fast.

My prediction for next year's MacBook (#apple #macbook #applesilicon #m1chip)

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 07:54:54 -0400

Here is a simple theory. This year’s MacBook didn’t bring an upgrade to the FaceTime HD camera, and unanimously, people is complaining. But what if this lack of attention to the very specific feature from Apple is part of a bigger plan for next year’s MacBook? Here is my guess.

Apple is targeting next year for the real deal: the full redesign of the MacBook line to be announced around WWDC 2021. Part of this plan would include much better FaceTime HD camera assembly that would include Face ID, a highly expected feature for M1-based machines. Offered in sizes of 12", 14" and 16" with an impossibly thin screen bezel, Apple wanting to keep the size of these machines the smallest possible as the power sipping CPU can handle smaller batteries yet providing long battery life. I would expect the M1x chip as the more powerful M2 one would go to the iMac, iMac Pro. The new MacBook, to be named MacBook X, will will mark the first year of the Apple silicon transition.

Until then, keep enjoying your Apple Silicon Mac, version 1.

A fascinating possibility coming to the Mac, next year (#apple #applesilicon #m1macs)

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 21:02:17 -0400

On Substack, I recently stumble on an interesting article from https://apple.substack.com: when Apple introduces a new round of Macs next year, what if they keep previous generation around but at a lower price point?

It’s a highly possible scenario considering how Apple under Tim Cook operates. The iPhone models multiplication, same is happening with the watch…. next, the Mac? Probably. Is this a good thing? For their bottom line probably, yes, but for the customers? Yes and no.. yes, it makes the brand more accessible but it makes the buying experience a little bit more complicated than it should be with fewer models available. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Which is faster, then? (#apple #applesilicon #m1macs)

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 20:07:07 -0400

Following of new round of benchmarks from MacRumors, my take outs are: 16 GB is (much) better than 8 GB from a speed point of view (well, duh!), the Mac mini is the best most of the time with a few exception (slower than MBP on SSD write speed is one such exemple, hard to explain). Adobe Lightroom Classic doesn’t take advantage of the RAM difference, which is not surprising to me (thanks to multiplatforms Adobe’s software) You can get all the details from MacRumors website: here and here. Graph from MacRumors.

Apple is not what it used to be (#apple #analysis)

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 13:58:31 -0400

Someone on Twitter shared this YouTube video in which the guy tries to explain why and how Apple is not what it used to be. In a few words: now, they actively compete with others. It’s a massive difference where before they seemed to act alone without caring about the surrounding competitive landscape. Highly recommended.

He should go work for Apple (@michaelsteeber #apple #applestore #appleretail)

Sun, 22 Nov 2020 11:38:24 -0400

Have you seen this short YouTube video on the Apple Store holiday shopping experience? Take a moment because it is a masterpiece of execution in visual quality, content and execution in general. 9To5Mac published an article about it and I thought they were referring to Apple’s material. It took me quite a while to get it: the author of this clip is Michael Steeber, a well known Apple enthusiast and writer for 9To5Mac. His focus is directed to Apple retail in general but from a design point of view most of the time. I like what this guy is doing, I’m a bit jaleaous of his talent, and he should work for Apple already. Congrats!

Publishing on Apple News, soon? (#apple #applenews #publishing #writing)

Sun, 22 Nov 2020 10:06:24 -0400

After months of silence, I’m finally getting some response from Apple regarding my submission to publish on Apple News. I can’t remember when I first submitted my Numeric Citizen Blog for publication on the Apple News platform. In a unexpected twist, they got in touch with me and asked to fill a questionnaire, which I promptly did. They are putting a new review process in place. I also updated my selection of articles submitted for review to use more recent ones. We’ll see how fast they respond and if they open the gate!

The list is growing (#apple #macosbigsur #iOS14 #iPadOS14 #M1Chip)

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 15:58:38 -0400

Surprisingly, the list of iOS 14 and iPad OS 14 apps that are made available or updated to work better on the M1-Based Mac is growing. Here is my current list: Newsify, Ferrite, Luma Fusion, Castro, Buffer, Opener, Apollo Reddit Client, Darkroom, Darknoise. The thing that I should do now and glance my current iPad apps and mark those that I want on the Mac too.

Is It Apple Silicon Ready? (#apple #applesilicon #m1chip #macOSBigSur)

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 08:44:28 -0400

It took a while but here is the first and most comprehensive list of application compatibility with Apple’s M1 Macs. You can search and sort the list easily and use the category filter too to locate application in the list. Well done. Design or photography applications compatibility level is high but productivity isn’t, which is not surprising. Most of my apps are already universal binaries. https://isapplesiliconready.com

The era of customization comes to the iPhone (#apple #ios14 #widgets)

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 20:41:31 -0400

Seeing this level of high interest in iPhone homescreen customization holding on since the launch of iOS 14 tells me that people really want to make their device more personal. Is it too far fetched to imagine Apple bringing system level customization a basic feature of iOS? I don’t think so. Maybe in iOS 15. Image from idownloadblog.

For Icons lovers (#macos #ios #apple #design #ui #ux #visualarts)

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 07:56:37 -0400

I’m a user of Timing for Mac, and recently the app got updated in order to support macOS Big Sur. The update brings a fresh and entirely new app icon to better fit the visual style of Big Sur, and I love it 😍. The icon has been designed by Matthew Skiles. Looking on his Twitter profile, I discovered two interesting web sites: https://www.macosicongallery.com/ and https://www.iosicongallery.com/. These are catalogs of the best icons for macOS and iOS of well known apps. Check them out. These sites made me realize how much we lost in design quality over the years, great icons are hard to come by these days.

It’s overwhelming and unanimous (#apple #applem1 #applesiliconmacs #m1chip)

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 12:52:27 -0400

Following Apple’s “One More Thing” event, I wanted to gather positives reactions to Apple’s M1-Based machines. It’s simply overwhelming. I just can’t keep up. It’s all over the place. I can only imagine Apple’s marketing department current putting a press release doing just that.

“I can’t remember the last time reviews for an Apple product were so universally positive, especially considering these are machines that look the same as the previous-gen. Apple simply excelled themselves with the ARM transition.” — Benjamin Mayo

It’s not only overwhelming but unanimous. What a great time to see history being made.

Is 8 GB of RAM enough? (#apple #macbookair #applesilicon #M1chip ) 🤔

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 08:27:47 -0400

Many are asking if they should go with a 16 GB RAM configuration for their new M1-based MacBook Air. Some others think Apple should have made a 32 GB of RAM configuration for the 13” MacBook Pro. According to this informal benchmarking video, 8 GB seems enough for most people. During his tests, the user opened many different apps and documents in Excel, tabs in Chrome, Photoshop and the MacBook Air stayed cool and never ever started to fall on its knees. At no time the idle CPU metric went down below 60%. The fan-less computer never got hot. Why? Three letters: SoC.

The M1 chip gathers many different components close together on the same chip so they don’t have to go through the PCI bus to move data around. I think it plays a big role in Apple Silicon Macs efficiency. We can no longer compare the RAM configuration of an Apple Mac with a Wintel machine, just like we cannot compare a 12 GB of RAM Android phone to a 6 GB of RAM iPhone. It’s just two different worlds.

Yet, I ordered a 16 GB Mac mini. 😳

The Rosetta 2 tax (#apple #m1chip #applesilicon)

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 21:45:36 -0400

One of the best take on Apple’s new M1-based Mac is from TechCrunch. What I learned in this review is, thanks to Apple’s Rosetta 2, the cost of running an un-optimized app on these machines: 26% performance hit. The more interesting thing is the fascinating fact that, even with this hit, apps can still run faster than on Intel-based Mac counterparts.

I can’t remember the last time I didn’t mind paying taxes.

Pixelmator Pro 2.0 — A Small Wonder (@pixelmator #applesilicon #m1chip #universalapp)

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 13:55:00 -0400

I’ve said it before, Pixelmator Pro is one of the best app in the Apple ecosystem for three reasons. First, the Pixelmator team is always fast to take advantage of Apple’s latest software and hardware technologies. Second, it’s a real native app, designed and built for the Mac. Third, Pixelmator Pro is close to how Apple’s own apps should be designed. Make no mistake, I love Apple’s iWork. Pixelmator feels familiar and Apple-ish, something that I like. They probably read the HIG documentation dozen of times. Congrats to them.

Oh, and look at this “What’s new" welcome page when you first launch the app after upgrading to version 2.0. Look familiar to you? Can’t wait to install this on my upcoming Mac mini.

Microsoft already feeling the heat (#microsoft #apple #m1chip #applesilicon)

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 08:33:18 -0400

Carefully look at this add by Microsoft bellow. The phrasing of this ad clearly shows the roots of the company making the product. “Pen supported” is one example. Why not write something like “Touch interface” or “Touch screen”. The word “supported” sounds wrong and makes me feel Microsoft is not fully confident about the real nature of this computing environment. The other thing is the removable SSD option. That’s typical geeky-PC-world-thing. Do we really care in a world of cloud-based storage being an extension of our devices? Really bad ad.

Clearly, Microsoft is already feeling the heat and is on the defensive. It’s only getting started. Others will follow.

If Rev(Y-1) < 1M$ Then Comm=15% otherwise Comm=30% (#iosdev #apple #developers)

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 08:17:28 -0400

Big news today by Apple. It’s a step in a (new | right) direction. Some are already applauding the move, others are vehemently calling it a tactical one. Apple will never satisfy everybody, except when launching their new M1-Based Macs. Apple can change when they feel the pressure, just like any big corporations. They’re not different on that front. We tend to forget this.

11.1. Beta. Already. (#macosbigsur #apple #beta)

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 14:30:45 -0400

Apple is on a roll with the release to developers of [version 11.1 of macOS Big Sur](11.1. Beta. Already. (#macosbigsur #apple #beta)). My hope for this update is for Apple to tweak the UI a bit and make it faster on Intel MacBook Pro. (Notifications, low contrast, etc.). The other thing, I hope it will be ready by the time I’m getting my Mac mini (mid-December).

About this crappy FaceTime Camera. (#apple #m1chip #macbook #facetimecamera)

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 11:25:58 -0400

“We really considered giving these machines 10 out of 10 review scores, but this camera is bad enough to keep that from happening, especially on a pro laptop that costs more than the Air.” - The Verge

“Unfortunately, that similarity extends to the webcam, which is still 720p resolution and still terrible. Apple has tried to borrow some of its real-time image processing from the ‌iPhone‌ to try to spruce up the image — and I do find that it does a better job evenly lighting my face — but mostly what I notice is that it looks bad (only now it’s a more processed version of bad).” - The Verge

Here is a real comparison. It’s less crappy but it is not good.

Take that, Apple. It was a near perfect moment.

Dear M1 Macs reviewers… (#M1chip #applesilicon #mac #review).

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 08:55:31 -0400

Here is what I’m hoping to see from reviewers of the M1-based Macs today. How fast is the machine booting? Is wake from sleep that much better? When you start a non-optimized app, how does Rosetta 2 kicks in? How long does it take? What happens when you start the same app a second time after a while? Was Rosetta kick out and has to relaunch? How is window resizing doing, we know that was never really fast on Intel-based machines. How is scrolling speed in Photos? Can you really feel the difference on an optimized app compared to their Intel counterpart? Does installing 11.0.1 update was faster than on previous macOS release on Intel? Is the Mac mini the fastest among the three? Does GPU intensive tasks are really that much faster? What about SSD speed for reads and writes compared to an Intel Mac? is it much improved? Is macOS Big Sur buggier than on Intel? Is 8 GB of RAM enough or 16 GB is really a must? Have you tried Pixelmator Pro, how fast is it now?

Hoping for a few answers today.

Podcasting (#podcasting #blogging #writer #blogger)

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 21:04:18 -0400

My podcast adventure was too short (The Numeric Citizen Podcast). I prefer written words over audio. I prefer photography over video. There is something about moving content that I find difficult to grasp, as a creator. I’m may be too old for podcasts creation or YouTube, I don’t know. I loved creating those episodes (in French), though, using Ferrite.

While waiting for "real" benchmarks... (#m1chip #applesilicon #mac #apple)

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 10:20:04 -0400

These “behind the scenes" benchmarks of the M1 GPU are again impressive to say the least. Is the Mac bound to become a gaming machine?

My Growing List of Universal Apps (#m1chip #apple #macos #macosbigsur #macmini)

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 09:07:46 -0400

Here is the list of apps that I use and that are ready for my upcoming M1-based Mac mini. The list is growing almost on a daily basis. I didn’t expect it would go that fast. The prospect of much faster Macs could trigger an even faster adoption by developers. Apple’s bet is paying off.

U = Universal. U-C = Universal, Catalyst-based port from iPadOS. U-S = Universal SwiftUI based app, C = Non universal but compatible.

My wish is to install Universal apps only as I don’t want to trigger Rosetta 2.

[U] Omnigraffle
[U] Pixelmator Pro
[U] Affinity Photo
[U-C] Universe
[U] Transmit
[U] Little Snitch
[U-S] Aviary
[U] Darkroom
[U] Apple’s iWork
[U] Apple’s iMovie
[U] NewsExplorer
[U-C] Twitter
[U] Screens
[U] Ulysses
[U] Things
[U] Fantastical
[U] AirBuddy
[U] CleanShot
[U] Reeder 5
[C] iStats Menu
[C] DayOne
[C] Carbon Copy Cloner
[C] Timing

It will be (much) faster (#apple #macmini #imac #m1chip)

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 17:59:14 -0400

Comparing the performance of a 2017 iMac to a M1-based Mac mini, based on Geekbench numbers. Sometimes, a picture, oops, a graph is worth a thousand words.

My current experiment of macOS Big Sur on a 2017 MacBook Pro is not very impressive. I can feel the difference compared to Catalina.

Here is why Microsoft should start to worry (#microsoft #surfacego #macbookair #apple #m1chip)

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 10:09:00 -0400

In light of Apple’s recent products introduction, consider the recently introduced Microsoft Surface Go. A Windows laptop that starts with 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB SSD, 12.4” touch screen using the Intel Core i5 which will get you 13 hours on battery for 550$. If you want a 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB SSD, the price goes up to 899$, but you keep the same lame CPU.

Now, compare this to the new MacBook Air (a much more powerful laptop) for 899$ (education pricing), same amount of RAM and SSD, 5 hours more of battery life, a much better non-touch display.

How is Microsoft supposed to compete against Apple in this market now?

They simply can’t, and they should start to worry.

What's wrong with Medium's stats…? (@medium #writing #bloggerlife) 🤔

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 08:16:51 -0400

What’s wrong with Medium’s “reading time" stat? Here, this story “Thoughts on ‘One More Thing’ - The Ultimate Mac Transition”, got 34 views so far, 12 reads, 2 two responses, 4 fans, 53 claps but the total reading time is 50 seconds? What’s wrong with that? 12 reads x 11 min estimated reading time = 132 minutes. Someone wrote: “very informative talk”! Did this guy really read my story or he is trying to get some attention? 🤨

Exposure Notification and battery life (#apple #covid19)

Sat, 14 Nov 2020 18:46:45 -0400

Why is exposure notification taking so much battery power? Do you experience the same thing? I’m running on iOS 14.3b1 but it was the same behaviour under previous iOS releases. I’ve been monitoring this for a while. I don’t want to turn that off. Oh, and by the way,amI alone who doesn’t find very intuitive these graphics?

The list is growing... (#apple #universalapps @elemanssoftware)

Sat, 14 Nov 2020 13:20:25 -0400

My favorite RSS reader News Explorer (read my review here), is already supporting macOS Big Sur, M1-based Macs. The updated News Explorer UI on Big Sur is much cleaner in general. I’m on the list to test the iOS 14 friendly version, adding support for Widgets and I can’t wait to see their implementation.

Big. (#apple #bigsur #macos #macosbigsur #update)

Sat, 14 Nov 2020 11:12:45 -0400

Big Sur update is certainly big. Full of goodies and the enabler for the next decade of excitement for the Mac.

Massive Big Sur Review (#macos #bigsur #macosbigsur #apple #review)

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 23:08:49 -0400

Ars Technica put together a massive review of Apple’s macOS Big Sur. It is quite impressive. It’s exactly the kind of review that I’m looking for. Visuals and internal architectural features are exposed, explained but rarely justified, only when it serves a purpose of contextualizing the matter. Kudos for the author: Andrew Cunningham

Now, I’m so anxious to get this thing running on my upcoming Mac mini. Big Sur is not only a refresh of the user interface but also an important sum of things under the hood that is being upgraded and modernized.

On Big Sur - Maybe I was wrong (#apple #macosbigsur #widgets #design)

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 13:00:21 -0400

Maybe I’m wrong with my perception of the disaster Apple created with the introduction of widgets in combination with notifications center (read my comment here on micro.blog). After reading the excellent MacStories.net review of Big Sur, I finally saw the combination in action. Notifications are see big improvements and look closer to what we get on iOS.

Still, Apple lost the opportunity to make widgets available in their own space, something like what we used to have, the Dashboard. It’s ridiculous to confine widgets in such a small space, considering modern screen sizes. Oh, and I hope the interaction feels much more fluid on M1-based machines because the last time checked on a 2017 MacBook Pro, with Big Sur beta 10, it was super laggy

Picture credits: from MacStories’ review of Big Sur.

One Computer, Three form factors (#apple #macbookair #macbookpro #macmini)

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 14:26:00 -0400

“The new M1-based MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini are best thought of not as three different computers, but rather three different manifestations of the same computer.”

Astute observation by @Gruber in his commentary post on “One More Thing" event. People are trying to figure out why there is so few differences between the three Macs Apple announced this week. Sometimes, the answer is simple.

PC Gimmicky features rarely used (#windows #windowslaptop #microsoftsurface)

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 10:14:24 -0400

PC laptops introduced pencil support, touch screen, screen-based touchpads, et. al. because these are the only things they could do to try to stay on top in a commoditized technology platform. I will take in a heartbeat 3X or 5X performance gain and 6 more hours of battery life over the gimmicky features. This is one of the many reasons I’m so upbeat with the M1-based Macs.

Photo credit: Alexander Andrews on Unsplash.

When the low-end beats the high-end... (#apple #macbookair #M1processor)

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 08:12:49 -0400

Twitter is ablaze since yesterday when first benchmarks of the MacBook Air were published. They show the M1-based and fan-less Mac to surpass the top of the line iMac! It’s impressive if not mind-blowing!

Now here is a simple theory: native apps will certainly perform really well but non-native apps will run under the Rosetta layer, which happens to consume CPU cycles. This performance room being consumed by Rosetta, the actual performance of a non native app will probably fall down to a more reasonable level.

Impressive nonetheless.

Hourra, Ulysses ! (#macosbigsur #writingtools #blogger @ulyssesapp)

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 08:00:52 -0400

My go to app for blogging, Ulysses, is now ready for macOS Big Sur. Yeah! I’m doing my part, as I’m going to order this M1-based Mac mini today so I can run Big Sur on its own machine and experience the future now. And that icon is lovely, not too iOS-ified, enough Big Sur-ified to feel at home! Ulysses 21, Pt. 2 - Ulysses Blog

Another experiment: Mac mini (#apple #macmini #m1processor #macosbigsur)

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 22:59:37 -0400

Recently published benchmarks of the upcoming M1-based Macs are impressive enough for me to take a deep breath and make a decision. A week ago, I didn’t think of this as a possibility. But here we are.

