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Thereās no such thing as time elasticity
Since early June, Iāve 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. š
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 whatās 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!
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On The Myth of Lack of Mac Management Tools
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.
Hereās 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 āšā moment for sure. I think Iām on earth on a mission: to debunk false perceptions about the Mac.
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Iām Not Publishing an iOS 16 or iPadOS 16 Wish List This Year
WWDC is around the corner. Itās usually the time of the year when tech pundits will work hard on their wish list for the next major revision of Appleās iOS 16 and iPadOS 16. I typically do that myself. This year, though, Iāll skip the whole thing. Appleās 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, Iād 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.
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A Week of Software Releases in Review
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 didnāt try it yet.
- Appleās 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. Itās not perfect but itās a noticeable upgrade. Some more detailed video on the update.
- Finally, I wanted to mention something about Glass. It wasnāt 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.
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The Power of Instant Publishing
Iām currently working on a proof-of-concept to migrate one of my website to Craft using the applicationās 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, thereās nothing more to do on my part. Itās the most frictionless experience to date. I find this powerful and satisfying.
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My Reading Workflow Is in a State of Flux
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. Iām not sure why. Iām still waiting for Readwise Reader application. While waiting for it, whatās 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 canāt 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 doesnāt offer a reading experience as it doesnāt 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 thatās 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, itās 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. š«
Photo by Javier Esteban on Unsplash
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On Returning on Telegram
Iām 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. Itās available on most of the Apple platforms, including the Mac. I like its design a lot. I donāt use it for chatting, only to receive messages from channels where comments arenāt enabled.
Only fools donāt change their mind.
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On Keeping a Seperate Computer for Creative Work
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 Iām 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, youāll get access to the same āvirtual space and digital contentā 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
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Interesting Ideas for iPadOS 16
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.
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When Uber is Being Rude
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 wasnāt 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.
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Doing Some Cleanup in My Home Office
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 donāt which I find fascinating because I did a lot in my younger times. Before the computers.
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Wondering About Returning to Podcasting
Now that Iām finally having my dedicated room in the house for working, Iām 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 Iāll 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, Iām not really good at audio or video production, and itās 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 Iām 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.
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Taking a break of many things
If you are wondering whatās up with me, Iām on vacation for a week. Iām 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 šš
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When Apple Pivoted
Thanks to MacRumors, as reported today, I didnāt know today was the fifth anniversary of a special meeting between Appleās top brass and select journalists to talk about Appleās plans with the pro users and their commitment to the Mac.
At the time, we didnāt know how serious Appleās 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 canāt wait to see what the next ten years will be made of.
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Itās Was So Fun
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$. š¤ 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. Itās gives you an idea how old I am. š
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Venting My Frustration About Microsoft Teams
Itās 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.
Hereās the thing. Microsoft Teams, currently at version 1.5 still isnāt 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 whoās so slow to move and fix Teams? I donāt 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. Theyāve been working on this since June of last year.
Itās 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.
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Dear Mobile Apps Developers
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.
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Pausing My Apple Studio Display Buying Decision
Well, after a promising start, following reviews of the Apple Studio display, it seems that Iāll put my buying decision on hold. As I wrote, one of the reasons why Iām 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. Itās close to being a deal breaker.
Apparently, the Apple Studio display is running a version of iOS 15.4. Yep, sounds overkill, and yet, itās 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.
Hereās 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 itās 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, Iāll make a final decision. Now, I canāt wait to see in action the software upgrade process on this thing.
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āThe Mac Studio contains radical innards in a plain exteriorā
Benjamin Mayo in Apple Introduces MacĀ Studio:
āā¦the introduction of a brand new model of Mac is precisely the best time to do something entirely new.ā
And
āThe 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.ā
I share the same sentiment. A new form-factor is a rare thing from Apple. An elongated Mac mini doesnāt do justice the Mac Studio interior, even less to its name. Another missed opportunity. I guess āreal prosā doesnāt give a damn about all of this.
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Two Years Agoā¦
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. Iāll 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; thatās the only way for me to do more photography. Something that I didnāt do much in the last two years. This visual work posted in April of 2020 was the trigger to write this blog post. Iām 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, Iāll 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. Itās ok. Itās 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 Iām 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.
