I rarely comment on rumours from highly speculative reports, but this report from MacRumors is different: “The Apple Music for Artists app now features a simpler, streamlined icon with a pinkish red music logo rather than the multicolored logo that was used before. The icon also has an embossed look that makes it stand out from other Apple icons.” and “App Store Connect in October was updated with a refreshed icon that’s similar to the ‌Apple Music‌ for Artists icon, which means Apple has now updated two app icons with this new design. Continue reading →

There is a lot to like in the recent Tim Cook’s interview with Kara Swisher (link to Podcast). It’s a must-listen. Here are a few observations and remarks. I love Tim Cook’s stance on issues like privacy protection. But at the same time, I have a hard time understanding how Apple can continue to sign a search deal with Google while advocating privacy protection. This is simply unsustainable and hard to defend if you ask me. Continue reading →

In a word: Pocket. I’ve been rediscovering this application in recent days, and I’m loving it a lot. I no longer read articles within Safari or News Explorer. As soon as I think the article is interesting, I save it to Pocket and continue from there. The reading experience is simple and is frictionless. Being able to tag and highlight each article helps me organize and add value to my readings. Continue reading →

Today, I’m remembering things like Turbo Pascal, TRS-80, ResEdit, 6502, LDA #$69, Inside Macintosh, Z-80, TI 99-4A, Logo, Commodore 64, Apple //c, ATZ modem command, eWorld, POKE 63280,0, COBOL 85, PDP-11, Choplifter, Broderbund, Multiplan, 4th Dimension, Sprites, Omni Database, Think Thank, Mac Draw, PageMaker. These are some of the most significant souvenirs of numeric artifacts of my past numeric life. What are yours? Continue reading →

Today, I have come to realize that, since its introduction, I didn’t see the iPhone 12 lineup in person. It’s the first time that I didn’t go to an Apple Store to see, manipulate and experience a new Apple product release. How big is the Max? How small is the mini? What about this new edge? The same goes for the Mac Pro. The pandemic has really put a dent in our lives in some unexpected ways, big and small. Continue reading →

I’m no musicien. I know barely nothing about music theory. Yet, I always wanted to do some form of music. Synthesizer would be my instrument if I was to do music. Yet, I’ve been fascinated by music, especially electronic music since I was a teenager. I’m a big listener of techno and house music. Recently, I started to use my iPad while exercising on the treadmill to play video on YouTube of DJ doing mixes. Continue reading →

Apple just kicked off the 2021 season of high expectations, endless wishes lists, criticism, betas, crashes, deception, no-show products, expected hardware refreshes, iPad deceptions, etc. Again, this year, it will be a digital-only version, thanks to the lingering COVID-19 pandemic. I’m happy with that. As I wrote in the past, my hope is that this type of event stays digital. I’ve never been to a real WWDC so I don’t miss anything. Continue reading →

Friday thinking… I find is so refreshing to be able to have decent conversations on the open web. There is no drama here, everything seems so… simple. It brings back some confidence about human’s capabilities to engage in respectful conversations…. That’s be because there are lots of nice guys here on Micro.blog… it is lacking elsewhere (no finger pointing here, I won’t name a platform… but, well, ya know, right?). Continue reading →

How funny is that? It seems Intel is applying its “tick-tock strategy” to its relationship with Apple. One week, Intel is slamming Apple’s M1 Macs with highly questionable ads featuring Justin Long, the week after Intel is luring Apple’s business to make their future processors. So obviously you’ve seen some of the competitive energies resume because there’s a lot of great innovation to be done, and we haven’t seen PC demand at this level for a decade and a half. Continue reading →

AppleInsider: Apple needs to release new products to compete in the home. Be it an “Apple TV 6” or “HomeHub,” something needs to change the customer’s perspective in order to get traction in the space. The article fails to mention a feature a HomePod replacement could and should include: home networking. I wrote about this many times. Apple left home networking market at a time where it was transitioning to WIFI 6 and home automation really started to pick up pace, thanks to things like HomeKit. Continue reading →

From BuzzFeed: Executives at Instagram are planning to build a version of the popular photo-sharing app that can be used by children under the age of 13, according to an internal company post obtained by BuzzFeed News. Sorry for the bad words, but this is beyond any shit ever spit out by Facebook. They literally scrap anything they touch: Instagram, WhatsApp, society. WTF are Facebook’s Instagram leadership thinking? I’m so tired of this shit! Continue reading →

According to 9to5Mac, users from Russia, upon setup of their brand-new iPhone: Apple users will see a dialog box upon initial setup of new devices that features web browsers, antivirus, messenger, email clients, and more to be installed by default. The list of apps is provided by the government. At first, I thought it was a bad decision from Apple, to allow this to happen. Bending to state laws from a country like Russia doesn’t look good. Continue reading →

Well, rumours abound, changes to the Apple Store options for the iMac, the demise of the iMac Pro, something is really going on with the iMac line. As Apple is currently in the midst of their transition to a full Apple Silicon future for the Mac, we may find what’s coming next, sooner than later. I always loved the iMac because it is the most truthful version of the Mac original vision. Continue reading →

Thought of the day: read later lists are useless for me. I tend to forget about the items I save in them. It was true with Instalaper, Pocket, Safari and now Reeder. I don’t read more because I save things in them. The trick for me is to read it now or else. Simple. The longer I wait to pick an article out of these lists, the less likely I will read it. Continue reading →

As reported by MacRumors: “Apple has tested ‌iPad‌ Pros with a Thunderbolt connector that would make them compatible with additional external monitors, hard drives, and peripherals, plus it brings faster data syncing speeds. Apple’s Mac machines have featured Thunderbolt technology for years now, but current ‌iPad Pro‌ and iPad Air models have standard USB-C ports.” Such an iPad feature has to come with much improved operating system support for external devices, like external monitors, which is currently very limited under iPadOS 14. Continue reading →

Honestly, I like these Intel ads with Justin Long. The one with the dongle, at the very end, is priceless. These ads are fun. Not as fun as the “originals”, though, but still. Intel hits the nerves. Intel is playing the Apple playbook, simple as that. It’s an interesting moment, a blip, in the advertising world. Nothing more. Will it make a difference? I doubt it. Continue reading →

What does the iMac Pro and the HomePod, two entirely different products, have in common? It’s not the fact that they are no longer being sold. The iMac Pro and the HomePod were created by Apple when they were caught off guard by market trends. In the case of the iMac Pro, Apple tried to answer pro users who were demanding a replacement to the aging trash can Mac Pro. Continue reading →

For those who didn’t know, I have two newsletters. One available from Substack available at https://numericcitizien.substack.com on a monthly basis and the other one entirely made with Mailbrew. On every Saturday morning, a newsletter is built using the RSS feeds of my blogs as a source to create a summary of all my publications in the last week. So, take a look at the latest issue of “Numeric Citizen Newsletter”. There are currently 30 subscribers to this newsletter. Continue reading →

Greg Morris on digital consumerism: The level of consumerism and marketing tricks being used to sell apps and services is growing over time. They all promise to fix that gap in your work life, just like adverts promise to fix the one in your love life, or improve your happiness, or whatever it is. It’s all lies. I cannot talk for others, but for me, when I’m jumping on another service or a new app, it’s because it offers a seizable improvement. Continue reading →

WebP image format goal, according to Google: WebP is a modern image format that provides superior lossless and lossy compression for images on the web. Using WebP, webmasters and web developers can create smaller, richer images that make the web faster. WebP lossless images are 26% smaller in size compared to PNGs. WebP lossy images are 25-34% smaller than comparable JPEG images at equivalent SSIM quality index. I’ve seen more and more WebP images in recent months when I try to download an image from Safari. Continue reading →