I’m going to make the plunge into the world of Apple Silicon-based Mac, Big Sur and universal apps. It’s the beginning of a new era, and I want to be part of it, experience it. I’m not waiting for the reviews next week.

I’ll get a Mac mini equipped with 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TD SSD. Expected delivery date is mi-December at the earliest, just in time for Christmas holidays. I never owned a Mac mini, BTW.

I’ll use my 4K LG display that is currently plugged into my iMac. I’ll be testing universal apps as they come out. Applications like Adobe Lightroom CC, Omnigraffle and Pixelmator Photo will certainly take advantage of the M1 processor.

Tim Cook's Apple: not perfect but utterly impressive (#apple #timcook #2020)

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 17:01:00 -0400

I recently wrote and published a very critical view of Tim Cook’s Apple. It’s not pretty, but it is my honest take. Now, looking at Apple’s strategy execution for 2020 which is close to an end, I must confess that I’m really impressed. Apple delivered. On all fronts. There are a lot of unknowns, for sure. Yet, I have the felling that Apple set the stage for its next phase of growth for the next decade.

On M1 based Macs Unified Memory Architecture (#apple #mac #m1processor)

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 11:52:24 -0400

Here is the thing: the new M1-based Macs use the new “unified memory architecture” that is at the center of our iPhones and iPads. If you plan to buy one of these shinny new Mac, my recommendation would be to go with 16 GB of RAM, not 8 GB. Why? Consider this: Rosetta 2 is a new emulation software layer that will consume memory, something that is not present on Intel-based machines. On top of that, memory will be consume for video processing. My guess is: the biggest monitoring, the higher the resolution, the more memory will be consumed. What’s left for the applications? Even if SSD is fast on reads and writes, application launches are fast, nothing equals the speed of RAM. I’m afraid 8 GB of RAM is the new meager 5 GB iCloud storage tier for M1-based Mac. We’ll see with the upcoming reviews and benchmarks.

Intel: shit. (#appleevent #m1processor #apple #intel)

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 08:37:55 -0400

The graph put together by Anandtech is a wakeup call for Intel and the Wintel world, for that matter. These trajectories are incredible, impressive for Apple, worrisome for Intel. We are on the verge of a major shift in the portable landscape. Apple seems unstoppable.

Lingering Questions… (#appleevent #apple #mac #macbook)

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 21:53:55 -0400

Why no clock-speed information about the M1 processor? How are iOS-based apps be presented on the Mac App Store? Why so little difference between a MacBook Air configurations, CPU-wise, RAM-rise compared to MacBook Pro? What “virtualization technology support" actually means for normal users and tech enthusiasts? Why not bring back the 12" form-factor, an ideal candidate for power-efficient M1 processor? Will there be updates to Intel-based iMac Pro and Mac Pro? Why no 32 GB RAM configuration option for the MacBook Pro? What kind of performance levels should we expect to reach for non-Metal optimized graphic apps? Why does Apple can’t understand the need for an updated FaceTime camera in 2020?

What's missing? A lot. 😳 (#appleevent #apple #applesilicon #mac #macbook)

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 21:19:46 -0400

No touch screen. No pencil support. No 5G or 5G wireless option. No high-quality FaceTime camera. No Face ID No redesign, no slim bezels. No 12" MacBook. No clock speed specs. No eGPU support. Fewer ports options. Third-party native software support still to come.

Am I missing something?

That’s the new Apple MacBook using Apple’s M1 silicon ship.

Still excited?

History repeats itself (#appleevent #apple #applesilicon #mac)

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 21:05:13 -0400

From rewatching Steve Jobs announcing Apple’s transition to Intel processors, here are a few interesting observations, just in time for tomorrow’s #AppleEvent.

Steve Jobs reminds the crowd of transitions in Mac history: 68K to PowerPC, OS 9 to OS 10 then introduces the third transition: going to Intel. Each time, he uses the expression “to set Apple for the next 10 years". It’s all about the CPU roadmap’s ability to enable the Apple’s vision. Also, even at that time, power consumption was an issue. He also repeatedly mention great updates still coming to the PowerPC-based Macs.

Can’t wait for tomorrow’s version of the very same playbook.

Honest iPhone 12 Pro review. (#apple #iphone12pro #review @basicappleguy)

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 16:10:48 -0400

I love those balanced review, even partial, of the iPhone 12 Pro. They feel credible, and I tend give them high credence. We should get more of these these days of highly nuanced upgrades offered by Apple, year after year. Photo by the article author.

When Software Holds Back the Hardware (#apple #iphone12promax #ios14)

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 12:32:39 -0400

This quote from the Wall Street Journal’s review of the iPhone 12 Pro Max is priceless as ti summarize one of the biggest issue, in my opinion, about Apple’s current state of its software in general:

“It is crazy to me, however, that Apple hasn’t enabled us to do more on a phone that is practically iPad-size. Why can’t I view my inbox on the top half of the screen and my calendar on the bottom, like Samsung allows with its Multi-Window mode? Why does the tiny iPhone Mini allow the same number of rows of home-page app icons and widgets as the iPhone Giant? Why can’t I use an Apple Pencil to take notes on the notebook-size device?”

These are all valid questions. Even before the iPhone 12 Pro Max, these questions were valid. Software, like for the iPad, is holding back the iPhone. Is it a ressources issue being spread too thin? Is it something about product differentiation? I hope the answer is the former, not the latter.

Photo: The Verge.

Deception waiting to happen? (#appleevent #apple #applesilicon #mac)

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 09:13:22 -0400

I have a feeling that we are in for some deception tomorrow at the “One More Thing” keynote. Is this a natural mental process, some sort of auto-regulation of my own expectations, currently happening so I can be pleasantly surprised, tomorrow?

Yet, reading my Twitter feed today and people are expecting 15 hours of battery life while beating current Mac equivalent performance. And then what? The Apple Silicon story is more about the unification of software platforms at Apple than enabling endless hardware innovations on the Mac.

Change my mind.

Another iPhone 12 “Virtual” Experience by @MichaelSteeber (#apple #iphone12 #experienceapple)

Sun, 08 Nov 2020 09:17:03 -0400

After spending sometime with the virtual experience from Apple, I found out another one by the well known @MichaelSteeber that is built with Adobe’s XD. The experience is quite similar, and I’m still not able to find a fully satisfactory combinaison of the iPhone, the MagSafe case and the wallet. Really, the iPhone 12 is not for me.

My iPhone 12 « Virtual » Experience (#apple #iphone12 #experienceapple)

Sun, 08 Nov 2020 09:05:54 -0400

Apple launched a webpage to experience the selection and visualization of different MagSafe cases and wallets for the iPhone 12. I played with it for fun from my iPad Pro. It’s an interesting way to try different combinaisons of iPhone, cases and wallet in a world where going to a real store to do the same is challenging.

This year’s iPhone and cases prove to be hardly satisfactory, though. The colours options are not really in line to my tastes. After spending a while, I found two probable configurations that I would buy if I was on the market for such things. Because of bad reviews of the wallet, I would skip this one as I would fear losing my three most important cards. I hope Apple will fix the issues with next year’s round of the products.

I can breath. (#bidenharis2020) 😀🇨🇦

Sat, 07 Nov 2020 13:54:27 -0400

Well, I can breath a little bit better now that this clown is on the way out. Good riddance. As a Canadian, I’m so happy to see this clown go. If there was a way to start fixing 2020, it would be it. Yeah, I know, he won’t concede victory, he probably won’t do a concession speech. Who cares.. we knew all that, already. Now, let’s hope Americans start to unite a little bit and fix their shit, because, it’s pretty ugly out there.

The transition iPhone (#apple #iphone12 #iphonepro)

Sat, 07 Nov 2020 09:20:10 -0400

A recent tweet from @LeaksApplePro made me think about the significance of the iPhone 12 in the grand scheme of things.

Apple is about to remove the last port on the iPhone, so they are training us with the MagSafe. Next year’s version will fix many of the issue we’re facing today. 5G may not be ready, but next year it will be much better. LiDAR is fascinating, but next year we will depend on it. We tend to forget about the notch, next year it will be Apple who will forget it by putting it to rest.

We’re still in the middle of the pandemic. We’re not out of the woods. We’ll continue to work from home for a long time. Trips are not really a thing right now. But, in the fall of 2021, can we hope that most of this will be behind us and return to normal life? It would help a lot to enjoy the portless iPhone 13 or whatever stupid name they will name it. Right now, I’m a bit tired of not being able to go out and use the cameras to build my visual memories.

The iPhone 12 is the transition iPhone that will lead us to a better world, a year from now. I hope.

The battle of the leakers... (#apple #leaks @jon_prosser @onleaks @maxwinebach @appltrack) 🗣

Sat, 07 Nov 2020 08:43:00 -0400

On Twitter, a battle of the leakers is taking place is taking place nearly every day. It’s fun to read the claims and counter-claims of who had it right, who had it wrong, who stole from who, who lied, who’s fake, who’s real. There is even a website who tracks their “performance”.

You know what? We shouldn’t care. They all have something in common: they more or less depend on highly questionable ethic and look more and more like a bunch of losers. There, I said it.

The screen computer. (#apple #imac #mockup)

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 18:52:33 -0400

I want this to be the next iMac, running an ARM-based CPU. That’s what a computer should look like: a screen. On a stand. Nothing more. We’re close to this. Consider the iPad. We are already there. I don’t expect such a computer to be revealed next week, though. We will have to wait a bit more.

Mockup credit and more available here: https://svetapple.sk/english/imac-2021-exclusive-renders-from-svetapple-sk/

On the Mac pivotal moment (#apple #appleevent #applesilicon #mac)

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 09:12:45 -0400

The Mac has gone through many transitions in the past and I was there for each of them. From the Motorola CPU, to the PowerPC and the Intel processors, Apple’s execution was almost flawless.

At the upcoming Apple Event, Apple will unveil their highly anticipated Apple Silicon Macs. When thinking about what Apple could do for this pivotal moment for the Mac, there is two possible roads Apple can take in regards to the general design of these machines.

First, Apple could choose to do the same they did when they switched to Intel processors back in 2005. Apple kept the same designs. There are a few advantages to this approach. By going the conservative way, Apple sends a “don’t worry, this is a Mac, everything will work just fine” message. This would probably helps keep the confidence level about the expected compatibility of these machines with current software. But there is one big drawback from a marketing standpoint: Apple chose to switch to its own CPU in order to enable new things on the Mac that wasn’t possible before. I’m not sure that keeping the same external design of the Mac is the best way to do it; it would be too conservative.

The second approach, the one that I prefer, would be for Apple to introduce a refreshed and modernized design. This could take the form of new materials, new textures, new tones. Screen bezels could be dramatically reduced in order to bring the machine down in size. On top of that, better FaceTime camera with 4K resolution, always-on Siri could also make their debuts. If battery life can show major improvements, Apple would have a winner here. Such a move by Apple would help mark the turning point for the Mac, a new era, just like they did in 2012 when they introduced the unibody design. The Mac is in need of such refresh and this is the right time to do it.

If Apple is really aiming to produce 2.5 million Apple Silicon MacBooks by February 2021, there has to be something special besides a powerful and power efficient A14X CPU. Let’s see which strategy Apple decided to chose.

Side note: it is fascinating to see that the PC never went through these transitions like the Mac did. It is something unique in the technology world. No other company ever did this, that many times. Now, we might wonder if this Apple Silicon transition will spark a similar move in the Wintel world. Why? Because Intel is no longer a synonym of real platform evolution, ARM-based design is.

On Apple Watch “unique” requirement (#applewatch #iphone #apple) ⌚️

Thu, 05 Nov 2020 12:57:11 -0400

In the last few weeks, I repeatedly got a simple question regarding the Apple Watch: does it require an iPhone? One person expected to “pair” the watch with an iPad. The other is an Android user. These questions tell me something interesting. One, the Apple Watch is gaining traction among non-Apple users. Two, the quicker Apple can remove the iPhone requirement to get an Apple Watch, the better it will be for their bottom line. This could be something as important as the iTunes for Windows was back in the days.

Photo credit: Brina Blum on Unsplash.

About those "one more things"... (#appleevent #onemorething #history)

Thu, 05 Nov 2020 08:26:52 -0400

On the eve of another “one more thing” moment, please read this interesting article on Medium. The author spent time to review all previous cases of “one more thing” announcements. They were not all game changers but the following ones were turning points: MacBook Air reveal, Apple Watch. Can’t wait for the next one as I expect it will be another game changer moment for the Mac.

How old are they? (#apple #macosbigsur)

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 21:50:12 -0400

Here’s a quick and unrelated question: how old, on average, are people who love the design language of macOS Big Sur? Seriously, my bet goes to a much younger crowd than those who prefer macOS Catalina. Why? People who grew up with the iPhone and iPadOS has a much different design reference frame that those who grew up with macOS. The latter group seems to see Big sur as some sort of iPadification of macOS.

You’re thoughts?

Updating my Apple purchase plans (#appleevent #apple #macpro #onemorething)

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 14:26:09 -0400

As it becomes clearer what Apple won’t announce next week, an update to their Mac Pro, my purchasing plans needs to be updated accordingly. It makes no sense for me to go with an Apple Silicon Mac in the near future as I need Vmware Fusion to run Windows virtual machines in my SDDCbox project. Only an Intel-based Mac Pro can do it for me as we speak. Still, I can’t wait for next week’s announcements.

Please, come to Canada (#apple #iphoneupgradeprogram #iphone)

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 14:11:50 -0400

I wish the iPhone Upgrade Program would come to Canada. I’m not holding my breath, though. I think carriers here wouldn’t let it happen because they know they suck at selling their shit, and this would greatly affect their bottom line. In any case, if it does come to Canada, I would upgrade my iPhone every year, for sure.

Pray. (#vote2020 #electionnight)

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 21:09:41 -0400

I rarely if ever post political stuff here. As a Canadian, my sincere hope is that the American people make the furst step in order to put an end to this endless nightmare.

On a side note: I’m using  News to follow election night. So far, I like what Apple is doing here. Results are quick to be reflected on the maps, which can be drilled down up to the state level.

Facebook is bad at everything. Period. (#facebook #privacyprotection #design #privacy)

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 09:21:12 -0400

Interesting post from @Gruber about Facebook application design. The lack of support for basic things like dark mode, more than a year after its introduction is a simple example, but very telling about something: Facebook doesn’t give a shit about those things. They don’t give a shit about privacy protection either. They don’t give a shit about democracy. They are are bad at design. They are bad at everything. And their growth is slowly declining which is a bit of fresh air to know.

Widget Radar (#widgets #ios14 #weatherapps @rjonesy)

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 07:52:47 -0400

Another wonderful and really useful widget is finally available for iOS 14 and iPadOS 14: a precipitation radar. I’m a big fan of MyRadar but the app wasn’t yet updated to support widgets. Widget Radar, which is free by the way, is simple and minimalist yet effective. It is proudly sitting on my homes creen now, on the weather page.

Side note: Weatherline is another useful weather app, but it doesn’t allow the placement of the radar image as a widget, yet.

Mac Pro mini (#apple #rumours #macpro)

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 21:27:22 -0400

Surprising rumors by Bloomberg about Apple working on a new Mac Pro, about half the size of the current model:

“Apple engineers are currently developing a new Mac Pro that looks like the current design at about half the size. It’s unclear if that Mac will replace the current Mac Pro or if it’s an additional model.”

As someone who is seriously contemplating to buy a Mac Pro, this information makes me pause a bit. My use case is for virtualization software which requires an Intel chip for running Windows versions in virtual machines. Windows on ARM is not on the horizon. I will enjoy an Intel Mac Pro for quite some time.

The "real" One More Thing... (#appleevent #apple #macosbigsur #macbook #onemorething)

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 14:35:01 -0400

There is a difference between what I expect and what are the things that I would really like to see. Here is a short list for this last Apple Event of 2020.

I hope for an Apple Silicon Mac with a full physical redesign of the Mac it is replacing. The re-introduction of the 12" MacBook with a refreshed design language, something that would be start of something new for all the upcoming MacBook updates in the future. I want Apple to mark the beginning of a new era for the Mac, not something in the form of continuity. I want Apple to turn the page and move beyond the Jony Ive’s era. Let’s start fresh, be forward thinking. Go past Microsoft’s Surface. Oh, this brings me to another wish: Touch support on macOS Big Sur and Apple Silicon Mac. Signs are pointing to this. That would be the real kicker of this year. Please, Apple, make it so. Impress me.

One More Thing. (#appleevent #mac #applesilicon #macosbigsur)

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 13:47:51 -0400

Big surprise today, it came early, Apple sent their invites for a November 10th Apple event. Rumours were pointing to November 17th date. Happy the wait will be shorter than anticipated.

I love this tag line; it was used at many occasions by Steve Jobs to show something that could be a game changer or of high significance.

This early invite adds credence to those who think macOS Big Sur 11.0 is already being put on unreleased new Macs. Expect 11.0.1 to follow pretty quickly.

Here is what’s on the menu for this last Apple event of 2020.

macOS 11.0 “Big Sur” make its official debuts (100%)
Universal apps running simultaneously on iOS, iPadOS and macOS are now supported (100%)
First round of Apple Silicon Macs are release: MacBook or MacBook Pro (100%)
Side announcements of updated configurations for 21.5” iMac and 27” iMac Pro still on Intel (70%)
Apple TV refresh using Apple Silicon and new game controller (40%)

Can’t wait for next week.

Troubling rumours about the Mac (#apple #mac #imac #applesilicon)

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 08:10:07 -0400

According to AppleTrack.org, there is a shortage of many different Mac models. Some shipping dates are slipping into December. It the case for the 21.5” iMac and iMac Pro. Troubling.

When Apple announced they were transitioning their Macs to use the new Apple Silicon, they also said they would keep updating current Intel-based models for a while. I don’t know this will translate in reality. If the iMac Pro is being updated this month, it could be for an updated configuration with an Intel CPU, not an Apple Silicon. The case of the 21.5” iMac is more interesting, tough. The 27” iMac was updated recently but not the 21.5. I’m not sure it is the first prime candidate for the Apple Silicon. I’m thinking more about the MacBook or the MacBook Pro which would highly benefit from the Apple Silicon.

It’s interesting to note that the Mac Pro is still in stock. This could signal that it won’t get updated this fall. The Mac Pro wasn’t updated since its release in 2019. As I’m looking to get one for my SDDCbox project, I’d would love to see a refreshed configuration in time for me to consider and pickup.

On iStat Menus 6.5 (#macosbigsur @bjango)

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 07:45:54 -0400

One of my favorite macOS utilities, iStat Menus, just received an update to version 6.5 which adds support for macOS Big Sur. I know, yesterday I wrote that I was done with Big Sur… but it was for testing… I still have time in front of me to convince me this is the best release of macOS Apple has ever done.

iStat Menus will be ready when I’m doing the switch to this Mac Pro for my SDDCbox project. It will play an important role in giving me insights on the CPU and SSD access. For now, there are a lot of tweaks which will make this utility even better. Even their release notes is art!

