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Importing HEY World Posts to Substack? @SubstackInc
Nope. Better chance next time. No easy way to ask for help either. Tried different variations of the RSS feed URL. Nope, doesnāt work. There is no option to expert from within HEY either. As you can see, looking for some easy way out of HEY World. šØš»āš»
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My Go-To Internet Destination for Reading: Mailbrew Website
I recently noted that Iām spending much more time on Mailbrew website for my newsletters reading rather than in HEY Feed. Why is that? Well, I think there are a few sticky features in Mailbrew that helps me better process information tidbits. First, the reading experience is great. The āReadā button next to a URL will bring a nicely formatted version of an article from a URL. Second, A āsaveā button is handily available for me to use if I want to keep a piece of information for later use. My collection of saved items is growing by the day. Thereās also the Save to Mailbrew bookmarklet that comes handy. The website on the iPad is also a joyful experience.
Mailbrew update schedule is pretty fast and brings many small improvements on a constant flow. Now, if only there was a highlighting feature it would make Mailbrew reading experience a perfect fit for my workflow.
By the way, thanks to Mailbrew, you can get a weekly summary of all my publications here.
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Are we supposed to cry?
“I upended my life for Apple. I sold my WA residence which I built with my own hands, relocated myself, shut down any public media presence and future writing aspirations, and resolved to build my career at Apple for years to come,”
Well, now that he has been fired, he is complaining on Twitter that Apple knew in advance… maybe, maybe not. My gut feeling is that the C-Level knew, but not the upper management. When it came to their attention, they acted in accordance to their well-known values.
Source: Antonio Garcia Martinez says Apple fired him, company was ‘well aware’ of his writing | AppleInsider
Mr. Martinez Twitter thread is here.
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Only 17K Apps for the Apple Watch (#apple #applewatch #appstore #apps)
(…) there are only 17k Watch apps: like Amazonās Alexa, the Apple Watch is a huge success but has largely failed as an app platform. Source: Benedict Evans’ takeaways from the first week of Epic vs. Apple | Philip ElmerāDeWitt
Only 17K apps for the Apple Watch?? Calling this a failure is a bit surprising. The Watch is a narrow platform compared to the iPhone, the iPad or the Mac. I don’t expect as many apps to be available for the Watch. This form-factor isn’t obviously suitable for a lot of applications categories. I think 17K apps is quite a lot actually because I don’t get a sense of it when I browse the App Store from the Apple Watch itself or from my iPhone. This is where Apple is failing: discovery of Watch apps is miserable, just like it is in general on Apple’s App Store.
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This form-factor, this one orā¦ this one?
One of the cooless by-product of the Apple strategy is the unification of the processing unit among its product lines, leaving the form-factor the unique differenciation attribute.
Previously there were many people who wanted a laptop, but ended up buying a desktop because it would be more powerful. Now the only choice the customer has to make is whether they prefer the MacBook or iMac form-factor, because the internal hardware is the same in each. Source: Apple execs praises how M1 enables same performance for different devices in interview - 9to5Mac
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Thought (or frustration) of the day
Apple’s macOS Big Notifications Center is probably the most frustrating, infuriating and un-Apple experience of all. Man this thing is badly designed. Who at Apple think it ok? He or she is a C player! Hoping for major re-work for macOS 12. There, I said it. š¤¬
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Here is Why Appleās Safari Purposely Lags Behind
Browsers look more and more like operating systems. Apple knows this, and they are probably afraid for their App Store business.
This article from Alex Russell of Infrequently Notes is very convincing: Apple purposely delay implementation of new web standards to refrain developers to build web applications. New web standards are enablers for new kinds of web applications with richer features set. Those richer apps could go against Appleās App Store profitable business. No wonder why so many people are using alternative browsers to Safari. But thatās not all. Since Apple, in general is a big player, its influence is unquestionably high, the lack of support from them for so many basic and essential web standards discourage new application opportunities. Thatās too bad and makes me wonder how sites like Mailbrew who offers a web application could improve if all browsers, including Safari would support most web standards. Mailbrew is already good on the iPad, closely mimicking a native application, yet I wonder.
Can we hope for changes at the next WWDC conference?
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Be careful for what you wish for (#apple #appstore #monopoly)
Apple is under so much pressure on so many fronts these days. It is so fashionable to put pressure on them. The App Store is one big target. Iām getting tired of people wishing for changes that I donāt want to become reality. Sure Apple is far from perfect, yet, people should be careful for what they wish for. I decided to express my voice and started to write on the subject. It will be controversial, but it will be honest and true to my beliefs and wishes. I donāt really care if Iām right or wrong. I expect to publish my article just before WWDC. Stay tuned.
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Apple, please, consider us like grown ups (#apple #ios15)
On Apple’s Shortcuts notifications: I second this! Notifications are not needed for most of us and should be silenced in iOS 15. At least, provide an option to make it quieter. I like the idea of a status bar indicator, just like the localization services when they are trigerred.
Apple Shortcuts Is Great, but It Needs a Notification Toggle - Initial Charge
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96%. (#asknottotrack #privacy #privacyprotection)
Iām so proud of people right now: medias are reporting that 96% of them chose to protect their basic right for online privacy. I wasnāt expecting that many people to select the āAsk Not To Trackā option. This is a game changer. This should serve as a clear message to businesses with business models essentially based on personal data mining and online profiling without user consent. Enough is enough. For those who are ok with hyper targeted ads, fine, but not at this cost. I salute Apple for moving forward with this feature in iOS 14.5. Coupled with services like NextDNS, Iām starting to see quite an improvement in my web surfing experience and being more at ease doing so.
Those who selected āAllowā probably didnāt know what it was all about.
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Apple: Opinionated and Stubborn
Ken Segall on Appleās stubborn attitude:
āItās disappointing that the modern Apple is so willing to stonewall, and that it can take an inexcusably long time to set things right.ā
Mr. Segall piece is baffling. Taken together, those bad apples make Apple look terrible at design. Apple is opinionated and takes bold risks when designing new products and services. This comes at a cost, occasionally. Apple is far from perfect, but they should know that quickly admitting when they fail makes the mistakes more easily forgiven.
What Apple product currently shipping that has baffling design flaws for which Apple doesnāt seem to care fixing, beside the Magic Mouse? I donāt see that many as they silently fixed most of them in recent years.
Photo credit: Maria Teneva / Unsplash
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Where is Adobe Lightroom Classic for Apple Silicon? (#photography #adobe #lightroom)
That’s a serious question. I mean, we do have Lightroom CC for M1 Macs… (performance is good but not stellar compared to Intel version. There’s still work to be done by Adobe to take performance further). The absence of the optimized Lightroom Classic version is troubling. What does it mean about Lr or even Adobe? Is Adobe relying too much on cross-platforms libraries or components that are much harder to re-compile for the M1 chip? I find this fascinating that such a big company is falling behind compared to much smaller players… I’m thinking about Pixelmator here.
I’m waiting for this optimized version to complete my migration from Intel iMac to the M1 Mac mini.
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On Apple's Night Shift (#apple #iphone)
Surprisingly, Apple’s Night Shift does not help in any way to fall asleep, according to a study. Intuitively, I thought of the opposite. When Apple launched this feature, in 2016, they said it would help. It seems it’s not the case after all. Will they backtrack and remove the feature in a future version? I highly doubt it. Many people do like this feature (I do on the iPhone, I hate it on the Mac), others like @Gruber don’t. What I don’t like is when the feature is in action, opening Photos abruptly turn the visual effect off. The effect is brutal as the screen turns blueish and cold because of the contrasting mode. I would prefer a more gentle disabling of the feature.
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What the hell is this? (#apple #appstore)
One evidence taken out of the Epic vs Apple trial yesterday, the above email. This email from Mr. Schiller shows how unhappy he was with scam apps being #1 on the App Store. His numerous questions are expressing frustrations. He saw what we keep seeing all too often today, nine years later. So, where are the reviewers? What value are they adding to the user experienceās bottom line? Apple could strictly rely on machine-based curation only instead, but they prefer the added touch of human-based curation for the editorial content. Does it make a real difference? On the surface maybe. With the scale of the App Store, cracks are obviously possible, hence bas actors are taking advantage of them, to create scams one after another.
Apple doesnāt look good because some of their arguments arenāt backed with proven and irrefutable facts. As a gatekeeper of the quality on the App Store, Apple is failing. Big time. From scams apps to badly designed ones, to never updated ones, beneath the front page surface, the App Store feels and look like a junkyard.
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Found! (#apple #airtags)
Got my four pack of AirTags. Unboxing is simple. Nice to hold and feel in the hands. Easily scratched. Setup is so Apple-esq. Love em! Keys. Backpack. Wallet. On for my wife. For her wallet. Obviously. Tested the Find My to locate my items. Works great. Will report back if I ever lose one of my things and find it back. For real. Canāt wait to use them for traveling.
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The Pandemic Effects on my Digital Good Purchases
I never bought so many applications and utilities or subscribed to so many services since the beginning of the pandemic. For the latter, I had to use Appleās Number just to keep track of all of themš³š¤Ŗ. Because Iām working from home since March 2020, my work-related expanses are close to zero. I donāt go buy a coffee or snacks in the middle of the workday as I used to. I donāt buy transportation titles anymore. I no longer commute. Furthermore, I no longer travel. My home office setup upgrade is complete. This mean that I have more to spend on something else. Iām more inclined to buy digital goods. Some are impulse buys. Thatās why I invested in many macOS applications and utilities which gave me the idea of writing this article āTips & Tricks & Utilities for Boosting Your Productivity with Appleās macOS Big Surā.
I donāt know if a return to normal will push me to cancel any of my applications or utilities subscriptions. I donāt think so as I think they are needed and useful to my blogger workflow. I return to this commuting world as Iāll keep working from home forever. Iām not alone and this makes me wonder how profound changes caused by this pandemic could be on so many economic levels.
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My Apple Purchase Plans (#apple #airtag #mynext)
Itās been a quiet week-end in term of content creation; I took a small break. As the week-end come to an end, I decided to spend some time in creating a web page using Craft. This web page is about my Apple purchase plans. Itās part of my Digital Garden. As youāll see, my next Apple device is coming tomorrow: AirTags. I bought a four pack. Canāt wait to try these small wonders.
Happy end of week-end.
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Friday musing
TGIF! šš» It’s a rainy Friday here. Friday is a slow and strange day for me as a blogger and content creator. I should go more often on Flipboard. In a way, Ello makes me think of Micro.blog. It’s been a long time since my publishing pipeline has been that low. I’m catching up, I guess. My Micro.blog feed is quieter than usual; is the Ulysses effect already fading? I’m not a good podcasts listener. I won’t get my four-pack AirTag today. I didn’t order the Apple TV 4K with updated remote; don’t know when I will. That’s a great question.
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Build it and they will come (#ipadpro #m1chip)
The way I look at this upcoming M1 iPad Pro is, according to this interview with some Appleās top brass, Apple thinks that, by building a powerful iPad (not referred as a tablet), developers will find a way to take advantage of it. Like the old saying: build it and they will come. Did Apple create performance headroom for themselves too, not just for third-party developers? Apple certainly wants some form of future proofing with this yearās iterative design. Iām still pondering the idea of buying such big iPad while keeping my āolderā 2018 11ā iPad Pro, it will depends of iPadOS 15.
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Back to the 2005 Internet ā Thanks to NextDNS (#notracking #nextdns)
This is not an ad. I promise. I finally decided to enable NextDNS on all my devices and subscribed to their yearly plan after testing it on my iOS devices. The last configuration applied was on my M1 Mac mini. Oh boy, surfing the web feels like the internet back in the days. Places like CNN or iPhoneInCanada or MacRumors are now without any ads and are crazy fast to load. Now, I can see content without distraction. I feel that Iām back to the 2005 Internet. I feel that I’m winning, for once. Numeric life can be good, thanks to NextDNS.
