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.  Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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; Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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? Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

[@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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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™. Continue reading →

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! Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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.  Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →