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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. -
About My Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter
My next newsletter issue is nearly done. On Substack, I’m not a big name in the blogger sphere or a journalist dropping from places like the New York Times. Yet, I enjoy putting together this monthly newsletter, and I generally like the end results. Subscribers are staying and keep increasing over time. It’s a good sign, I guess. Are you one of them? https://numericcitizen.substack.com
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Happy Apple Updates Day! (#apple #ios145 #notracking #stoptracking)
To all my followers, have an successful Apple update day! This one has been long in coming! Don’t forget to disable app tracking as soon as you can. Best way to say āšš»ā to Facebook et al. Now turning to iOS 14.6 beta which seems to bring new devices support only (2021 iPad Pro).
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About these iPadOS 15 rumours (#apple #rumours #ipados15)
According to the infamous Bloomberg (remember the Big Hack story?), iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 will bring two much requested features. One is, for the iPhone presumably, is a redesigned Lock Screen. Iām in for that one. In fact, I would prefer a customizable Lock Screen, more than a redesign. But, the most interesting part is regarding the iPad. At long least, Apple is about to bring the full widgets experience on the iPad. YES! I do have high hopes for that one. Having full liberty on widgets placement on the iPad screen will be transformative. Even better if they support some form of minimal interactions with the applications behind them. Canāt wait for WWDC 21.
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One of those days (#appleevent)
This is one of those days where it will be hard to stay focused, thanks to the first Apple Event of 2021. Iāve got a pretty busy schedule at work, so I wonāt be able to catch the live feed with full attention this time around. I know that all these notifications will spoil the show. Rumours and leaks already made a great job already, though. But, what if there is āone more thingā?
Tonight, Iāll catch it all up, partially knowing most of the takeaways. It will be weird. Who likes to go see a movie knowing the story line in advance? I hate that. š
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On Facebookās pervasive destruction (#deletefacebook #stopmasssurveillance)
Today I woke up with this idea of hating Facebook and everything they represents. For those who know me, this is nothing new. But today is one of those days where I despise Facebook more than ever.
Letās face it, again: Facebook has made massive data collection an ordinary thing. Facebook normalized global surveillance a mundane fact. Facebook is killing the pillars of democracy without fanfare. Facebook has turned most of us a beast feeders. Facebook gave voice to those who should have been silenced because of their toxic and extremist thoughts. Facebook is the source of social cancer.
One day, we will wake up. I hope. š
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HEY World slowly fading... but... (#thoughts #blogging)
From time to time, I use the Ā«Ā HEY World ShuffleĀ Ā» URL to trigger the display of a randomly chosen HEY World user website. Itās funny as I never know what discovery Iāll make. I see a lot of users who made their first try of the service in its early days by sending random thoughts. The vast majority of users didnāt bother to continue but a few did, and there are a few gems to discover. Iām slowly building a list of HEY World bloggers, like a blog roll, by subscribing through RSS feeds. It is fun. That being said, the question is: was HEY World a fad? The jury is still out on that one. Yet, I see a lot of potential growth in features for this service. Will the owners care to make them happen?
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HEY World missing button
I wish there would be a āReply to the authorā button on HEY World user website. As it is now, I cannot find an easy and quick way to respond to a past post. I prefer to consume HEY World content through RSS feeds, not by subscribing via email.
Iām on HEY World, by the way. https://world.hey.com/jf.m. āš»šš»
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iPhone is getting fatter and fatter (#apple #jonyive)
iPhone is getting fatter and fatter (#apple #jonyive)
Since Jony Ive left Apple, a few years ago, the iPhone design adopted an opposite trend of becoming fatter and fatter. Itās not a night and day difference but there is a trend. It is a welcomed one because this gives Apple more āroomā to improve the cameras and the battery life. Speaking of the cameras, did you see the camera assembly protuberance on the CAD designs? It is getting bigger too, that I donāt like.
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Thinking of the next iPad (#appleevent #apple #ipadpro)
Tonight, using Craft, Iām writing my next piece for āNumeric Citizen I/Oā on my 2018 11āā iPad Pro with the Apple Magic Keyboard. Iām being this multitasking guy as Iām constantly switching between Craft, Soundcloud, Twitter, Safari, Ulysses, etc. Then, suddenly, my thoughts goes toward imagining what can Apple do to make me upgrade to the next iPad Pro.
You see, my current setup is near perfect for my needs and my current use cases. Iām far from maximizing this iPadās potential. So, ask me again, why should I upgrade to whatās coming next week? I cannot see anything. Maybe Apple has a few well hidden cards, just waiting to be played, one by one at next weekās virtual event. We shall see soon.
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My Expectations for āSpring Loadedā Virtual Event (#apple (#appleevent #springloaded)
At long last, Apple is calling the first virtual event of 2021 for next week. I have mixed up feelings about this one. AirTags, if they are real, arenāt game changer and really are complementary to anything Apple is doing these days.
I wrote a few times that for the iPad, the next major step wonāt come in the form of hardware upgrades but in software, with iPadOS 15. And this, happens every year on June at the WWDC conference. So, unless there is a last minute surprise from Appleās updated iPad Pro, my attention will be for the next WWDC, not this spring event.
Oh, about this rumoured iMac redesign, THIS I will be looking forward to it, but somehow, I think it is more a WWDC thing than anything else.