There seems to be less and less high-quality apps and utilities like this these days…

I’m done with macOS Big Sur (#apple #macos #macosbigsur)

Sun, 01 Nov 2020 12:11:49 -0400

Since the beginning of September I’ve been testing macOS Big Sur. I’m still undecided about how I like or hate this release. I’m unable to get over the way Apple messed up the notifications center with widgets. Clearly, it is a regression. There was no good reasons to merge them on the same space. Widgets should have gone in their own area, taking full advantage of the big screen. I just don’t understand it.

I’ll reuse this 1 TB SSD USB-C drive for something else: put my SDDCbox project virtual machines on it.

Release Candidate (#iosdev #apple #iOS)

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 08:39:06 -0400

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the end of an era. Apple is leaving behind the term “Golden Master” in order to adopt “Release Candidate” to refer to a version of its operating system sent to its developers that will probably be released to the general public. An an IT guy, I’m used to the term “release candidate”, “golden master” was such an Apple-only thing. I’m glad they make this change as it reflects the state of a release.

Photo credits: Photo by Tirza van Dijk on Unsplash

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Edge cases (#iphone12 #iphone12pro #photography #apple)

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 08:24:05 -0400

I’m an iPhone 11 Pro owner. Photography-centered reviews are interesting to me because they tend to compare this year’s iPhone with last year’s. MacRumors published such a comparison. Judging from it, if I could summarize the iPhone 12 Pro photographic advances, it would be like this. The iPhone 12 Pro improvements are mostly about edge cases because in normal situations, improvements are much more subtle. The addition of Night Mode on the Ultra wide camera is part of features uniformisation across cameras which is welcomed, though.

Photo credits: from MacRumors article.

Measuring my success (#blogger #writer #newsletter)

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 17:22:40 -0400

As a blogger and a content-creator, how can I measure my success? Well, it’s not an easy one to answer. Each blogger could have its own way at looking at this. Personally, I could pay attention to my blogs visitors statistics, but there is one thing that I keep an eye on these days. I recently started publishing a free monthly newsletter on Substack. The membership is increasing, but what I'm looking for is easy: following a new issue of my newsletter, how many are unsubscribing? None, so far. To me, it’s some form of success.

It's a deal! (#apple #appleone #applemusic #fitnessplus)

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 12:41:54 -0400

Sometimes in your life you come across some deals that you cannot refuse. Apple One is one of them. As a Canadian, by subscribing, on top of Apple News+, 2 TB iCloud storage and Apple Music, I’m getting Fitness+ and Apple Arcade and… to my surprise, now I have 4 TB of iCloud storage. How good is that? Can’t wait to try Fitness+ and maybe help me go through these enduring times this coming winter while getting in a better shape?

Now, what comes next Apple One? Apple //?

Optimized for Mac (#apple #applesilicon #ios #ipados)

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 07:36:38 -0400

Here is one of the most fascinating part of upcoming Apple Silicon Macs: the implicit support for iPhone and iPad apps on the Mac (as long as the developers care to update their apps, obviously). I wonder how massive this change will be. How will it change the third-party applications landscape on the Mac? How will it influence the pricing of both iOS/iPadOS apps and macOS apps? We tend to take for granted that software on the Mac is always more expensive compared to their iPad counterpart… The next year sure will be interesting to watch for Mac lovers like me.

Fascinating times (#apple #microsoft #google #amazon)

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 07:19:37 -0400

Here is a fascinating chart: brand value calculated by Interbrand. Apple is on top again this year. They have been there since 2012. What I find interesting is the first row is occupied by companies reflecting our new way of life as we depend on smartphones (Apple, Samsung), online shopping (Amazon) and the cloud (Microsoft). What about Google you might ask? Well, first, as we don’t like to pay for online stuff, we prefer to be the product of advertisers. Second, we stopped using bookmarks a long time ago, we prefer the Google search field.

We’re humans — Tim Cook (#apple #timcook)

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 06:57:34 -0400

“Work can’t solve for all the things we’re missing right now, but a shared sense of purpose goes a long way. A belief that we can do more together than we can alone, that people of good will, driven by creativity and passion and that certain itch of a big idea, can still do things that help other people in our own small way to teach, to learn, to create, or just to relax at a time like this. Even as the things we make require us to operate at the very cutting edge of technology, in materials, products, and ideas that didn’t exist just a few years ago, this year has forced us to face plainly the things that make us human — disease, resilience, and hope.” — Tim Cook

Apple is doom! (#apple #iphone #mac #ipad)

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 20:17:27 -0400

Poor Apple, iPhone sales are 20% down compared to last year’s quarter. Look, people, it's 2020 and we are in the middle of a pandemic. Stores are closing, opening, then closing again. Yet, Apple is able to pull it off big time. Thanks to the Mac, iPad and services, Apple is able to come out with a great quarter! That’s what is interesting: when one product line is performing poorly, others take the lead. September quarter is going to be a monster one as the iPhone 12 and Apple Silicon Macs sales takes over the stage.

Apple's Clips is Underated (#apple #clips)

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 17:56:07 -0400

Apple this week updated their strange application, Clips, to version 3.0. Clips looks like a technology demonstration to me. I hear it is popular among the young crowd. Maybe. I’ve played with the new version a bit and really like the new design which is cleaner and more enjoyable to use. After playing with, boy this app is power hungry; my iPhone 11 Pro get’s very hot! Still an interesting ting to play with.

On Apple Search (#apple #siri #search @parkerortolani)

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 15:50:24 -0400

Here is an interesting design concept of a possible Apple Search service. What I find interesting is the use of the Siri branding. I don’t know if Apple would use it or simply call the service: Apple Search. I would prefer the latter as Siri is not known to sound like “good” more like “good enough” or “behind the reste of the crowd”.

11.0.1 beta, really? (#apple #macos #macosbigsur)

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 07:24:49 -0400

This curve ball wasn’t expected: Apple comes up with beta 1 of macOS Big Sur 11.0.1. Why? Why now? Does this mean 11.0 GM is really around the corner and will ship soon on new Macs, including the first Apple Silicon ones? Why do I keep thinking Big Sur (based on Beta 10) was far from ready? Something is clear to me, I’m not upgrading my iMac anytime soon, but I understand that my upcoming Mac Pro could come pre-installed with it.

Third edition is out! (#newsletter #blogger #writing #apple)

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 19:28:40 -0400

After much writing and compositing, the third edition of the Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter is out! I’m quite happy with the end results. It’s getting better with each release. It’s still free. Can’t wait to build the next edition!

Please, read, share and like! 👈🏻 🙏🏻

Comments are welcomed!

That was fast! (#apple #ios14 #ios13)

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 07:55:56 -0400

I’m always impressed by the turn over speed of major new releases of iOS. iOS 14 adoption rate is already surpassing iOS 13 after less than six weeks of availability. Wow.

Apple’s iPhone ecosystem is running at blazing speed to adopt new technologies. There is nothing like that in tech. Even if people are keeping their old iPhone longer, by supporting old devices, Apple can set the bar for new privacy features and make them available to a vast portion of the users. This is something we rarely talk about.

Twisted dialogue (#apple #iphone12 #environment @mattbirchler)

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 07:03:00 -0400

Matt Birchler in a funny post hightlights how twisted Apple’s stance can be when it comes to pushing their agenda: in this cas, the protection of the environment.

I think it is a mandatory thing to openly challenge something Apple does even if you like their products as much as we possible can. I did it in my long article “The Rotten Side of Tim Cook’s Apple“ and l’ll continue to do it.

Basic Apple Guy but gorgeous! (#apple #blog #discovery @basicappleguy)

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 11:22:52 -0400

Thanks to an article from John Gruber’s website, Daring Fireball, I discovered a new Apple-centric blog yesterday: Basic Apple Guy. After spending a few minutes on it exploring the content, I kind of fell in love with it and and started to wish it was mine. I’m impressed by the simplicity and the content quality. RSS feed already added to my collection.

It's all about the story, right? (#apple #mac #applesilicon)

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 07:00:35 -0400

Here is what I’ll be looking for at the Apple Silicon Macs introduction: the story they will tell for their introduction. Remember when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone or the iPod? There was a story to hit so people could understand the “why’s”. Now, in the age of smartphones, what is the relevancy for Apple Silicon Macs? Why now? What pain points do they address? Can’t wait for November. Photo credits.

I kind of like what I’m seeing (#myblog #blogger #bloggerlife)

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 21:43:40 -0400

This is my Micro.blog.

Using the popular Newsify RSS feed reader, I used my own feeds to see how it would look through it. I was pleasantly surprised by the end results. It’s been a while since I found the best way for me to post on Micro.blog. All posts have a title, hashtags, a picture and use at least 280 characters so the boundary where a title becomes available. Without it, Micro.blog cross-posts the whole text on Twitter which I don’t want to happen; I prefer a summary titled.

Everyone has their price (#apple #google #privacy #privacyprotection)

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 19:11:46 -0400

According to the New York Time regarding the antitrust lawsuit in the works, Google is paying between 8 to 12 billions $ a year to be the default search engine on iOS. That is a lot of money, but apparently, that’s the price to pay for Apple to bend over their privacy stance.

If there is one reason why Apple should get out of this deal and build their own search tech or buy DuckDuckGo altogether: put the walk behind the talk.

The master in action (#stevejobs #ipod #apple #history)

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 07:34:58 -0400

This short clip showing Steve Jobs introduce the iPod is a pure joy to re-watch. It is 9m 11sec of presentation mastery. The way he set the stage, draw attention to pain points, show the “solution” is perfect. This is how you do it. This clip should go in tech and marketing history books.

Now, let’s try to imagine how he would do it for the introduction of the first Apple Silicon Mac in a few weeks.

The more I read... (#iPhone12 #iphone12pro #apple)

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 20:07:33 -0400

The more I read comments on Twitter about the iPhone 12, the more I’m happy to skip this upgrade cycle: wireless network performance (spotty), battery life (highly hit by 5G usage), finger prints magnet (Pro edges), mildly controversial colours (not as unanimous as last year’s colours), weak cameras upgrade (from the 11 Pro), MagSafe design and performance (too weak magnets). I’ll be waiting for the iPhone 13 patiently.

iPhone heritage (#apple #design #iphone #iphone12)

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 09:21:44 -0400

_“Enduring design doesn’t need constant reinterpretation. It needs tweaking, polishing, and subtle improvement” _— Om Malik

Great take by Om Malik on the the significance of timeless design in “Why great design is timeless”. As I wrote in my previous post, to me, the iPhone 5 was the best Apple design before the iPhone 12. Om Malik refers to the iPhone 4 as being an example of timeless design that was later only tweaked, refined and polished in following iPhone iterations. I find it a bit surprising as the iPhone 4 metallic edges never really came back after the iPhone 4S.

Looking back at the iPhone design genealogy, we can infer six major groups of iPhone design language: the original iPhone up to the iPhone 3GS is group #1, the iPhone 4 and 4S is group #2, the iPhone 5, 5S and SE is group #3, the iPhone 6 and 6S is group #4, the group #5 encompasses the iPhone 7 up to the iPhone 11 including the SE 2. Finally, group #6 is the iPhone 12. I expect Apple to iterate within that group for at least another year.

The iterative polishing, refining process of Apple is in full glory since the iPhone 7. The latter is heavily based on the iPhone 5 heritage. The iPhone 12 is heavily inspired by the iPhone 5 era and the group #5 of designs.

If Apple plays their card well, next year’s iPhone could surpass this year’s line up by fixing the Pro glossy edges, removing the notch (it won’t happen), thinner bezels and less controversial colours selection, just to name a few attributes.

Apple did it again. (#iphone12 #apple #design)

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 08:09:32 -0400

In my opinion, this year’s black iPhone 12 is now their best design of all time, surpassing their previously best design, the black iPhone 5. It took them 8 years. I can’t wait to see that in person, for now, this tweet by Brian MacDuff is enough to convince me. Blacks are deep blacks, the edges mat finish is way better than on the Pro models. What could come next to beat this? A notch-less design. Maybe next year or in 8 years. Who knows. Picture from Mr. MacDuff.

Staying home... (#iphone12 #apple #applestore)

Sat, 24 Oct 2020 09:26:51 -0400

For as far that I can remember, I won’t go to an Apple Store to see the new iPhone this year. Thank’s to… well.. you know, it’s 2020. Twitter threads like this one I’m sure is not doing justice to the look and feel of these new devices.

Exposure notification (#iphone #apple #google #covid19 #pandemic)

Sat, 24 Oct 2020 09:19:33 -0400

I recently got this notification on my iPhone. I didn’t know the exposure feature would keep the user informed about its “behind-the-scene” work. Interesting.

I wonder how Apple will remove that from iOS in a post-pandemic world. Will they keep it and make it usable for other types of highly contagious deceases? My feeling is that they will generalize it and keep there.

They're here. (#iphone12 #iphone12pro #apple)

Fri, 23 Oct 2020 06:58:56 -0400

I don’t remember seeing Apple posting photos of behind-the-scenes workers working at distribution centers to make it all possible and magic for the first day of availability of a new iPhone. It’s an interesting move. We tend to forget how massive the required logistic is needed for these roll outs to happen smoothly, year after year. This year is special, the pandemic is certainly increasing the difficulty level quite a bit for Apple. We’ll see how Apple’s bottom line is affected, later this year.

On 2021 iPad Pro (#ipadpro #apple)

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 20:33:48 -0400

Is it a question of a few more months before the iPad Pro line distance itself from the 2020 iPad Air. This will put the 2021 iPad Pro in a league of its own. Features like mini-led display, faster A-series processor… but what else? More system memory at 8 GB? Bigger screen? Wifi 6? 5G option? daringfireball.net

The 2020 iPad Air

Jony Ive working with Airbnb. Who knew. (#jonyive #apple #lovefrom #airbnb #design #UI)

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 07:03:14 -0400

In a surprising move, Airbnb has a new partnership with Apple’s former designer chief, Jony Ive. As much as I like this guy’s work, something quite surprising struck me: Airbnb doesn’t sell any form of hardware. The last time I check, Jony Ive’s reputation is not about crafting the best user interface designs in the world, far from it. Who remember the switch to iOS 7? I do. Jony Ive was quite instrumental in the design of iOS 7 and it was a disaster. We are still paying the price today. It will be interesting to watch what comes from this partnership. Press release here.

SDDCbox project - update #2 (#macpro #apple #vmware #vmwarefusion)

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 06:52:58 -0400

My possible future Mac Pro configuration is taking shape. It all started here btw. Reading carefully the spec sheet, the base configuration sets the memory clock speed at 2666 MHz while the 12 cores CPU configuration is at 2933 MHz. Considering my use case, virtualization with VMware Fusion, I’ll take any non-GPU improvements possible. Speaking of GPU, I’m not sure about the performance difference between the base GPU card, a AMD Radeon Pro 580X, and the more powerful AMD Radeon Pro W5500X. I’ll probably keep the entry-level one saving memory for a bigger SSD. Maybe.

I’m not close yet to make the plunge and I’ll have to wait for November announcements as configuration updates, price changes or something else could greatly affect my buying decision. Stay tuned for update #3.

RIP. Remote.app (#apple #appletv #appstore)

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 18:53:28 -0400

Great story about the start of the Apple TV remote app that was removed today from the App Store. Reason? Duplicate functionality with iOS Control Center. Time to move on I guess. I love those stories from the inside. Can’t get enough of them.

Photo credit: @badashproducts on Unsplash.

twitter.com/accannis/…

Waiting for iPhone 13. (iphone12 #iphone12pro #apple)

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 07:13:02 -0400

Thanks to iPhone 12, I can’t wait for the iPhone 13. The MagSafe is cool but is not perfect. 5G is nice but comes with a spotty coverage and puts a lot of pressure on battery life. The iPhone 12 Pro is a powerful monster but with fingerprint magnets and fragile glossy edges. Bezels are thinner and thinner but this big notch is still there. I’m skipping this year’s iPhone 12 and anxiously waiting for iPhone 13. Or whatever name they call it. Maybe just: iPhone Pro?

This is a drill (#iphone12 #apple #magsafe)

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 06:49:13 -0400

With the iPhone 12 and MagSafe, is Apple training us for a port-less iPhone 13? I think so. The removable of the Lightning port and skipping USB-C would be so Apple, an act of courage I guess. If they do remove all the ports from the iPhone, how do we deal with CarPlay? What about developers who use testing and development devices which requires the fastest transfer speed possible? Is there something in the works at Apple that would mitigates these challenges for the users? Another type of adaptor? Or maybe Apple is just waiting for a more drastic iPhone redesign (no notch?) to bend themselves to USB-C?

Stairway to “heaven”? (#apple #iphone12 #iphone12pro)

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 20:20:56 -0400

Tim Cook once said that all products Apple sell can fit on a table. Well, depending of the table size, maybe. But, you will have to remove products variants from the equation, though. Look at the iPhone product line. Now, think about how it will look next year.

twitter.com/asymco/st…

These edges... (#iphonex #iphone12 #iphone12pro)

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 21:16:02 -0400

As much as I like what the iPhone 12 brings to the table in general… edges got my attention. Up until now, I didn’t really like rounded edges since the iPhone 6. I much prefer the square edge on the iPhone 12… but not on the Pro models… they are way too much polished and are probably finger prints magnets.

I want a Pro iPhone with the matte version of the non-Pro iPhone edges.

twitter.com/msfslm/st…

Stucked on the phone (#magsafe #iphone12 #apple #design #UX)

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 07:52:37 -0400

When I first saw the MagSafe snapping into the iPhone, I asked myself: how about taking the iPhone away? Is it hard? Is it gentle? Do we need two hands to separate them? Now listen to the video segment from a guy asking a few troubling questions… should we worry or just wait for the iPhone 12 to ship and see how the whole thing actually works?

A14: from the iPhone to the Mac (#apple #A14 #applesilicon)

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 16:54:24 -0400

I love those feature highlights. Apple started to use them recently (September of last year?). If you look closely at the A14 feature highlights, I wonder what features aren’t required in a Mac? There is so many things that make sense on an iPhone, like everything related to ML. But, on a Mac? I’m not so sure. And, what features should be added to the A14 that doesn’t make sense on an iPhone? Increase high-performance CPU cores? And then what? What features are Mac specific that aren’t already handled by the T2 chip?

The 5G Enabler (#iPhone12 #apple #5G)

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 16:24:24 -0400

Last year, the iPhone 11 lacked 5G networks support. Apple was doomed. This year, the iPhone 12 does support 5G networks. Now the operators are doomed because of spotty coverage. There is something bad to look for if you want to get clicks.

I think 5G is more marketing than anything else at this point. The iPhone 12 will be the enabler of 5G network. People will demand it (even if their use cases don’t require it). This will in turn force operators to accelerate their deployment.

A wild dream (#apple #macpro #vmware #virtualization #lab)

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 09:48:38 -0400

I’ve been thinking of something really wild recently, for me at least: replacing my 2017 21.5 inches iMac with a Mac Pro. Here is why.

I work in IT (information technologies) as a data center related technology architect. Server virtualization, storage area networks, networking technologies are at the center of my professional universe. In the coming months, I’ll have to invest in self-training and experimentations a lot around VMware-related products and services. How can I do that efficiently while working from home? Here comes the Mac Pro idea.

In order to be able to run many virtual machines, a powerful physical computer is required: lots of memory, powerful CPU (more than 6 cores) and fast storage. My current iMac doesn’t meet these basic requirements (it is maxed out at 32 GB of RAM and it has a relatively modest CPU). A Mac Pro with the following specs would easily meet the challenge: at least 128 GB of fast memory, 8 cores CPU, builtin SSD and expandability.

Virtualization will required VMware Fusion Pro running on top of macOS. Then, the sky is the limit as I can then install ESXi hypervisor which will allow me to branch into more complex setup. This type of environment do require a lot of memory (a typical VM is about 4-16 GB each) and multi-cores CPU. Installing ESXi directly on the Mac Pro is not an option as I will need to have macOS running for all other tasks (I’m not even sure if it is att all possible).

How do I get there? Well, I’m still thinking about how I’ll buy that machine and get the additional RAM (I won’t go with Apple’s because $$$). Stay tuned.

Technical datasheet can be found on Apple’s website, right here in PDF format. I don’t want to switch to a Windows machine BTW, I’m too much invested in Apple’s ecosystem for that to happen.

A follow up to @mattbirchler on why opting for Newsletters instead of a blog? (#blogger #blogging #writing #substack)

Sat, 17 Oct 2020 15:07:17 -0400

In a recent blog post, the well known blogger and content creator, Matt Birchler, wants to understand why so many people are opting for emails (newsletters) over the web. I want to give my perspective on each of his questions.

What about writing in a newsletter is more enjoyable than writing for a blog?

My Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter is a monthly one. I start writing the next issue at the beginning of each month. I hit “Publish and send” at the very end of each month. It gives me four weeks to nurture its content. When the end of the month approaches, the newsletter content is mostly complete and I like how it evolved from the beginning. It is a satisfying process. Then, I take a pause and look forward to start the next one. I like the regular beat of all this process. I wouldn’t do a weekly newsletter, though, as it requires much more time to do.

Are newsletter audiences more engaged than blog subscribers?

I’m not sure about this one in general. For me, it is too early to tell. My gut feeling is that people are more or less engaged the same way as they are with blogs. I’d like to be wrong, though, and have people engage more with newsletters.

As a reader, do you prefer reading in your email app to an RSS app (or just the web in general)?

I use Substack to build and send my newsletters. Each of them are also available via an RSS feed. Depending of the client used, the reading experience can be enjoyable on both type of clients. Personally, I do subscribe to Hey and reading newsletters with their client is really nice and provides a nice clipping feature which is very handy.

Do you not miss things like link posts and “going viral” which are much harder, if impossible to do with emails?

Link posts can be done in newsletters and they won’t go viral for sure. But, I’m not really looking for this kind of fame to be honest.

Is it easier to get people to sign up for a paid subscription compared to the web?

I’m still building this stuff and my newsletter is free for now. I get new subscribers regularly but not as much as I would like. I guess I still have to get the word out and be more “famous”.

A simple wish (@ulyssesapp @microdotblog #writing #blogging #tools)

Sat, 17 Oct 2020 14:41:58 -0400

You know what I would like that would be really really cool and useful for me and probably for many others? I’d like to see Ulysses add support for Micro.blog as a publishing destination (Ghost, Medium and WordPress are already supported). That would be really nice. 👌🏻I kind of like Micro.blog native app for the iPad but it’s not a writing tool in my opinion. My fingers are crossed. Please, share this post if you think you would benefict from this as a writer and Ulysses user.

Look who’s in town (#rssreader #rss #reading @reederapp)

Sat, 17 Oct 2020 11:02:19 -0400

The venerable RSS reader app « Reeder » turned to version 5 yesterday. I don’t know how I missed that one. Maybe because I moved from Reeder to News Explorer. I pay a lot of respect to the developer of Reeder. I’ve been using it for a long time. I wanted to have a look at version 5 so I bought it. Here is why.

Widgets. News Explorer hasn’t been updated to support them yet. Reeder now does. I love them. Read Later. Sending URLs to Reeder Read later is interesting and provides a better experience than in Safari Read Later. Tracking my own RSS feed for quality control. Oh and Shortcuts are also supported, something News Explorer don’t.

I think I’ll have to update my blogger workflow. 🤔

Is this called “Evolution” or “Modernism"? (#apple #ios7 #UI #design)

Fri, 16 Oct 2020 16:16:58 -0400

An image is worth a thousand words. We are still paying the price of this shift in design, every single day, for every single interaction we have with our iPhone… who asked for that? Why? Will we return to normalcy? I’ll never forget the “before” it was so shitty. Never.

Software is art (@airbuddyapp, #macOS)

Fri, 16 Oct 2020 06:44:00 -0400

If you have a Mac, many battery-powered Apple devices, you need AirBuddy. Version has been in the works for a very long time and it is a major update. I’m so anxious to get my AirBuddy updated!

We don’t get to see this level of craft on computers these days. This reminds me how dire the macOS native application landscape has become over the years. With macOS Big, Catalyst, Apple Silicon Macs and universal binaries, one can hope for a brighter future.

Am I alone who think the AirBuddy logo is upside down?

Is there a pattern? (#apple #airpower #magsafeduo)

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 12:58:59 -0400

With the (re)introduction of the MagSafe for iPhone, Apple is trying to redo their AirPower introduction of 2017. On paper and on video, MagSafe looks cool, MagSafe Duo seems even better (more useful, transportability), but no word on availability and pricing, just like with the initial AirPower announcement. Is there something Apple didn’t learn here? Whatever happens, it is on my wishlist even if I’m not going to upgrade to the iPhone 12 this year.

Secured. (@medium, #blogger, #blog)

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 07:27:21 -0400

A word about my other home: Medium, which I love. Following their latest update, they now offers publishers to secure their own domain name as well as allows better customization of publisher’s profiles. This is mine).

Im still pondering how I’ll make use of Medium’s new love for bloggers.

I’ve been robbed by... @duggu24 (#bloggerlife #blogger)

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 08:19:55 -0400

For the first time in my numeric life (at least, from what I’m aware of), one of my article has been robbed by another guy. After discovering it, I asked for immediate removal but without success. So, today, I’m calling him out.

The robbed article is the one about upgrading from an Apple Watch Series 4 to Series 6 published on my main blog on October 3 of 2020 and on Medium. You can see the stolen article there. This article was then pushed on this fake Twitter account with 1628 followers. This Twitter account is apparently owned or operated by this guy, the thieve who is following four people and has only one follower (poor guy).

This hosting website seems to enjoy quite a bit of traffic. Good for him. All his articles is stolen stuff without any mention of the source. He must be proud of himself, I wonder if his parents are, though?

The main take out: I’m must be a good writer after all so people are starting to notice and copy my stuff.

I won't upgrade to the iPhone 12 Pro (#iphone12pro #appleevent #apple)

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 06:56:34 -0400

As great looking and powerful the shinny new iPhone 12 Pro might be, I’ll skip the upgrade this year. Sure, I tend to skip a few generations but there is one unexpected reason not to do so and another one more obvious. First, the problem is because of the current pandemic, I cannot see when I’ll return traveling around the world. Traveling is the best photography opportunity for me. Without travel, working from home all the time, there is no need to get the latest smartphone technology. Second, 5G networks maybe powerful, but the coverage is spotty at best. I prefer to wait a year for this coverage to increase before making the jump on the new iPhone.

Last year I upgraded from an iPhone 7 to an iPhone 11 Pro and I was delighted.

It Just Works™

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 07:13:04 -0400

Yesterday, just like mostly everyday since March 13th of 2020, I went for a long walk with my wife. Both of us had their AirProds Pro with us. I had the idea to try the audio sharing feature of iOS 14 (introduced in iOS 13 if I’m not mistaken). We both put our AirPods in and I selected a playlist. Then, using the media playback UI, I selected the audio sharing option, waited for my wife’s AirPods to show up, after tapping this pair, she then had to accept my invitation and voilà! We both had music in our ears! It’s a great case of “It Just Works”, something that we see less and less often these days, I guess.

On newsletters rising popularity #blogger #blogging #writing #writers

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 16:48:38 -0400

The rising popularity of paid newsletters is good news for many reasons. First, it’s a signal that people are willing to pay for great content without ads all around it. Second, some people value the direct relationship feeling with the writer compared to a traditional website. Third, the popularity of independent writing is rising which is giving back control to the writers.

In a recent article by Nick Heer on Pixel Envy, the author writes:

Yet, despite all of these clear advantages, I still find it difficult to think of my email inbox as somewhere I will go to find something enjoyable to read.

I find newsletters a wonderful medium that cut the noise from social networks. The reading experience can further be improved with a great email client like Basecamp’s Hey which provides a specific reading mode for newsletters call The Feed. You can read my review of this email client here.

Read more comments from Mr. Heer in his blog post. I started a newsletter a few weeks ago. For now and the foreseeable future, it will be free. I have to prove myself that I can meet the deadline every month with quality content. I’ll see how it goes.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

The web in 2020.

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 11:18:23 -0400

Please, have a look at this ten seconds GIF to appreciate how bad the web experience is in 2020. This is the “iPhone in Canada” website. I won’t include the hyperlink in this post. There are 30 trackers in this web page according the Apple’s Safari. Thirty. This is just one example of so many more that illustrates what happens when you no longer care about the actual end-users.

I accidentally clicked on a link to this website and then I remembered why I stopped reading it a long time ago.

Third-party Apple Watch Faces - Yes but no

Sun, 11 Oct 2020 10:00:00 -0400

Here is a super interesting article from David Shayer on Tidbits about why there may never be third-party Apple Watch Faces. According to this software engineer who worked on the first two releases of watchOS, there may be four reasons why Apple probably won’t make a watch face store: battery life, buggy code, Apple’s image, copyright worries. Besides many interesting insights on watchOS development and testing, the reason that caught my attention is about Apple desire to control their image.

What is the killer app of the Apple Watch? The watch face, duh! Apple is an image control freak and I don’t think they want a watch face store full of crappy and bad taste designs to show up on users’ Apple Watch. They lost control of the App Store, they don’t want the same story to happen with the watch. And I agree with this position. But there could be some sort of compromise, though. As pointed out by Matt Birchler in his commentary post to Tidbits article:

“CarPlay is a great example of how Apple could do this right with watch faces: only allow a certain number of companies to make custom watch faces. have them sign additional agreements and have them go through tougher reviews. Maybe there are literally 10 companies who are able to make watch faces. Maybe Apple can reject a watch face simply because they don’t like how it looks.”

My guess is that Apple will look to add more watch faces through collaborative work, just like they did in watchOS 7 with the Artist watch face.

Photo by Daniel Korpai — Unsplasg

Thanks Apple, you’ll make me like November

Sun, 11 Oct 2020 08:32:06 -0400

Bloomberg, via Mark Gurman, is reporting that Apple will hold another event in November for Apple Silicon Macs. Besides my comments yesterday on the opportunity for Apple to present redesigned Macs, having a separate event is a no brainer to me. This is a major transition for Apple and they certainly wants to get the message loud and clear.

If rumors are sound, Apple still have some time ahead to polish the upcoming macOS Big Sur release. As it is today, it is not ready for prime time. It may be the equivalent of the iOS 13 buggy release of this year. Even if Apple announces Macs in November, they could be ready to ship only in December, who knows, giving Apple even more time. Anyhow, I’m not is a rush to upgrade to Big Sur. Apps will have to follow the new look and feel and I’ll wait for them to be updated first. The list is long.

On the upcoming Apple Silicon Macs

Sat, 10 Oct 2020 15:18:45 -0400

While many pundits still wonder which Mac Apple will start transitioning the platform to their shiny and speedy silicon, my attention is on something else. I’m wondering if Apple will take this opportunity to introduce redesigned machines. Let’s say they start with the MacBook Pro, could they use this occasion to reimagine the laptop? What about the iMac which is way overdue for a redesign?

There are two avenues for Apple. One in which they opt for continuity. The other is to make a bold statement and turn the page on the Intel-based era. If prefer the latter as I’d like to see what it looks like after the era of Jony Ive. It’s a golden opportinity IMHO. Besides my preference, Tim Cook’s Apple is conservative and they will probably opt for the former approach.

What do you think?

Deliveries 9.0 - Does it deliver?

Sat, 10 Oct 2020 08:30:13 -0400

Here are a few quick comments on Deliveries 9.0 that came out recently. Deliveries 9 helped me track my Apple Watch Series 6 (read me review here).

As you know, Junecloud, the maker of Deliveries, switched to a subscription model with this release. I don’t really like this model but what can I do? Their pricing is fair and they give to previously paid users a six months break.

Version 9 brings refined visuals and more details tracking history among other things. The importation workflow has been updated and simplified too. Once delivered, package tracking can be archived forever. iOS 13’s dark mode is now supported but iOS 14 widgets aren’t yet. I think Deliveries is the perfect candidate to support widgets and I can’t wait to see what Junecloud will come up with in that regard.

All in all, as a long time user of Deliveries, I’m ok with this update albeit the switch to the subcription model. If it get’s more frequent feature additions, I’m ok with it, I guess.

Ready for a 99$ convenience

Fri, 09 Oct 2020 17:33:31 -0400

At 99$ each, the HomePod mini would find a space on my desk for sure. I care more about size than Siri lacking intelligence with the HomePod. Being able to play music while I work without having to use headphones would be an improvement for me.

www.macrumors.com/2020/10/0…

Thanks again, leakers!

Fri, 09 Oct 2020 07:25:44 -0400

Will there be anything left for Apple to announce next week at the Hi, Speed event? Thanks to leakers on the internet, probably not much. I can’t thank them enough for spoiling things, again.

There was a time where leaks helped people to adjust their buying decisions, but I feel they no longer fit that purposes. It is more like a search for some kind of fame.

Oh. my. god.

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 14:56:41 -0400

What iOS 14 widgets could have been. Much more interesting interaction model which looks to be more “direct manipulation-oriented”. Will we have to wait for iOS 15 or even iOS 16 before seeing something like this? That is something Apple could have done…

How well will it age?

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 07:29:55 -0400

I’m keeping that one mockup to see how well it will age when Apple releases the new iPhone lineup next week. I like the dark blue color. But what is missing from these mockups is the edge of the devices. The iPhone 4 and later the iPhone 5 squarish design were one of the best Apple came up with. We’ll see how they execute around the same idea with the iPhone 12.

MMMM everything comes in mini version?

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 17:02:54 -0400

Rumors are swirling around upcoming products from Apple. What is becoming more persistent is the possibility of an HomePod mini announcement. I’m not sure if it is already “dead on arrival” or if Apple is about to give the smart speaker market a second try. Will it take more than a smaller footprint, better sound quality and lower price? Yep: an ecosystem of apps built on something like “siriOS”. There are no signs at all of this… which would be a massive surprise.

Is this a sunset or a sunrise? #apple #appleevent

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 12:51:00 -0400

We should never read too much in Apple’s invite graphics. They rarely have anything to do with the content of the event itself except maybe with the iPad with Retina Display invite a few years ago. Remember the finger on the screen?

Besides the obvious, an iPhone 12 line up announcement, what’s in store? AirTags? Updated Apple TV with Apple’s own game controller? HomePod mini? Don’t expect Apple Silicon Macs until November. I don’t expect Apple to talk about these next week. Apple Silicon Macs need their own stage time in their own event.

Funny is the fact that iOS 14.1 is held back by Apple to fit this event. Probably contains a lot of hints of what is coming down the line.

The year 2020 can be an exciting one after all. I guess.

On Ulysses Latest Release for iPadOS 14

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 08:15:51 -0400

Using the latest release of Ulysses for iPadOS 14, it is a joy to write on the iPad. Now, what am I writing, you might ask? More than 1700 words to express my current view of iOS 14 widgets: where are we, what’s left and where it could be going. It was supposed to be a 5 min reads… now I’m at more than 7 min. Oh well. Should be out in the coming days on my main blog at https://numericcitizen.me

HEY, here is an important update!

Mon, 05 Oct 2020 17:08:31 -0400

Today is Christmas! Basecamp just released version 1.1 of their email client for HEY which supports WIDGETS among other things! I played with it and I LOVE the way they added the feature. Nicely designed and useful! Congrats to them!

Now, I have to get back to work on my article on widgets and remove HEY as an app without widgets support!

Nine years, already.

Mon, 05 Oct 2020 09:13:46 -0400

I miss him. The world is different. Apple has become something else. He would probably like what it has become without him, probably not all of it but most of it. I don’t care what he would have done differently. It’s no longer relevant as we need to keep looking forward, something he always did. But I still miss him dearly.

From 2018 11” iPad Pro to ... ?

Sun, 04 Oct 2020 21:26:49 -0400

I have a 2018 11” iPad Pro. Today, I asked myself: what upcoming features or improvements could entice me to upgrade my iPad Pro? I’m still scratching my head.

Faster? Nope. 😐 Lighter? Not quite. 🤨 More system memory? Mmm not really. Maybe. Maybe not. 🙂 Better screen? Is it even possible? 😬 Longer battery life? Nope. 🙄 Better speakers? Nah. 🥱 Integrated U1 chip? 🤔 A new size? Depends. 😶 Smaller bezels? You like to see first. 😌 Touch ID in power button? On iPhone please. 😉

What’s left? You tell me.

One year of iPhone 11 Pro...

Sat, 03 Oct 2020 17:07:25 -0400

By curiosity today, I went in the battery health section on my iPhone 11 Pro to find out the current status is 96%. Already. I’m a bit surprised by this as I’m mostly at home and using my computer or my iPad. How could I loose 4% in a year?

One major observation on @mattbirchler’s iPadOS full widgets experience

Fri, 02 Oct 2020 08:02:36 -0400

I’m thinking way too much about widgets these days, thanks to iOS 14 most prominent new feature. I’m still reflecting on the possible reasons why the full widgets experience is not available on iPadOS 14. That being said, @mattbirchler this week came out with an interesting and informative video showing how Apple could possibly enable the full widgets experience. This morning, still thinking about this concept, I realized something: Apple doesn’t need to keep the today view support on the iPad in order to enable the full widgets experience.

I would argue that, in fact, Apple should get rid of the today view that came from the iPhone. One of the reason for this is how bad scrolling the today view works when you have a few widgets stacks; if you don’t pay attention on where you put your finger to scroll this view, you actually end up scrolling through the stack itself instead of scrolling the whole view. That’s not a good experience. The other reason is the iPad screen canvas makes it easy to rebuild the side view just by using the right widgets. No need to have scrolling.

I think Apple will eventually come up with an iPad-specific version of the widgets experience but not with the iPadOS 14 releases streak. And that’s too bad.

From Apple to Ubiquiti

Wed, 30 Sep 2020 21:30:21 -0400

Learned something really cool today. A few weeks ago I published my review of the well known router, the Unify Dream Machine (available here). The context of this review was the fact that this new router was replacing my aging Apple AirPort. One of the reasons why I chose this device was because of its external look and finish as well as its superb management app.

One of the founder of Ubiquiti is an ex-Apple employee according to this 9to5Mac article: “an ex-Apple employee went on to found a company that currently sells enterprise networking gear. Robert Pera, the founder of Ubiquiti, Incworked for Apple in the early 2000s as a Wi-Fi engineer.”. Woah. It does explain a few things. This article is well worth your time.

The second edition of my Numeric Citizen Introspection Newsletter is on the launchpad!

Wed, 30 Sep 2020 07:33:32 -0400

My upcoming (and free BTW) Numeric Citizen Introspection Newsletter for September is done. I’m just waiting for September to conclude before hitting the send button. Crafting newsletters like this is so fun. Meanwhile, why not give a look at the first edition?

