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Canāt wait to try this
This is the Opal webcam. For the Mac. Made by Apple people. Canāt wait to try this out. Not cheap, though. Not ready yet either.
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Quick Ranting On Medium App Updates
Consider this screenshot of the Medium.app updates streak. Itās 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 ofā¦ reading their content? I greatly reduced my use of Medium for reading content, partly because of this.
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On VMware Not Supporting the Mac Pro
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. Appleās 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 āmalaiseā.
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The next #AppleEvent is coming!
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.
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The (short) story of a scratch
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. šš¤¦š»āāļø
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A thought on the Apple Watch Series 7
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. Iām not so sure about the boxy design. Itās ok for the iPad or the iPhone but for a watch? To me, it could make it less approachable, less jewelry. Weāll see in a few weeks. There is one thing that Iād 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.
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A typical month on Substack
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.
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And so it begins. What's next?
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.
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On Apple's M1 MacBook Air energy efficiency
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.
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While waiting for iCloud Private Relay...
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?
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Late to the party, but...
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. š„°
I’m working on an essay about my new adventure in the MacBook Air land. Stay tuned.
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Feeling honored
It doesnāt 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 ElectronĀ on https://numericcitizen.me received a backlink from Michael Tsai (look for āJF Martinā and youāll 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.
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About this āin-publicā design
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 Appleās 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 isnāt never.
Iād love to read the behind-the-scene-story about this āin publicā design process that we all witnessed. The Safari team surely scrambled to fix the design issues between beta 1 and beta 6ā¦ 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.
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When designers canāt decide...
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 thatās 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 itās another case of āIf you canāt decide which design is the best, just add another option in Settings so the user decide.ā
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We will have to wait for these... sadly.
SharePlay, ID Cards, App Privacy Report, Custom email domain, detailed 3D navigation in CarPlay, Legacy Contacts, Universal Control wonāt ship with iOS 15.0 this fall. Weāll have to wait for an update later, like 15.1, 15.2 or even later. Thatās a lot of stuff missing the deadline. I was looking forward to Legacy Contacts and Universal control… Apple is often a waiting game.
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What a bizarre advice
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. Thatās 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 donāt feel invested in a mission to show my support to Apple, either by buying shares or their products.
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Doing all the things I love
After an emotional week-end, long in coming, today I’m doing all the things I love the most: doing computer stuff ā writing in a coffee shop ā feeling like a real blogger ā doing some photo processing ā walking ā 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
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Appleās cheap labour: concept creators
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 didnāt fundamentally change any of its behavior. Weād like to see that change with the next version of macOS. With Monterey being mostly full of small refinements rather than big ideas, weād expect Mammoth to be a monstrous release.
Iām using one of his screen design that pertains to widgets improvements. I recently wrote about those and Appleās sad design decision to keep them in the notifications center for Big and Monterey. I think Ortolaniās design is interesting and plausible. Freedom of placement certainly makes the experience more satisfying. Itās 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 Appleās cheap labour. I wonder if Appleās designers notice those.
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On this unexpected and mysterious macOS Big Sur 11.5.2 update
Dear Apple, as an owner of an M1 Mac mini, a MacBook Air and an iMac, donāt you think that Iām entitled for an explanation about what does this update fix? I think I do.
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Excited for aā¦ keyboard
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 wasnāt 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. Itās 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). Thatās why I bought the keyboard. Itās not cheap, but convenience has a price for Apple.
