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Reinventing my usage of the iPhone ā A start
Iāve 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. š¤š¤·š»āāļø
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People are underwhelmed by Appleās updates, yetā¦
According to a survey by SellCell, people arenāt 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 Appleās 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. Itās 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.
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Full iOS 15 Beta Schedule Revealed! (#apple #ios15beta2)
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. Letās see if these guesses are good or not.
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On Antitrust legislation and Apple iPhone experience
I always thought that politicians and their aides donāt 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 āHelloā. 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.
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On Safari 15 redesign
Great Safari 15 critic here. I didnāt test the new Safari design yet, but eventually I will (probably when public beta is released). Apple made bold moves with this new design. Iām 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. Thatās typical of Apple.
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On Intelās market share falling
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.
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Is your iPhone really yours?
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.
ā David PierceSource: Apple defends the walled garden - Protocol ā 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?
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App Clip can be really cool
Iām a bit late to the party but this use of Appleās 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.
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Michael Tsai: On macOS Big Sur lingering issues
This blog post from Michael Tsai paints a very terrible picture of macOS Big Sur. Unstable, weird design decisions, lotās of issues in Appleās Mail, etc. Sounds like the worst macOS incarnation of all time. Personnally, I donāt experience many issues with macOS Big Sur, but I do feel itās a weird design overall. The next release, macOS Montery, doesnāt appear to fix bad design choicesā¦ Iām thinking about widgets handling and notifications dismissal.
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Focus ā A Game changer feature in experiencing Apple devices?
The more I read and learn about the upcoming āFocusā feature in Appleās upcoming OS updates, the more I think it could be a transformative feature in experiencing Appleās devices. The combinaison of notifications and home page configurations assigned to each focus mode has powerful implications. Even though Iām not on the beta train right now, Iām already at work designing the different focus modes I plan to use on my devices. As you might expect, Iāll be writing a detailed blog post about this in the future.
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The change that didnāt came (#apple #wwdc21 #developers)
This take from Gruber āApp Store: The Schiller Cutā 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 āifā to āwhenā and āhowā. Iām 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). ā Phil Schiller in 2011
They missed the opportunity this year. Apple is in a weak position and I donāt see how this could change anytime soon.
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Thatās clever, Apple.
To run an internal version of iOS, each employee must first install a special profile on the device ā 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
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Time to move off Appleās Intel iMac? (#apple #adobe #lightroomclassic #applesilicon)
With Adobe finally releasing Lightroom Classic for Apple Silicon Macs, This could enable me to move off my 2017 21.5ā 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 12.9ā 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?
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I was over-simplifying quite a bit
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, Appleās 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.
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iPadOS 15 to limit certain features to iPad Pro? (#apple #ipados15 #wwdc21)
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?
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Popup Menus ā Comments About This Relic of iOS 3 ā Could There Be A Better Design? (#apple #wwdc21 #ipadOS15 #ios15)
Consider the previous screenshot showing the popup menu when selecting a word in a document. This menu hasnāt been touched since iOS 3, if I remember correctly. Tomorrow, as we are about to get a peek at iPadOS 15 and iOS 15, Iām wondering if there are better ways to display such a menu. Consider a few design problems and possible improvements.
This menu doesnāt scale well; it isnāt 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 doesnāt 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?
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The iMac vs a Simple Monitor
The Thunderbolt display is now a vintage product for Apple. When I look at this beautiful monitor, Iām 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. Itās an important visual differentiation factor in my opinion. The iMac is not a simple monitor.
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Micro.blog > Twitter Blue.
I like how Micro.blog stacks up against Twitterās 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.
Indeed.
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Count me OUT then - Twitter Blue #twitterblue
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 wonāt get with Twitter Blue: an ad-free experience. Advertising is still the biggest chunk of Twitterās revenue, and theyāre not going to replace that with direct subscriptions anytime soon. Source: Twitter Blue subscription launches in Australia, Canada ā 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.
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Certainly a massive leak... (#apple #iphone13)
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?