Waiting... waiting... and waiting.

Tue, 29 Sep 2020 20:45:30 -0400

It’s coming. Two days. Thanks to the soon to be updated Deliveries app. I can “see” where my order is. Can’t wait for version 9.0 launching tomorrow and see how much improved the app is. Can’t wait for my Apple Watch Series 6, coming this Thursday. Still so far from home, yet it feels so close.

Micro.blog 2.0 - Testing, 1-2-3, Testing...

Tue, 29 Sep 2020 17:51:48 -0400

I really like what I’m seeing here on macOS. Only request is the default view of a New Post window should show the Title and Categories by default. On the web, the improvements are massive. I’m surprised the Bookmarking feature is available in a new Premium tier only. I want this feature but not the others (podcasting, richer media support). I’ll give it a try while it is free and I’ll see. On iOS and iPadOS, the workflow of selecting a photo from the library is still broken, otherwise, I love the changes. There seems to be speed improvements too. In other words, it is snappier!

All in all, I like where Micro.blog is going with these updates.

Testing an embedded bookmark here.

For the Micro.blog 2.0 launch week, we’ve enabled the new bookmark archiving and highlights feature for everyone to try out. You can upgrade to Micro.blog Premium at any time and also get podcast and video hosting.

Read: www.manton.org
Manton Reece https://www.manton.org/2020/09/29/for-the-microblog.html

Deliveries: what’s in for me?

Tue, 29 Sep 2020 12:51:43 -0400

I’ve been a long time satisfied user of Deliveries. They are now switching to a subscription model which isn’t a surprise. I do think the pricing is just about right for the type of app. But, looking more closely to what’s new in the upcoming release, I see support for darkmode which is fine but please, don’t try to sell us this upgrade because you support basic OS features that are available for more than a year. Those should be a given. You may disagree.

Here is a free idea for iOS 14 widget developers

Tue, 29 Sep 2020 11:37:43 -0400

Who can remember the Pinball Construction Set? If you do, or you are well documented or you are probably as old as me. Now, consider iOS 14 and the widgets feature: how long before someone comes up with something like a “Widgets Construction Set” for iOS? What I’m seeing now isn’t close enough to my taste.

Lost in a see of content

Mon, 28 Sep 2020 12:46:00 -0400

There is way more content online than we can humanly consume. There, I said it. I’m myself part of the problem, as a content creator too, albeit in a very small tiny fashion. To make things worse, I consider myself a writer. It’s not helping as less and less people are reading these days.

On iOS 14 Widgets: So much untapped potential

Sun, 27 Sep 2020 09:07:19 -0400

We have to realize that we are only at the early stage of widgets support for iOS 14. There is a lot of untapped potential and frustrating design choices. Widgetsmith is having a moment right now but looks like a work-in-progress to me. It is a great idea but it can be tricky to configure and is not fully intuitive. There is so many more data sources the developer could add. And tell me how I would pay to get weather data in Widgetsmith while I can get it all for free with other apps. The added value of Widgetsmith lies in its configurability, not the fact that you can add weather as a source.

ok, the widgets experience on the iPad is crippled, so what?

Sat, 26 Sep 2020 18:00:35 -0400

When iPadOS 14 beta came out, we were all quick to notice how crippled the widgets experience was compared to iOS 14. So we got frustrated. I’m still unable to get over it. Apple is holding back the iPad. Again.

In the last few days, I tried to understand the possible reasons behind this. To my surprise, it’s not easy and there could be many explanations to why the iPad widgets experience is limited to the Today view. More to come in a blog post this week.

Meanwhile, you are more than welcome to share your thoughts! I’m curious.

Apple’s Upcoming Products #apple #iphone12 #airtags

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 20:20:02 -0400

To get a bird’s eye view of the current Apple’s rumours landscape, check out my daily “Apple’s Upcoming Products” newsletter with all the well known leakers in one place. There is still a lot going on for the rest of 2020 and beyond. Subscribe, it’s free and time saving. You’ll thank me later. It’s the best way to spoil any upcoming Apple events. Trust me.

A message to attention seekers

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 06:53:57 -0400

Here is something for attention seekers: GTFU. I don’t understand. What do you expect from me by liking 10 photos in a row on my 500px profile page. The same goes for this case (see screen shot) of someone clapping for all my stories on my Medium page. Do you have something to sell? Probably, but I don’t care. You are making noise all around the web, just because you seek my attention.

Software has never been more powerful. The web is a big tracking machine, yet websites can’t figure out a way to recognize such behaviors in order to stop them. Baffling.

Apple’s best general purpose apps...

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 07:58:42 -0400

I wrote about that a long time ago but here it is again: Apple’s iWork suite is probably the best expression of Apple software these days. This week, the venerable suite got updated to take advantage of iOS 14’s latest features (scribble, new import photo library, etc.). Keynote got an outline mode! 😍

On increasing COVID-19 cases...

Sun, 20 Sep 2020 12:56:11 -0400

Quick question: when you say “oh my, COVID-19 cases are on the rise!” and you get the following response “well, sure, they do more testing!!”. Is this a valid response? If not, what is the counter argument?

I have the feeling there is something wrong with this statement but I cannot put the finger on it. Ideas?

The Rotten Side of Tim Cook's Apple.

Sun, 20 Sep 2020 08:37:43 -0400

Apple, the everlasting success story has been in troubled water in recent years. From faulty or badly designed products to tense relationships with its developers, more than ever Apple is showing its rotten side, attracting regulators’ attention. The family picture is not pretty.

link.medium.com/tcLmxS16V…

On iOS 14 Widgets - My Observations & Experience so far

Sat, 19 Sep 2020 16:23:00 -0400

Carefully designed and thought out widgets are still scarce. Many developers show a lack of understanding of a widget’s purposes. Every single day, I’m baffled by the lack of flexibility on iPadOS. It’s a crime or a lack of courage, you tell me 🤦🏻‍♂️.

From an end-user perspective, managing widgets can be a frustrating experience. Apple can do better here. For example: in the screenshot below, users should be able to add a widget on an existing stack. Doing so on the home screen can mess your carefully designed arrangement pretty badly which will take careful manipulations to fix. Also, It’s hard to remember when there is a widgets stack instead of a single widget just looking at the home screen. On the iPad, scroll down the widgets will often trigger scrolling within the widgets stack instead which is frustrating.

I don’t miss the interactive version of widgets of pre-iOS 14. I have way too many home screen pages. What is the maximum, by the way? 🤔 I tend to forget about the old iOS Today View. It’s the best place to Four-by-four widgets like news. In general, this is a great version 2.0 of widgets implementation. Looking forward for improved behaviors.

I have found and adopted a few great widgets: Widgetsmith as a lot of potential, Lumy is really nice, Numerico (still in beta testing phase) is really useful Google analytics app, Pedometer is a nice one too, WaterMinder a must for me, Weather Line the best design in this category, Buddywatch a wonderful and useful app for watch face lovers like me, Streaks.

I'm never satisfied. Why?

Sat, 19 Sep 2020 12:11:58 -0400

Are you like me and never satisfied with your Apple Watch face arrangement? Why is it so? Why is it so hard to come up with a watch face configuration that totally fit my needs and my taste? iOS 14 helped me solve part of my problem, but it isn’t enough. watchOS doesn’t help either as it allows for even more flexibility. A third-party application named “Buddywatch” is super cool, yet doesn’t fix the problem.

Now, thanks to widgets support in iOS 14, I’m even less satisfied with my iPhone home screen arrangement. I think it’s worse than on my Apple Watch. Widgets, when I find one that is perfectly designed and really useful, lack some flexibility. I never had so much different pages on my home screen. What the hell is happening? Technology should remove the burden on us, not the opposite.

Can Apple pundits see the reality as it is?

Sat, 19 Sep 2020 08:47:28 -0400

I’m working on something that Apple fanboys won’t like at all: a cornerstone piece of more than 4000 words about my personal view of Apple’s less glorious facets. Many Apple pundits will disagree. I don’t care. I worked hard on this one in the last few weeks and my undistorted field perception is finally about to come out. Wait for it. 👨🏻‍💻

No trackers on Apple.com. Really?

Sat, 19 Sep 2020 07:39:34 -0400

After installing Safari 14 on macOS Catalina, I went on Apple.com to see what trackers would be reported. Unsurprisingly, Apple doesn’t use any trackers. Now, the big question: do you believe Apple doesn’t track its main website usage?

On Developer’s Questionable Choices with iOS 14 Widgets Design

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 21:27:00 -0400

There is something fundamentally wrong with the way iOS 14 widgets are being implemented by many developers. Here is a simple example. The popular Reddit client, Apollo, introduced widgets support, see the following picture. Now, how can a widget with two posts can be useful if you are following many subreddits with dozens of new posts each day? What is the point in doing that?

Thanks for spoiling today's #AppleEvent

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 10:19:00 -0400

A message to all official and less official Apple leakers. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for spoiling today’s Apple event. Without you, I don’t know if I could have taken today’s announcements. You made a big difference, you showed to the world how indispensable you are. Apple must be proud of you guys, think about it. Special thanks to @LeaksApplePro, @jon_prosser, @Jioriku, @markgurman.

Who's in charge of saying "no, this is shit"?

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:32:24 -0400

Look, look closely at this leadership page from Apple. Now, ask yourself, who is directing the product directions part? Who says “no, we won’t do that!” or “come back when it is done!” or “Yes, that’s the direction we will go!”? It used to be Jony Ive and before, Steve Jobs. But, now? How is it possible that someone in charge of “products design” is not on the leadership page? For a company like Apple, it is deeply troubling.

daringfireball.net/2020/09/a…

I'm falling in love, again.

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 19:56:26 -0400

I’m falling back in love with Tweetbot 🥰. For a reason that I don’t remember, I was no longer using since a while ago. I think it was related to the fact that the official Twitter client was getting all the new features while Tweetbot couldn’t keep up (thanks to highly guarded APIs by Twitter. I’m kind of frustrated by the non-chronological timeline. It’s exhausting. I want to focus on a clean UI providing me a clear view on my timeline. That is all.

Warning: doom and gloom ahead. #AppleEvent

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 07:57:01 -0400

On the eve of #AppleEvent tomorrow, I can see a lot of deception on the horizon. The tag line is clear: it’s about time, or the watch. It’s not about the iPhone. It’s not about the Mac. It’s not about the Apple Silicon. It’s about the iPad and the watch. A weird combinaison if you ask me. These updated iPad should be launched with a press release IMHO but Apple needs some stuff to fill the event schedule I guess.

For what reason do we pay Apple for?

Sun, 13 Sep 2020 17:57:23 -0400

Man I still miss him. Steve Jobs had a way of making his point so damn clear. You could disagree with him, but I least you knew what he was trying to say. No bullshit. Plain and simple. Boom. twitter.com/robcorean…

Thought of the day for bloggers and written content creators

Sun, 13 Sep 2020 12:26:17 -0400

Competing against Google’s YouTube, Facebook, Instagram et al. In order to grab users attention is impossible, even with great content to a certain degree. Coupled with the general trend towards more visual content instead of written words, It’s hard to build things like newletters or even simple blog with a reasonable readership. I guess this is the numeric world we must accept to live in. Your thoughts?

numericcitizen.substack.com

From Overcast to Castro — Quick Observations

Sat, 12 Sep 2020 14:12:04 -0400

Re-discovering Castro podcast player 🎧. Much better than Apple’s Podcast app 👍🏻. Better design than Overcast 👌🏻. Super nice Watch app 😍. Impressive Shortcuts support. 👨🏻‍💻 No iPad version, though 😕. Looking forward for iOS 14 widgets support and maybe a universal version with support for all platforms (is this even in the cards? 🧐). Proudly supporting the developer by being a yearly subscriber now.

castro.fm

Apple Card, Apple Cash in Canada soon?

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 20:39:08 -0400

Can’t wait for this to come over here, in Canada 🇨🇦. One question though: would this mean Apple Cash would also come with it? They both look tied together for cash backs. Am I right? I don’t expect this to come out on next week apple event, but eventually in 2020 - 2021 timeframe.

appleterm.com/2020/09/1…

Stupid 5G Marketing

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 20:15:04 -0400

Saw that picture of a guy paying an VR game on a Rogers website to promote 5G networks in Canada. How stupid is this marketing!? What are they thinking when they “design’ their marketing campaign? You tell me.

After Tim Cook

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 10:17:28 -0400

Having discussions about what comes next after Tim Cook is only a good thing. There is nothing to worry about this. That being said, I can see someone like Greg Joswiak to take over. I’m a bit tired of people in the ops field to lead Apple.

appleinsider.com/articles/…

On IFTTT Pro

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 08:29:13 -0400

IFTTT Pro. I’ve been a long time user of this service. I decided to subscribe @ 2.99$ per month. Started to play with the new features. I’m still not sure how I will take advantage of the multi-steps applet capabilities. Maybe something like: following a new blog post, create a DayOne entry AND create a Buffer “In case you missed it" AND … then what?

Not too fast, people, not too fast

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 07:14:18 -0400

Following the #AppleEvent announcement yesterday, I saw many comments about a possible schedule of events this fall. Many of them are putting the release of the Apple Silicon Mac in October.

There is no way this is going to happen that early. macOS Big Sur is still at Beta 3. Developers are hard at work adding support for widgets and other iOS 14 stuff. I would expect iOS 14 to be released at the end of September. iOS 14.1 will come out in beta at the beginning of October in order to support the new iPhone shipping later in October.

Now back to the Mac. I expect Big Sur to be released at the very end of October if not November. The actual Apple Silicon Mac will probably be announced at a different moment than the iPhone. Apple doesn’t like to mixed up things in their keynote. The actual shipping date could be at the very end of the year, just in time to catch the ramp up of the A14X production rumored to be starting in Q4.

In summary: Apple Silicon Mac to be released late in 2020.

A short beta cycle for iOS 14

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 07:01:05 -0400

Following @Gruber hypothetical September schedule: Tuesday 15 September: Event. Friday 18 September: Preorders start. Monday-Tuesday 21-22. September: Reviews drop — Apple Watch on one day, iPad Air on the other. Thursday 24 September: New OSes released via Software Update. Friday 25 September: Products ship to customers and stores.

My guess is that we will get beta 8 this week followed by GM next week. Even if there is another beta after that (beta 9), this would be the shortest beta cycle for any major iOS release. daringfireball.net/2020/09/a…

Quick comparison of writing platforms based on my experience of putting something online. You might be surprise!

Sat, 29 Aug 2020 12:35:57 -0400

Here is an interesting observation based on my experience with four popular writing platforms: WordPress, Micro.blog, Medium and Substack. If I could place the efforts of putting an article online on a scale for each of them, this is what it would look like: from high to low.

WordPress (10) > Medium (7) > Substack (4) > Micro.blog (1).

Your results may vary.

The Social Dilemma by Center for Humane Technology

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 19:44:58 -0400

I can’t wait to watch this, even if I know it will be a troubling portrait of our modern society. While waiting for it, here is something even more troubling. The email I got announcing this new short film to be shown on Netflix does contain a tracking pixel, according to Hey. How curious this is. 🧐

From Center for Humane Technology. youtu.be/uaaC57tcc…

BREAKING: Adobe Lightroom CC 5.4 Users - Data Loss

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 14:33:26 -0400

Major issue affecting Adobe Lightroom CC users at version 5.4: the cloud-based photo procesing software. Users affected by the bug lost portion or all their photo library (I’m not one of those, thanks god!). According to an Adobe statement: We know that some customers have photos and presets that are not recoverable. We sincerely apologize to any customers who have been affected by this issue.

Ouch. In other words: Adobe says: fuck you. That’s the price of cloud-based storage services (on top of the monthly payment). No service is immute to this. We should be pressuring companies like Adobe, Apple, etc. to stop this non-sense. https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/20/adobe-lightroom-ios-update-photos-deleted

iOS 14 Widgets Support Slowly Coming

Mon, 17 Aug 2020 10:20:44 -0400

Widgets support is starting to tickle in on iOS 14 beta. I like what I’m seeing so far. Widgets will transform the way I use my iPhone and my iPad to a lesser degree. One of the best feature is the ability to stack them. This allow for theme-based stacks on a theme-based home screen page. Can’t wait for more of my apps to be updated.

On EPIC PR Stunt - Because this is exactly that!

Sat, 15 Aug 2020 09:56:02 -0400

On Apple vs The World: I’m all in for Apple to change its App Store rules, whatever it could mean, and reduce its cuts, etc. But @gruber post is dead on, Epic move this week is pure PR stunt. Plain and simple. EPIC can’t be selective and hit only Apple. They have to hit them all on the basis of their suposedly principles.

daringfireball.net/linked/20…

Great take from @drbarnard on Apple’s App Store issues

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 09:05:09 -0400

Here is a great take on Apple’s App Store issues by @drbarnard. To me, the key is for Apple to change its mindset from working too hard on the lock-in to working on the experience quality (tweet #10 in the thread) and let the users decide.

twitter.com/drbarnard…

On Apple's latest iMac update

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 08:43:31 -0400

Great reviews on the latest iMac update. As a serious amateur photographer, the thing that stands out to me is the new nano glass option. At 500$ it is not cheap but reviewers are liking it a lot. Could this option eventually come to the iPad Pro? Or the iPhone? I would pay a premium for this on the iPad Pro.

Now, why the 21.5” iMac has not been updated is a mystery to me. I currently own a max-out 2017 21.5” iMac. The size of this machine is better for me, but I would prefer a 24”. Could this mean the lower size iMac will be the first desktop to receive the Apple Silicon treatment as well a the long overdue redesign? I think so.

www.macrumors.com/review/20…

How Long Apple can stand like this?

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 08:25:56 -0400

On Apple’s stance on its App Store policies.

Developers are complaining. The tech press is complaining. Governments are complaining. Now Microsoft is complaining. And Facebook too.

Google? Are users complaining? I don’t see that. Does it make a big difference for Apple?

How long Apple can stand like this?

On iOS 14 Design Considerations

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 06:28:44 -0400

Dear iOS developers: be careful when considering widget design and content. Space on my iPhone screen is more constrained than ever with iOS 14. Here is a bad example: showing the three most recent tweets from my twitter timeline is useless as I’m following many hundreds persons. Be more creative than this.

On Phil Schiller (departure) of Apple

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 19:33:00 -0400

Aside from the iMac updates coming out of Apple today, here is another (more important) news: Phil Schiller is now an Apple Fellow. That was not expected. People come and go. Mr. Schiller as done a lot for Apple. Time to (slowly) move on.

I don’t like Greg “Joz” Jozwiak.

When I wanted to work for Apple...

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 15:26:26 -0400

Here is a short story. In 1985, I was working for an authorized Apple dealer in my home town. I was an Apple zealot (surprise?) and I wanted to work for them. So, I created my (short) resume and sent it (by mail) to Apple’s headquarters. A few months later, I got a polite response: Thanks, but no thanks. I was eighteen.

Apple had an easy day overall

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 17:52:19 -0400

Is it me or Apple had a pretty easy day today? Seems all the attention went to Google, Facebook and Amazon. My guess is that it reflects a fact: Apple is not in a monopolistic position like the other three. www.cnbc.com

Live: Big Tech testifies: Bezos promises action if investigation reveals misuse of seller data

After 14 major iOS release... and yet...

