Longer posts

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

August 9, 2022 7:13am

Photography

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

August 3, 2022 7:39am

Food for thought

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 ...

August 1, 2022 8:00am

Photography

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

July 29, 2022 6:49am

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

July 28, 2022 9:16pm

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

July 23, 2022 8:53am

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

July 8, 2022 4:15pm

Food for thought

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

July 2, 2022 12:11pm

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

June 18, 2022 8:17am

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

May 26, 2022 6:35am

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

May 24, 2022 7:04am

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

May 20, 2022 6:58am

Reading Time: 2 minutes

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

May 18, 2022 10:39am

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

May 7, 2022 7:25am

Reading Time: 2 minutes

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

May 2, 2022 6:56am

UkraineWar

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

April 30, 2022 8:23pm

Food for thought

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

April 26, 2022 6:52am

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

April 24, 2022 8:00am