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 13:07:50 -0400

Everybody is talking about Apple Music new icon since Beta 3 but, think about this: after 14 versions of iOS, and here we are: the “More” “button” lingering bad design. How many times I try to hit this and I bring the detail view of the app instead. Frustrating.

Let me be clear: wrong place, too small, text overlapping, not a real button.

Come on, Apple!

My suggestion: add a “Details” button accessible when sliding the table cell to the left (the same gesture that reveals a Delete button).

On Widgets Management Interfaces on iPhone

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 13:00:40 -0400

Very valid complaint from Dieter Bohn of The Verge on Apple’s implementation of widgets management on iPhone. Two different user interfaces for basically the same objective. I prefer the look of the new design, but I understand the previous one is still there for compability purposes.

iOS 14 Beta 3 brings back the « Edit » button at the (very inconvenient place) bottom of the list. Hitting the button brings you back unexpectedly to the top of the widgets list. Going back down the list and you’ll find a “Customize” button. Really? Also, tapping and holding on old widgets doesn’t invoke edit mode. Not very consistent. I should probably fill a feedback report and send it to Apple.

I do think this is a transitional design. Transitions are rarely pleasant.

twitter.com/backlon/s…

The race for the bottom of everything

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 07:35:28 -0400

On Apple’s 30% cut. Again.

We all know where this all goes. Yesterday it was a deal. Today, 30% is way too much. So, let’s fight and try to force Apple to set the cut to 20%. No, 15%. That is way better, right? A few years down the road, a well known developer comes out and complain about 15% being way too much of a cut. Poor guy. Let’s start a fight and bring that down. Apple respond and set it to 10% because they are forced to. And the story continues.

Let’s face the reality. We don’t like to pay for something. We want it all. We know the price of everything but the value of nothing. How do you think China came to be so powerful? How do you think Amazon or Costco is sucking air from small local businesses in our communities? Why do you think our life is full of shitty ads are everywhere? Why do you think we are the product of Google, Facebook? Because we don’t like to pay for something, anything. We want it all free.

There is a pattern. There is a race for the bottom of everything. And I don’t agree in Brent’s views on what would happen if Apple lowers their demand from developers. I certainly don’t believe developers would lower the price of their apps.

Remember what capitalism is all about?

Change my mind.

inessential.com/2020/07/2…

The iPad still held back with iPadOS 14

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 06:55:03 -0400

iPadOS 15 concept imagined by Parker Ortolani certainly looks interesting. I’m not sure about some ideas put forward but it certainly shows how the iPad is still held back with iPadOS 14. The lack of flexibility in widgets placement is, put mildly, baffling. I love those widgets on my iPhone but the lack of space forces us to create tons of pages. And the problem will only get worst this fall after developers start adding widget support in their apps. It will be crazy. #iPadOS14 #apple

www.behance.net/gallery/1…

Smartphones going forward and Zoom going backward

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 16:42:18 -0400

Modern smartphones replaced most if not all specialized tools like camera, microphone, etc. Zoom wanting to sell dedicated screens for meetings would be going backward and… really, who want’s to buy a 27" monitor just for Zoom meetings? daringfireball.net/linked/20…

Ten years ago — Antennagate

Sun, 12 Jul 2020 20:57:25 -0400

Ten years ago today: Antennagate. Remember? It was an intense episode in Apple’s history. I didn’t own an iPhone 4. At that time, I was using my 3GS. I upgrade to the iPhone 4S in 2011. Time certainly flies.

www.cultofmac.com/492086/to…

Viticci on iPadOS 14 - when iPadOS is Influenced by macOS #iPadOS14

Sat, 11 Jul 2020 09:22:26 -0400

Good insights by Federico Viticci of MacStories about iPadOS 14. One theme stands out: with iPadOS 14, Apple is no longer taking it’s inspiration from the iPhone but from macOS to push the iPad in its very distinct path.

Exhibit A: the Sidebar in applications like Music, Photos, Files. Exhibit B: the redesigned Search bar.

Still to be improved, though: multitasking. Next year.

www.macstories.net/stories/t…

On Apple's iOS 14, Widgets and Considering Bigger iPhone

Thu, 09 Jul 2020 13:13:25 -0400

One of the unexpected side effect of Apple introducing widgets in iOS 14 is that I’m reconsidering my stance against big iPhone like iPhone 11 Pro Max.. when widgets invade our landscape this fall, we may find the iPhone 11 screen too small for all of them.

If Apple was willing to add the same flexibility to the iPad it would be another matter, though.

« Don’t assume discreet GPU always offer better performance » #apple #applesilicon

Wed, 08 Jul 2020 13:00:45 -0400

I’m one of those who was thinking discreet GPU would provide much better performance. When watching Apple’s transition to Apple Silicon, I asked myself about discreet GPU options in future Macs. This article goes on to report that not only integrated GPU (thanks to SoC) will be faster, it could be easier to support and help Apple reduce costs. Apple never offered discreet GPU in iPad Pro. Why would it be different with Apple Silicon-based Mac? Will future Mac support external GPU? Probably but performance gain will be marginal.

ARM Mac graphics performance could beat discrete GPUs - 9to5Mac

A Visual Comparison of Catalina & Big Sur - Who Wins? #apple #macOS11

Wed, 08 Jul 2020 07:28:51 -0400

Excellent visual comparison between macOS Catalina and Big Sur (see link below). Here are a few observations:

Big Sur design is a step back in clrity in many areas. Ex.: Icons and segmented controls in top portion of windows.
More padding around items lists. I’m not sure why. I prefer Catalina’s version.
Dark Mode is slightly better looking in Big Sur.
Battery panel in Settings is horrible.
Gone are popup alerts at the top of windows, they now look to be centered within window content and movable. Catalina is better.
Menu bar is translucide. Catalina is better too.
Safari is much better looking in Big Sur.
Notes is much improved in Big Sur.
Big Sur icons shapre are much more uniform. Advantage to Big Sur here.
Big Sur Side Bars in many apps like Maps is better looking too.

Who wins? Well, the jury is still out.

www.andrewdenty.com/blog/2020…

Which Mac will go first to ARM? My take. #apple #armmac #applesilicon

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 09:05:38 -0400

Which Mac will transition first to Apple Silicon? Will Apple start with the desktop or the portables? That is the question. I would say, the desktop, but…

On the first Mac to be converted to ARM: my bet goes on the Mac mini, a lower volume, utility orientated machine for the Mac enthusiasts. Next, the iMac redesign where any perf discrepancies with the MacBook is more easily explanable (desktop versus laptop, you know). But…

…my confidence level in this theory will be negatively impacted by the actual release of a rumoured redesigned iMac but with an Intel processor instead. Rumors are circulating about a published benchmark with a 10 cores Intel CPU in a new iMac design. If Apple did release this machine, it would send a clear message: they will continue to support Intel machines for a long time. But…

…launching an iMac redesign with an Apple Silicon inside would make a much better marketing story: something like a powerful Apple Silicon powering a brand new design with unique features (fan-less design, FaceID, or even… touch input support?). But…

…I concede the fact that price/watt ratio is much more useful and lends much more practical advantages on a portable product than on the desktop where space and energy are less constrained which puts some doubts on my take.

Finally, about the Mac Pro conversion to ARM. My gut feeling is that it will be the last to be converted… with A16 CPU? Who knows.

PS: I would expect Apple to re-introduce their illuminated logo on the MacBook. A sign of Apple’s enthusiast returning to the Mac.

Daring Fireball: On Ming-Chi Kuo’s Report of a 24-Inch ARM iMac

Poor advertisers... thanks to Apple’s iOS 14.

Fri, 03 Jul 2020 09:03:58 -0400

They are the ones who will suffer the most from Apple’s iOS 14. Good for them. If they want to show ads, the burden of finding new ways is on them, not on Apple’s shoulders or on ours. In other words: fuck them. European advertisers critical of iOS 14 warning users about ad tracking - Appleinsider

Widgets & iPadOS - Apple is in a “bad design choice” corner

Wed, 01 Jul 2020 16:14:42 -0400

I’ve been thinking a lot about the limited support of widgets in iPadOS 14. While waiting for an answer from Craig Federighi (see previous posts), I think I know why. The way Apple introduced widgets in iPadOS 13 kind of put themselves in a “bad design choice” corner.

Take an iPad with iPadOS 13 in landscape orientation with widgets showing on the left, now look what happens when rotating the iPad in portrait mode. See? Imagine widgets all over the home screen. How could the iPad handle this orientation change gracefully? You tell me.

A bizarre upcoming fall schedule for Apple? #iphone12 #ios14

Wed, 01 Jul 2020 07:31:39 -0400

If iPhone 12 launch is effectively delayed by a few weeks or months, could Apple decide to release iOS 14 for currently shipping devices while we wait for iPhone 12? It would be a first for Apple, but I certainly hope so. #iphone12 9to5mac.com/2020/07/0…

On Siri updated design #wwdc #wwdc20 #wwdc2020 #ios14

Sun, 28 Jun 2020 13:16:10 -0400

I like the new Siri design but I don’t like it after all. The animated sphere placement feels wrong as it leave space on top of it on which we cannot interact. Siri answers and feedbacks onscreen position feel very inconsistent. Sometimes it will appear at the top with another smaller banner at the bottom. Sometimes only a banner at the top.

iOS 14 Widgets and Anxiety #wwdc #wwdc20 #wwdc2020

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 12:39:38 -0400

Following the reveal of widgets support on iOS 14, I’m feeling anxiety over how I’will “design” my home screens coming this fall. The same kind of feeling related to my Apple Watch watch face design, btw.

What role will play the App Library? Will I reduce my reliance on folders for organizing my apps and add more pages that I can hide as needed? How many pages reserved for widgets only will I create and for which use case?

Decision, decision, decision.

The Secret Feature of Upcoming ARM-Based Mac #wwdc #wwdc20 #wwdc2020 #apple

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 12:32:28 -0400

Wild dream of the day: what if a silent yet unannounced feature of the ARM-based Mac is touch support? Looking at one of the WWDC session video called “Adopt the new look of macOS Big Sur”, spacing of many UI elements certainly feels in preparation of touch support introduction. Plus, iPhone apps running unmodified on these machines would feel at home with touch support.

On macOS Big Fur surprising visual and design attributes #wwdc #wwdc20

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:43:49 -0400

Taken out of one of @gruber recent post. In red: the Cancel button looks like being disabled. Very bad. The menu bar transparency, why? Is Apple trying to make us forget about this distinctive UI element? In yellow: the window title being no longer at the center, to make room for buttons (that look less and less like buttons)…
In green: a depth effect with surrounding shadow, thumbs up. General look of the refresh popup dialog, very iOS is refreshing on the Mac.

Apple moving to ARM: another game changer move in the works #wwdc #wwdc20 #apple

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 07:36:47 -0400

Today, it will be interesting to see how Apple is positioning its move from Intel to ARM.

To me, one thing is clear: this could be another game changer move. Apple has proven many times in the past that you don’t need to own a market (PC sales) to create new inflection points on its trajectory. Remember when Apple legitimize the use of the USB ports in its original iMac? Now, they could legitimize the use of ARM on traditional computers.

If I was Intel, I would be scared.

When Brent Simmons speaks, Apple should listen #wwdc20 #wwdc2020 #wwdc

Sun, 21 Jun 2020 21:14:12 -0400

From Brent Simmons:

The best part of the App Store, years ago, from this developer’s point of view, was that it was easy to charge money for an app. No need to set up a system — just choose the price, and Apple takes care of everything. So easy!

And

for many developers, the very best thing about the App Store — the thing that actually helped their business — is gone.

And this

I can’t reconcile in my mind the tension between Apple as the think different company, the pirates, the rebels, the company at the intersection of tech and liberal arts — and Apple the company that runs this legalistic, nitpicky, greedy, inhuman, happy-face Kafka App Store.

And finally this

If I could distribute my iOS app outside of the App Store, I would. I’d switch in a heartbeat. Even though it’s free and money isn’t my issue. It would make my work as an app maker easier.

Ouch. Coming this guy, it means a lot.

WWDC20 already has a special feel to it, even before the start… not only because it is digital only, but also because I feel (many) developers are simpky fed up with the Apple way.

Apple's passive-aggressive attitude... #wwdc

Sun, 21 Jun 2020 12:40:04 -0400

Apple’s ARM-based Macs (aggressive) transition plans… these rumours seems to point to a much more aggressive transition than I was expecting… Apple must know a few things that we don’t which could explain such an expedited transition. #wwdc2020 #wwdc www.macrumors.com/2020/06/2…

Hey, HEY & Apple - Settle down already! #apple #appstore #hey

Sat, 20 Jun 2020 09:45:02 -0400

I’m not very optimistic on the outcome of the “HEY vs Apple” battle. Both, in their own ways, are arrogant, blinkered and calling out each other. Each will lose their face with a concession, even if it’s small. Big egos against each other here.

Meanwhile, potential users on iOS will suffer from the lack of much needed app updates. This could be a deal breaker for many users like me. HEY is losing, Apple is losing, users are losing.

What a mess. ☹️

HEY, Micro.blog and web standards

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 16:31:55 -0400

It is fun to compare HEY and Micro.blog. They both depend on open web standards on the backend. HEY depends on SMTP while Micro.blog depends on HTTPS/HTML. HEY wants to re-invent the end-user experience while Micro.blog provides a pretty much generic end-user experience. By turning the end-user experience upside down, HEY doesn’t rely on IMAP. This is where some people turns their back to HEY (there may be other reasons, though).

Why Micro.blog. Why Hey.

HEY, what’s next? @DHH #apple #appstore

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 08:23:07 -0400

Now, as a potential customer of HEY!, what I want to hear or read from @DHH is: what’s next? How are they tackling the problem in order to comply? Will they comply? I want to support their new platform AND their cause, but from a user standpoint, they have to put out a plan and communicate it ASAP.

My 14 days trial will end on July 1st. I want to know before making a 99$ commitment.

Hey, you’re turn now.

Hey Apple, you are in deep sh** #wwdc #wwdc2020 #appstore #iosdev

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 08:02:38 -0400

As an Apple observer for more than four decades (yep!), I rarely seen such a public relation mess like the one this week, a week before WWDC. Apple messed up big time with the worst possible timing by alienating their developers. On top of that, their definition of apps that doesn’t work upon startup is already being smashed by so many counter-examples. This is a complete mess and I don’t know how Apple will get out of this shit. If goes far beyond the 30% commission.

**This is not the Apple that I want to see, promote and embrace. **

Hey, and Apple - must read thread by @dhh

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 18:01:25 -0400

Here is a MUST READ thread by @dhh about Apple messing around the launch of Hey, a new and innovative email service. I wish Hey gets though this. I support their fight because Apple is fucking arrogant here… I want Apple to open up… or else. Please, share.

twitter.com/dhh/statu…

When Fantastical shows Apple what they should do with Calender

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 13:26:31 -0400

Fantastical latest update (v3.1) could be the thing that bring me back to it: integrated support for nearly all major video conferencing applications. As a big user of Webex, Teams, Zoom, this could be really useful for me. apps.apple.com/ca/app/fa…

On Apple, education and healthcare

Sun, 14 Jun 2020 22:51:36 -0400

At the very beginning of Apple, their leadership was young and they cared about education. Apple became popular in the edu market simply because they built their products around it. They succeeded.

Now, Apple leadership is getting older and they now care about healthcare. The story repeats itself as they build many products and features around that. Will success follow? It certainly looks like it. How Apple becomes the operating system for health - Philip Elmer‑DeWitt

So, what’s up with Automattic and Tumblr? 🤨🤔🧐

Sat, 13 Jun 2020 10:30:25 -0400

Question of the day: what’s up with Automattic and Tumblr? 🤨🤔🧐 This question came up to my mind this morning as I reblogged a post from someone I follow on Wordpress. The reblog action was popularized by Tumblr if I’m not mistaken. Since Automattic bought Tumblr for a few pennies, I was just wondering.

On software quality slowly going down... my take.

Sat, 13 Jun 2020 09:29:26 -0400

Interesting piece (see link below) about software quality going down in a world where hardware quality is culminating to levels never seen before. Here are a few of my thoughts on this subject.

First, I think the law of entropy is much more active in software than in hardware. We are actually witnessing the slow disorganization of software (both in features & code), hence the quality goes down with it.

Second, we are also witnessing the (good and bad) consequences of unsustainable complexity of a growing software ecosystem. The good is the added value of combining things together in order to make the whole greater than the sum of its part. Apple is good at this. The bad is the difficulty to make it all work.

Third, take the Finder in macOS. How many revisions has been done on this essential piece of software and by how many generations and teams of developers? How one company make sure, from one generation to the other, the knowledge about how the Finder is coded doesn’t get diluted? I see this as an important challenge.

Finally, the marriage of hardware with software, the complete integration of the stack that Apple is able to achieve because they nearly own all the pieces pose big challenges. There are so many combinaisons to test and optimize. I can see many bugs falling between the cracks.

I’m not excusing Apple for the fact that their software quality is going down. They must slowdown and consolidate their software assets. In a maturing world, I would expect they do just that.

Brilliant Hardware in the Valley of the Software Slump

BREAKING NEWS #2: Now iTunes U is being dismantled.

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 15:30:26 -0400

iTunes U is the next victim after iBooks Author. I’m not sure Apple’s Classroom and Schoolwork are fully replacing iTunes U’s features set. Let’s wait and see.

Also, this change of direction from Apple creates a big opportunity for Google which is already well established.

BREAKING NEWS: iBooks Author is dead.

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 13:34:03 -0400

Now it’s official, Apple iBooks Author is being retired. Upcoming update to Pages will be able to import Books from iBooks Author. It is a sad day for many content creators, I’m sure, me included.

I changing my mind. Again.

Tue, 09 Jun 2020 12:12:24 -0400

Well, maybe I’ll keep buying traditional computers after all. 🤓 This iMac mockup by MacRumors is a bit dumb, but we get the idea, right? This iMac would be the quintessential of desktop, all-in-one design Apple has ever made. New iMac With ‘iPad Pro Design Language’ and Thin Bezels Reportedly Coming at WWDC - MacRumors

We have a go for ARM in Macs it seems

Tue, 09 Jun 2020 06:58:39 -0400

Seems like ARM-based Macs is a go for this year’s WWDC. The news comes from a source that I don’t like (remember the “Big Hack Story”?) so I’m not sharing the link. In summary: a bit faster CPU, much faster on graphics, ML processing unit, low power hence cooler system, new design enabler. Long transition time expected. Unknown is how are third-parties will transition their apps. Will a DEV kit be made available.

Expectations Too High for #WWDC? Probably...

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 15:52:07 -0400

In my recently published wish list for WWDC 2020, I think I under-stated how anxious I am about the “virtual keynote”.

I wish for something closer to a movie than a keynote. Not too much on the info-pub side, something entertaining while being informative and enticing. I want to see Tim Cook at the main character, Craig Federighi in a supporting role. Don’t be too “general public”, be geeky as hell. Impress me, delight me. Show me the future, now!

My expectations are (too?) high for WWDC 2020. I know.

Absurdities

Sun, 24 May 2020 13:58:03 -0400

This is the absurdities of our economic system. This coronavirus crisis is going to cause a big reset. Daring Fireball: Hertz Files for Bankruptcy, Somehow Accumulated $17 Billion in Debt

How in the world does it make sense for a company in a low-margin, long-established business with financials like this to rack up $17 billion in debt? When times were good this amount of debt would consume decades of Hertz’s profits. This is bananas.

Replacing an aging AirPort Extreme with...

Sat, 23 May 2020 16:49:40 -0400

Slowly looking for a replacement for my aging AirPort Extreme router. For me, the physical look is as important as well as the application to manage it. Ubiquity looks really nice, very Apple’ish. App review not too bad but not exceptional either. Still confused for what to do.

One thing for sure: not going the Google way or the Amazon (eero) way.

It’s so sad that Apple exited this market… 😞 only to enter the « smart speaker »… 🤦🏻‍♂️

Notion is now (mostly) free!

Tue, 19 May 2020 20:00:07 -0400

Oh, one interesting update today on the App Store: Notion now free and a new personal pro tier introduced on which I’ll be upgraded. Cool. Many other new things included in this update, like 2x speed increase for app launch. 👀

My review of Notion here 👉🏻👉🏻 numericcitizen.me/2020/04/1…

Steve Jobs on building tech people want to buy

Sat, 16 May 2020 18:42:51 -0400

Still true in 2020. twitter.com

Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) Tweeted: Steve Jobs in 2006 on why it’s tough to make tech products people want:

“A lot of companies do things because it’s technically possible. But in the end, nobody cares. Nobody wants to buy them.” t.co/BAScyzcaR…

Apple thinks we are eternal

Thu, 14 May 2020 07:05:09 -0400

Death is an everyday subject these days. How is Apple helping people in dealing with people's death? For example, what happens to Apple's Family Sharing if the family organizer passed away? If you use iTunes Family Sharing, special attention must be paid to the « Family Organizer » role. If he or she dies, there is no way to give this role to another member of the iTunes Family. Have you ever wondered what happens if you want to close an Apple ID account of a diseased person? What if you don't even know how to access it?

Searching for the word « death » on Apple’s support site doesn’t bring any information related to tackling the death of someone. Apple's support to help users deal with death is abysmal.

iPhone SE performance and Android... really?

Tue, 12 May 2020 20:06:49 -0400

Should we care? I mean, general performance of a smartphone is crucial for a great user experience but... compared to Android, really? for the vast majority of people, do they care, besides the entry price? [Daring Fireball: Let’s Check In on the State of iPhone and Android CPU Performance]

Coronavirus and Apple’s products

Tue, 12 May 2020 08:17:35 -0400

One of the thing that will get my attention about Apple in the coming months and years: how the coronavirus will impact features and designs of Apple’s products, both in hardware and software.

The obvious example is the FaceTime camera on Mac computers. The second obvious example is FaceTime application in general, not to compete against Zoom or others, but to make it more useful and bringing more value to human visual communications.

Feeling nostalgic today

Tue, 12 May 2020 07:08:28 -0400

Very telling chart of past disruptions in the photography world. I don't want to look too nostalgic but seeing how fast the smartphone is taking over the photography world is a bit sad.

Something is different about Unsplash

Mon, 11 May 2020 19:18:28 -0400

There is something different about my beloved photo sharing service, Unsplash. I'm not sure if it's for the better. It's hard for me to put a finger on it but there is something different.

COVID-19 by the Numbers

Sun, 10 May 2020 12:17:15 -0400

Great post. My sister is a nurse working with seniors. She got COVID-19. She ok now. But she knows how bad the situation is. We're not done yet, ladies and gentlemen.

COVID-19 by the Numbers

Magic Keyboard: Apple’s Laptop Conversion Kit – His Dork Materials

Sun, 10 May 2020 12:11:21 -0400

The Magic Keyboard makes us want more from iPadOS: real and complete external monitor support.

Magic Keyboard: Apple’s Laptop Conversion Kit – His Dork Materials:

Finally - Subscribed to 1Password

Sun, 10 May 2020 08:29:44 -0400

After much hesitation, I finally subscribed to 1Password personal plan. I've been a long time user of this password manager. I don't mind having to subscribe to this service. Security is paramount these days.

This decision is part of a personal project that I'm working on. A long blog post will follow in the coming weeks.

Stopping mass surveillance

Sat, 09 May 2020 18:43:14 -0400

I’ve been working from home since March, 13th. My employer is fully supporting remote work by monitoring the output of my work, not the input. Stop mass surveillance by reporting when you disagree with the policy. If no change, just quit.

Employee-surveillance software is not welcome to integrate with Basecamp m.signalvnoise.com/employee-…

Noto - A Wonderful app

Sat, 09 May 2020 16:09:45 -0400

Please, help me find a use case for this wonderfully designed note taking application. As an avid user of Notion, I don't see much use for Noto, but is looks so great!

Noto · Noto:

On the lack of Flash support on the iPhone

Sat, 09 May 2020 10:45:38 -0400

I remember arguing with a guy on supporting flash challenges like transposing « hovering » events with the mouse pointer. How on earth someone could « hover » with their fingers on the screen for content to change accordingly? That wasn’t possible obviously.

Now, look at the iPad with the just introduced pointer support. It’s exactly that, hovering on buttons make the pointer morph into the button’s shape. Fascinating.

Vintage 2007 Claim Chowder: Josh Quittner Returned His iPhone daringfireball.net/linked/20…

Apple Books for Authors - what about iBooks Author?

Fri, 08 May 2020 17:16:08 -0400

You know what I'd like to see from Apple? An update to their aging iBooks Author application on macOS. This is what I'd like to see. Last update was in 2018.... come on.

Apple Books for Authors:

New: Apple Store Online

Fri, 08 May 2020 07:56:57 -0400

One of the thing that I like about Apple: web design. Clean. Simple. This store front is new and only in the US, for now.

Apple Store Online - Apple

Day #4 of my Ghost experiment

Fri, 08 May 2020 07:16:56 -0400

Ghost.org has been under attack in the last few days, prompting them to force a password reset. It leaves a sour taste. I'm currently writing down my thoughts and findings. Expect a blog post in the coming days. Spoiler alert: it's not good.

'X-ray teardown' of iPad Pro Magic Keyboard illustrates complex engineering

Thu, 07 May 2020 16:08:07 -0400

iPad Pro Magic Keyboard: This piece of equipment, simple on the outside, a marvel of engineering on the inside. So cool.

'X-ray teardown' of iPad Pro Magic Keyboard illustrates complex engineering:

When macOS behave like Windows

Wed, 06 May 2020 07:52:37 -0400

I had to reboot my iMac this morning to fix weird issues (no sound in FaceTime calls, iCloud sync not going anywhere, etc.) And now this, after reboot. WTF. iCloud-based services can be scary. How am I supposed to fix this now. Don't tell me I have to turn off iCloud Photo Library and turn it back on. Please.

Finally.

Mon, 04 May 2020 13:52:40 -0400

A well deserved **finally**. Bye bye butterfly keyboard.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/04/rip-butterfly-keyboard/

Remember those waiting lines in the seventies?

Sat, 02 May 2020 08:21:52 -0400

When I go for a walk my mostly empty city, thanks to the long lasting confinement, I see many lines in front of different grocery stores. These are unfamiliar scenes for us.

It reminds me of when I was a young child. It was at the height of the cold war. At that time, medias were portraying communism as the bad guys. I cannot count how many times I saw in the news, scenes from USSR of people waiting in front of grocery stores to get a few vegetables and bread. It was in the seventies. And we were kind of laughing at them and their failed society. And here we are. Different cause for sure but mostly same effects.

You don't have to love the iPad

Fri, 01 May 2020 07:29:13 -0400

Thought of the day, from Francisco Tolmasky on Twitter:

The frustrating thing about the iPad is that I constantly feel that I need to be buying into a philosophy

Well said. For me, it doesn’t represent an issue. I love to buy into this philosophy because it is different, delightful. His tweet, one is a series is interesting. But, one the following ones, things get just wrong:

Propping iPad up at a *good* angle? Pay $350 for a cover that prevents you from using it like a book anymore.

I don’t get it. Remove the iPad from its keyboard and voilà! Simple. And this:

the iPad is now a worse tablet with the Magic Keyboard. It kind of sucks for typing in bed compared to the software keyboard, and it’s unusable for reading since it doesn’t flip around like a true cover.

What? Can someone explain him that he can remove the iPad from the keyboard when he goes to bed at night? This thread just feel “trolly". The iPad is obviously not for him but he doesn’t know it yet.

Is Apple doomed now?

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 20:59:51 -0400

Well, at first glance, Apple’s financial numbers are pretty solid, considering the current situation. Services and wearables are shining. The future is uncertain. Apple didn’t provide any guidance which is expected I guess. It could have been much worst as experts and pundits were expecting lower numbers.

Let's try this again!

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 17:05:11 -0400

Well, cross-posting from MB to WP with IFTTT is a no go. Now, testing a much cleaner solution, a WP plugin which allow a better control over what is imported and how it is inserted into WP. I’m currently testing the whole process as I write this. Posts are inserted in Draft mode so I can release them as I wish.

If it works as expected, I’ll be able to keep my main blog in sync with very specific content that I put here with minimal efforts.

Starting a small experiment

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 08:56:43 -0400

Up until now, I didn’t want to have my posts on **Micro.blog** to show up on my main blog on **WordPress**. But since I’m posting ten times more here than on my main blog, I have a feeling my readers are missing a lot. So, starting today, I’s starting a small experiment. Some of my posts here will be cross-posted to my main blog with the help of IFTTT. I’ll see where this goes.

I’m sill undecided on the cross-post format: full content replication or just linked-post.

(xpost)

Still far from fully recovered from Google's search algorithm changes of last November

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 07:10:16 -0400

Last day of April. Time to look back at this month's stats. It was a great month for my main blog visitors but still far away of full recovery of the big Google search crash of last November. I wonder if I will every recover from it, despite all my efforts to write fewer but longer and higher quality posts. On a brighter side, I’m faring much much better on Medium. (xpost)

Just Made an Unexpected Discovery

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 20:26:36 -0400

Oh. My. God. 😳😍 How on earth I wasn’t aware about this great utility for macOS: CleanShot X? Fully featured, cleanly designed, with a lot of use cases for me. A cross between Apple’s builtin screen capture and Screencast. Instant buy.

Side note: I never bought that many apps since the beginning of the great confinement. Second side note: it isn’t an ad. 🤷🏻‍♂️ CleanShot X for Mac

iPadOS 14 + Xcode + ARM-Base MacBook 12" coming?

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 07:26:42 -0400

First, this: twitter.com/jon_pross…

Xcode is rumored to be coming to iPad via iPadOS 14.

Then, this: twitter.com/l0vetodre…

The latter tweet explicitly mentions an ARM-based MacBook 12" is coming.

Are you getting it?

On iPhone 12 Pro Max Design Leaks - woah #iphone12 #leaks

Fri, 17 Apr 2020 07:22:39 -0400

Major design mockup of the iPhone 12 Pro Max. All based on CAD files in the wild. These guys 3D printed it so they could get a feeling of the device in their hands. The boxy design seems to be really nice to handle. Looking forward for more details. And the bezels will be much smaller too, making it a real full screen device. youtu.be/ZUXwDpGyl…

Apple, you are playing with words. #iphoneSE

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 15:41:17 -0400

Thanks Apple but this is not an iPhone SE. Ask every previous iPhone SE owners and they will confirm. To call it an iPhone SE, you have to change one thing: its size. You are playing with words here. it is an iPhone 9 (looking at this is enough to be convinced). My guess is that we will never see the return of the previous iPhone SE screen size.

BTW, I never ever liked this iPhone SE naming. It is utterly ugly. I cannot come over this one.

How to switch to “Sign in with Apple” with an existing account?

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 07:40:41 -0400

Here is something that bugs me with “Sign in with Apple” or with services that are supporting this feature.

The easy and fun part is when you sign up as a new user of a service supporting “Sign in with Apple”. But what if I’m an already signed up user for many years then I want to switch to “Sign in with Apple” without creating a new account? Some service are providing a way to link an Apple ID in order to enable “Sign in with Apple”. But it is the minority. WordPress.com is such an example.

Am I missing something?

A game changer Apple Watch app: Watchsmith.

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 07:42:07 -0400

Very promising new Apple Watch app: Watchsmith. I can see this coming to watchOS in some form or another in the future. There is a lot of potential here while waiting for custom watch faces from Apple. Subscription-based price a bit steep but I understand it must ensure sustainable development. We’ll see where it goes from here.

Another potential iPadOS game changer: introducing the iPad Main Menu.

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 19:53:39 -0400

I think I just saw the future of iPadOS. Please, if you are an avid iPad user, take a moment to take a look at a potential feature that could be the next big game changer after the mouse support introduced with iPadOS 13.4. The following website perfectly illustrates a potential new system wide feature: iPad Main Menu. Dear Apple, please, oh please, consider this for iPadOS 14. 🙏🏻🥺

www.ipadmenu.study

Remember these clicky keyboards? I do.

Sat, 04 Apr 2020 20:08:19 -0400

These were the best keyboards. I remember their touch, the feeling and… the clicky sound. twitter.com

Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) Tweeted: So I busted out my IBM PC keyboard model M. I wrote ZZT and Unreal Engine 1 on this thing. With apologies to Moore’s Law, I gotta say - 1984 was peak keyboard. The code just types out better with these keys. t.co/3j0V3eujq…

Is Microsoft missing the Covid-19 wave...?

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 08:29:30 -0400

While Microsoft was busy trying to build a clone of Slack (MS Teams), they forgot to pay attention to Skype. Having a personal and business edition after all these years makes no sense. But I wouldn’t count Microsoft out yet.

twitter.com/tomwarren…

I'm always looking to cut the noise. Here is something new.

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 07:15:06 -0400

I’m trying something new. It is always a good idea to cut the noise when looking at the news these days. To help me achieve that, I subscribed to 1 year of @mailbrew service. Here is the fruit of this new beginning. app.mailbrew.com/apple_obs…

Sad news from the Omni Group 😟

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 10:49:07 -0400

I used to be a big fan of OmniFocus from The OmniGroup. After having transited to Things when version 3.0 came out, I’m now, I’m back with Apple’s Reminders. For my business need, I now only use OmniGraffle in order to do technical diagrams. My hope is that layoffs doesn’t affect too much this app’s future on which I depend.

Reference :inessential.com/2020/03/3…

It is disgusting.

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 21:21:11 -0400

We are in a constant state of crisis. One crisis after the other. Is this the new normal? There are so many things that I find revolting right now in the US. It started a few years ago, in 2016. The following twitter thread calling the NYT to do its most basic job is so spot on. Yet, they fail again and again. Just listen to press conferences, one after the other. It is disgusting.

I’m sorry if in recent days I’m calling out more things about politics, The Clown in Chief and the US. I should be writing about Apple, photography my dear passions. This is a special time. It requires a special reaction I guess. I just want to return to some form of normality, acceptability. I guess we have to be patient.

Reference: daringfireball.net/linked/20…

Dark Sky weather app joins Apple

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 17:39:18 -0400

As a weather enthusiast, Apple buying Dark Sky is a very good news for at least two reasons. First, the Dark Sky app is not available in Canada. Apple will probably extend the service coverage in future releases. Second, it may signal Apple’s intentions to beef up its weather stock apps on all its platforms.

When you have to eat your own dog food

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 13:51:26 -0400

Now Apple will better understand how their software can be frustrating as hell…

Apple staffers suffer work-from-home setbacks due to security guidelines, travel bans appleinsider.com/articles/…

This is why I’m so angry 🤬

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 20:09:33 -0400

The root cause of why I’m so angry at the The Clown in Chief 🤡 and the whole political class in the US. They don’t care about humans except themselves.

Opinion | Who Will Win the Fight for a Post-Coronavirus America? www.nytimes.com/2020/03/2…

Too many questions, not enough answers ...

Sat, 28 Mar 2020 21:23:31 -0400

Some questions that come up in my mind during this pandemic crisis:

Is criminality going up or down?
Is there less suicides?
Where do we put used testing kits and used protective gear trash after use?
From where does all the government money for stimulus programs come from?
What if coronavirus mutates to a much more deadly virus?
Will we ever return to “normality”?
And many more…

Remember iOS 6 -> iOS 7 Redesign - Never Again

Fri, 27 Mar 2020 14:54:52 -0400

The last time an Apple operating system went through a redesig, iOS for that matter (iOS 6 -> iOS 7), it didn’t go well. We still pay the price of this today.

“The Verifier also outlines some of the features coming to watchOS 7, many of which we’ve heard before. watchOS 7 will allegedly include a “fresh design,” updates to built-in apps, and improvements to Siri, with little other information included.” - MacRumors

FaceID on Mac, really?

Thu, 26 Mar 2020 07:12:36 -0400

If FaceID comes on the Mac and a by-product is to get a better FaceTime camera, then, I’m all in. A notch for the iMac is stupid and unecessary though. #apple #faceid #mac #rumours appleinsider.com/articles/…

Returning to Facebook because of Coronavirus? (hit the link for my thoughts)

Tue, 24 Mar 2020 20:22:08 -0400

For the first time in more than a year, I’m considering returning to Facebook. My thoughts and feelings are still the same though. But this coronavirus crisis makes me want to get in touch we people I know. I don’t have much time to spend on this platform. I know I’ll quickly face the things that I couldn’t bear. I know… but.

I’m torn away. 😔 #covid19 #coronavirus #deletefacebook

COVID-19, Schools and Technology (hit link for more)

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 07:18:40 -0400

From what I’m seeing, the private school of my teenager where iPads are mandatory, don’t really take advantage of the possibilities of this technology. Limited remote teaching. No group chat, no nothing. That is a real reality check: the iPad as an enabling teaching device is quite overblown. More on this later.

Get him off Twitter

Mon, 16 Mar 2020 10:55:06 -0400

In other words, put the Clown in chief in quarantine.

‘Isolate him’: Ex-Trump official calls on president to go into ‘verbal quarantine’ during COVID-19 crisis www.rawstory.com/2020/03/i…

COVID-19 and my PhD Friend

Sat, 14 Mar 2020 08:56:29 -0400

I have a dear friend living in Denver, Co. He has a PhD in human comm. He is brilliant. But, he doesn’t understand all the fuss about COVID-19. For him, shutting down everything is over reacting. I tried to explain the curve, the pressure on health care system, etc. He thinks the flu is worst and yet we don’t shut down the country. I said yes and no.

We shouldn’t trust current numbers in the US because they are way undervaluated. There is no reason to think the US population will be affected differently than other population in other countries without containment. They will. And it will be much worst becaue there is a lack of major containment as of this writing. The US is a the beginning of the curve. The exponential curve. This will be ugly. Remember: a single day of “wait-and-see” does make a big dfference and we have the numbers and the experience of other countries to prove it.

On watchOS 7 and shareable watch face - an edge case example (hit link for the details)

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 12:16:16 -0400

What if a watch face uses a complication from a third-party app that the other user don’t have installed? How would this situation be handled? Highly probable edge case IMHO.

watchOS 7 to include new ‘International’ Apple Watch face with multiple country flags - 9to5Mac 9to5mac.com/2020/03/1…

iPadOS 14, a mouse and my next iPad purchase (hit link for my take)

Mon, 09 Mar 2020 22:04:49 -0400

If iPadOS14 actually finish the job of supporting the mouse, I’ll certainly reconsider my choice of iPad the next time I’m on the market for a new device.[Poll: Will mouse cursor support in iPadOS 14 change your Mac vs iPad preference? - 9to5Mac](9to5mac.com/2020/03/0…

Be caution for what you ask for (hit link for my take on macOS with touch support)

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 21:23:05 -0400

A bit old but since many are still requesting it… it is much a harder to make macOS touch-friendly than making iPadOS mouse-friendly. Touch support will come to macOS via Catalyst apps and ARM-based Mac. Mark my words. That being said, from what I’m seing from people with Windows-based machines with touch support, very people actually use it on a regular basis if at all. It’s about time for a Mac with a touch interface - Macworld

I wish you good luck with that (COVID-19) - (follow link for my take).

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 20:32:59 -0400

Well, let me guess for you: look no further than of your (insert worst adjective here) President.

Exclusive: The Strongest Evidence Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing www.theatlantic.com/health/ar…

Thanks to Apple for simplifying our numeric life (click link for more details)

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 09:28:21 -0400

Fascinating analysis by Jason Snell on vanishing ports from 15"/16" MacBook over the years. My take: Thanks to Apple for simplifyng our lives but the transitions are never fun. #apple #macbookpro sixcolors.com/post/2020…

Anxiety over #COVID-19 (follow link for details)

Fri, 06 Mar 2020 18:43:16 -0400

Are we at a turning point where there will be a before & after world as we know it? I mean, this shit is here to stay among us for a long time… right? This long streak of economic growth (since 2008) really look to be coming to an end. Young generations will find things, economically speaking, to be harsh from now on and will have to get their shit together when looking for jobs as unemployment will start to be on significant rise… I’m Gen X, I do know what is it like when future is uncertain from a jobs perspective… in case you asked. Full employment may be a thing of the past from now on. We’ll see.

Intel: Houston, we have a problem (follow link for the details)

Fri, 06 Mar 2020 13:38:09 -0400

I’m not a security expert but this “bug” seems quite serious. Macs not affected. AMD no affected. Trust going downhill. 😳🙁

5 years of Intel CPUs and chipsets have a concerning flaw that’s unfixable arstechnica.com/informati…

Apple, WWDC and COVID19

Mon, 02 Mar 2020 22:39:40 -0400

Apple usually show the way when it’s time to put humans interests above anything else. Apple cannot be far behind. WWDC2020 will (should) be a virtual event this year.

Google, Adobe cancel live segments of upcoming conventions due to coronavirus concerns appleinsider.com/articles/…

On Apple and Default Apps

Sun, 01 Mar 2020 19:39:32 -0400

I have some doubts that Apple will feel the pressure to up their game with the stock apps because they allow third-party apps to act as default ones. Why? What do they lose in case of status quo? Keeping pressure on them with constructive comments as bloggers has more effects. Why? It comes down to public image management.

On Apple Letting Users Switch Default Apps on iOS chambyte.net/on-apple-…

the man in charge

Sun, 01 Mar 2020 18:41:25 -0400

With this guy in charge, we have nothing to worry about.

Inside Trump’s frantic attempts to minimize the coronavirus crisis www.washingtonpost.com/politics/…

On iOS 13’s Share Sheet Design - Better? Worst?

Sat, 29 Feb 2020 09:25:15 -0400

The share sheet design in iOS 13: I find it confusing. 🤷🏻‍♂️ It is a step ahead of iOS 12 but yet I’m not satisfied and I don’t know why exactly. The inclusion of Shortcuts is ok but should they have been put in a separate section? Also missing in iOS 13: a way to maximize/minimize popover windows like this one. I understand the need to keep sight of context of invocation. Your take?

Well, yes, thank you to all developers

Fri, 28 Feb 2020 21:24:07 -0400

I was an indie developer from 2009 to 2013. I made three apps that got me about $5000 in revenue. I don’t know how much per hour this represents. I loved this time of my life where after a long work day I would sit in front of my Mac to learn Obj-C, Interface Builder, etc. until later in the night. Now, I can really appreciate what it is like to build apps and let the world know about them. Expressing Gratitude to Developers

On Apple, Catalyst and ARM-Based machines...

Fri, 28 Feb 2020 13:36:00 -0400

This thread is very interesting (from Steve Troughton-Smith): twitter.com/stroughto… Reading my piece on Marzipan, now called Catalyst, dating back from March of last year, I think it did age well. 😎 numericcitizen.me/2019/03/0…

Apple fixing the iPad Pro with... a redesigned keyboard with a trackpad. Really?

Thu, 27 Feb 2020 21:24:54 -0400

It will take much more than a redesigned keyboard for the iPad Pro to make it a viable solution to fully replace a laptop in many business or even personal use cases. It will take fixes to iPadOS: discoverability, multitasking, real mouse pointer, etc. [Report: Apple releasing iPad Pro Smart Keyboard with built-in trackpad this year - 9to5Mac](9to5mac.com/2020/02/2…

On bookmarking apps and services

Wed, 26 Feb 2020 17:39:00 -0400

Bookmarking apps and services like Pinboard are great but they offer limited features… (I was a user of Pocket before). For me, I decided to use more versatile tools like Notion.io instead. More complete, deeper learning curve but way more than bookmarking service. (I was evaluating Raindrop.io but stopped because of lack of support of multitasking on iPadOS. I wrote the developer about it. Still didn’t get a response). alanralph.co.uk/3721-2/

On macOS Catalina dialog bureaucraty

Wed, 26 Feb 2020 08:27:04 -0400

Security is not an easy thing to implement without adding layers and burden to the end-users. Same thing goes with added hardware features (like TouchID) which translate in added steps in the setup assistant. They do require setup. Is there a solution to all this? More features, less choices, same bureaucraty? pxlnv.com/blog/cata…

A new and interesting concept for iPadOS multitasking

Tue, 25 Feb 2020 08:06:32 -0400

Another iPadOS multitasking concept appeared on Twitter. First, this is an intersting starting point to redo multitasking on the iPad. Very simple gesture: single tap as it should be. My guess is that developers wouldn’t need to update their app in order to support this new model. It does fix the problem of finding the second app to bring in. Second, how the hell do they make these animations? How do we bring this to Apple’s attention? twitter.com/Rutherlin…

Desjardins' modern offices in Montreal's olympic stadium tour

Tue, 25 Feb 2020 07:39:47 -0400

Desjardins, a major financial institution here in Canada, deserving mostly Quebec province and well known for a major data breach they were victim of recently, occupies modern offices near my home. They rented and rearchitected the internal space available in the olympic stadium’s main tour. Impressive. See the link here to have a look. design-milk.com/montreals…

Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro: the perfect companion for urban exploration #urbex #shotoniphone

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 14:29:23 -0400

Today’s session of urban exploration was the first since I bought the iPhone 11 Pro last fall. As you might expect, going in with such a phone makes a great difference while shooting quick shots in dark places. This device is simply amazing (you can read my lengthy revew here btw).

First urban exploration session of 2020

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 07:55:04 -0400

Going to my first urban exploration session of 2020 with two other friends. It’s been a long time. The place is not exactly very exciting but who knows what we will discover. We never really know how a session turns out. Stay tuned for a sample later today. #urbex #urbanexploration #photographer

The future is now

Sat, 22 Feb 2020 18:35:12 -0400

My wife and I went for a walk today. Great weather. After a while, my wife says her Apple Watch asks permission to connect to my phone. I’m surprised. She didn’t bring her iPhone with her. I turned on hotspot on my iPhone. Just a few moments later, she get a phone call on the watch. She answer and start the conversation. How cool is that?

I didn’t know the Apple Watch could do this… It has something to do with the fact that she is in the iCloud Family and this was a call using wifi calling from her cell phone provider through my own iPhone. I’m impressed by all the involved technologies behind this.

Thoughts on Noto - Elegant Note

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 18:43:46 -0400

Interesting newcomer in the note taking apps landscape: Noto - Elegant Note. Really nice design. Not sure about long term viability (remember Evernote?). Not sure about design scalability with a lot of notes. Another subscription to take care of. Not cheap for a young app. MacStories.net has more to say about it for sure. I’ll keep on eye on that one. apps.apple.com/ca/app/no…

Yes but no

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 13:41:37 -0400

I know this one is fake but if the rumoured iPhone 9, or iPhone SE// or whatever they call it looks like this fake model, I kind of like it… especially the edges that looks like the one on the iPad Pro. Get rid of the bezels and voilà! But it’s not going to happen. #apple #iphone twitter.com/WhatTheBi…

On Apple Music app feedbacks

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 13:10:28 -0400

One of the things that I don’t like with Apple Music.app is this: the visual feedback that comes with adding or loving a song. Too obstructive, too slow. Reminds me of the volume hud… that Apple finally got rid of with iOS 13. Oh, and by the way, why burry Add and Love in a sub-menu? Agree? #applemusic #apple #ui #ux #design

Looking to add Google Analytics Widget to my iPad Home Screen - help

Fri, 21 Feb 2020 08:35:10 -0400

Asking my dear network of friends: I’d like to be able to put a widget of Google analytics on my iPad home screen. Do you know of any iOS apps that can do this? I’ll pay for it if the design is up to my taste. Something along the line of this one (which is no longer being maintained). Thanks. 🙏🏻 apps.apple.com/ca/app/ga…

Is Microsoft surpassing Apple on the design front?

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 21:43:22 -0400

Another prime example of Microsoft great efforts in designing visually appealing UI elements: icons. I love those very much. Can’t get out of my head the simple thought that they are getting better at design than Apple on the desktop OS front? Oh and pay attention to the mail icon design evolution from the very beginning to 2020.

link.medium.com/cZ3Azyjnf…

On social networks as debating tools

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 08:55:04 -0400

You know what? When reading replies on Twitter, I rarely go past 5 replies… this is usually the point where things are getting either ugly, out of control and not related to the original tweet. This is why I think social networks are not good instruments for debate and discussions.

On Apple Allowing Change of Defaults Browser

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 08:06:00 -0400

I expect Apple to go ahead with this, allowing the users to set a default browser or mail client on iOS. Changing defaults is part of a modern OS and this would be, in my opinion, another step towards the upcoming ARM-based Macs running iPadOS. 9to5mac.com/2020/02/2…

Cocooning, really?

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 08:28:08 -0400

Are we ready for a new social network? Do we need this? Judging by their website, the nice design of Cocoon certainly looks enticing. But do we need this? It will take a lot of traction to make people leave Facebook or other well established data-ungry players. I certainly hope new players to come in and shake this rotten industry. Judge for yourself. cocoon.com

Things I look for when evaluating an app for my own use

Sun, 16 Feb 2020 13:03:00 -0400

When evaluating a new app for my own use, the first things I look for are (in no particular order): update frequency, update notes quality, user ratings, multi-platform support (macOS, iOS, iPad support), sync mecanism used, one-time purchase vs subscription based, web service backend. I may elaborate on this subject on a longer blog post in the near future. Currently using this against Raindrop.io apps.apple.com/app/id102…

On foldable devices...

Sun, 16 Feb 2020 10:21:50 -0400

Nobody asked for these phones… you are trying too hard. To all smartphone companies: fix your software, stop tracking us without our consent, stop selling our data, be transparent with each updates and the “feature” they bring, implement rules against tracking features that comes in most apps these days and end up on your App Stores, etc. . twitter.com/mondoir/s…

On Medium as a platform for bloggers

Sun, 16 Feb 2020 10:12:24 -0400

For those wonder about using Medium as a publishing platform. Here is a summary for my last four publications. See the difference when a story gets approved? The last three stories were not approved for publication behind their paywall. Not cool. It is a hit or miss and so you don’t want to build too much confidence in the platform to help build any form of sustainable revenue, even small.

here is a really dopey idea

Sat, 15 Feb 2020 14:33:22 -0400

Apple should introduce another type of subscription: pay-per-use. Pricing would be based on the time spent on-screen, down to a second resolution. Pricing would be based on dime fractions, payable on demand, monthly or yearly. Exemple: five minutes of an app usage @ $ 0.00001 would cost 1.08 yearly. That is an extreme example for sure. But you get the idea, right? Don’t throw rocks at me if Apple ever see and then implement this! 🤫🙃

Where is the date of publication?

Sat, 15 Feb 2020 09:37:00 -0400

Here is something that I notice quite often while browsing the web: the lack of a publish date on articles, blog posts, etc. While living in the age of fast content consumption, where content relevance is depleting fast, it seems important, more than ever, to put a publishing date. I know we can sometimes infer the date from the URL but to me it isn’t the right way to do it.

A content creators, If we suspect content we publish will age well, let’s put a publishing date on it! If we do think this is ephemeral stuff, a publishing date helps put some context for the content. Makes sense?

it all comes down to compromise

Fri, 14 Feb 2020 19:01:26 -0400

When so many apps are available for a specific task, choosing one can be a nightmare. Recently, my focus was to select a new calendar app following the release of Fantastical update. I finally settled on the one that I use for a few years now: Calendar 5. The same is happening right now with RSS readers. But this time, I’’m switching from the excellent Reeder app to News Explorer. The latter is not perfect but from a functional point of view, it is an improvement. More on this soon.

On Testing News Explorer - Another RSS Reader

Fri, 14 Feb 2020 12:17:06 -0400

Yesterday I learned about the existence of a different RSS reader named “News Explorer”. As a long time user of Reeder, I wasn’t really interested in trying a different one. But, after playing with the trial version on macOS: I’m mostly converted. Stay tuned for more details.

When time was on a different scale

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 19:26:00 -0400

I’m still not finished with Apple’s « For all mankind » TV series. I like it for an unexpected reason: having a peak at the way people were living before the personal computers, smartphones, the Internet. It seems like time was slower so people had time to think. Oh, and they had a private life.

To all content creators: RSS feeds as facilitators, use them!

Sat, 08 Feb 2020 10:07:55 -0400

My goal as a blogger is to get people read my stuff. RSS feeds are a way to help users access my content. Trying to be protective is counterproductive for me. The idea is to remove friction to the users. If they want to read via Reeder for example, why not! On that note, If a website doesn’t provide an RSS feed, which is sad, I’m let interested to stay in touch. Just sayin. Is RSS Just Giving Your Site Away for Free?

Imperfection is good!

Fri, 07 Feb 2020 08:44:00 -0400

I love this idea of aiming for the imperfections in photography. In the age of hyper processed and over saturated images where they more or less seems to come from the same photographer, imperfect images will give you personality, a visual distinctive look. In praise of imperfect images — aows

Yes, @Gruber can be critical to Apple

Wed, 05 Feb 2020 21:20:27 -0400

Who said that @gruber can’t have a critical view of Apple? From his report card; Mac: D. Ouch. He doesn’t like the keyboard and macOS Catalina. iPad: D. Cause: software, again. Apple TV: D. Software. Again. I do agree with Catalina security being too strict and the lack of a more “relaxed mode”. daringfireball.net/2020/02/m…

On paying for software

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 20:39:00 -0400

There is a lot of push back about software subscriptions these days it seems. But we should remember about past scams with promised updates for paid software that never came. So many examples of “significant” updates that are merely excuses to charge the user base again. There is no perfect and definitive solutions when it comes to pay for software. It is a matter of trust between the developer and the users or potential customers.

On Gruber on Flexibits on Subscription Pricing

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 18:45:41 -0400

Well, it sounds like he is trying to justify the new and more expansive subscription model for Flexibits and Fantastical. For me, it does take much more than fancy animations to justify the price they ask. A working Apple Watch would help. Daring Fireball: Federico Viticci’s Review of the New Fantastical

Do many things, so,little time

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 13:43:35 -0400

Here is one of my problems: I don’t have enough time in a day to write about all the things I’d like to post here and on my main blog. So many things I would like to write about. One such thing is about my blogger workflow (what tools do I use and why, what platforms, etc.). 🤷🏻‍♂️

Learning new things about micro.blog everyday.

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 08:25:00 -0400

Just found out why for longer posts (> 280 characters) a title field shows up while editing my blog post. Nice touch. One thing though, I’d like to have the post categories always shown instead of having to hit the ellipsis button each time. Consider this a feature request. 🙋🏻‍♂️

iPadOS Upcoming Multitasking Feature Mockup

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 08:16:33 -0400

This iPadOS multitasking mockup is what Apple should try to do in the next major release. Better yet, I would implement it as a “pinch to merge” two apps when they are close together. If they are far apart, then tap and hold on one app, tap and slide over the other like on the mockup here is good! #apple #iPadOS twitter.com/orange_ki…

Categories?

Sat, 09 Feb 2019 09:09:14 -0400

Just discovered post categories on Micro.blog. I created them and assigned them to each of my posts. I don’t know if this will be reflected on the web site though.

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Mon, 22 Oct 2018 09:48:41 -0400

Aperture. Made by Apple. For Apple users. This was the time when they were serious about photography. They could have made a version for the iPad. But they dropped the ball. Adobe came in with their multi-platform solution, neither optimized for Apple

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Sun, 21 Oct 2018 11:32:10 -0400

As a njmeric citizen, an Apple citizen I might say, there is a very simple way now to get your data from Apple. Follow this guide. Google offers the same. Now it is easier than ever to know what they know about us. Now, the next step will be to help people designate others that should be allowed to get access the data once we pass away.

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Sat, 20 Oct 2018 09:52:10 -0400

I learn photography with traditional cameras using real films, way before numeric photography. I used to develop my own pictures, in my own darkroom. Black

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Fri, 19 Oct 2018 08:07:14 -0400

There is quite a lot of buzz these days about the possibility of creating our own watch face on the Apple Watch. Currently, this feature is not available to Apple Watch owners but a few clever guys on the internet did experiment with tools to create ones. And the possibilities are endless. And quite exciting too.

There is something sterile and compromising about choosing your watch face out of a fixed set of options. While the watchOS faces provide for a high degree of customization, there is something fundamentally different in being able to customize every single detail of the face. I started with a blank slate and was able to make the face look exactly how I wanted it. When displaying one of my creations it is now truly my most personal device ever.

From a blog post by

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Thu, 18 Oct 2018 09:16:38 -0400

Tonight I was watching TV. There was so many ads. One particular ad got my attention. This was an ad about a car. In order to show how cool the car is, how useful it can be to its users, there a scene where the driver uses Siri to send a message to his wife saying he is way home. A flawless experience. We can see Siri animated waves and the audio feedback, something known to a lot of people. But there is something wrong with all this.

Siri seems the underdog of all virtual assistants. People can’t stop complaining about it and how far behind it is. Yet, advertisers chose Siri over Google Assistant for this ad. If Google is so much better, why advertisers can’t choose Google to convey flawless virtual assistant experience? Is Apple

The Return of Micro Blogging ?

Sat, 13 Oct 2018 11:21:23 -0400

This morning, I found out the existence of a blogging platform called Micro.blog. Something very special. Very lean. Very light. Without ads. Leaner than WordPress. Yet capable. Close to Twitter but with less clutter. I’m on a 10-day trial period. Tested the web posting interface. Tested the native macOS (light) client. Tested the iPad version too. Now, testing cross-posting from WordPress via an IFTTT applet. I’m loving it so far. Stay tuned for more discoveries about Micro.blog.

Going To The (abandoned) Church.

Sat, 13 Oct 2018 11:02:21 -0400

These were taken while doing urban exploration with friends downtown Montreal, Canada. Many churches are agonizing here… some pictures are from an iPhone 7, others from my Nikon D750 processed with HDR technique.