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. Can’t wait to use them for traveling.

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 Apple’s Number just to keep track of all of them😳🤪. Because I’m working from home since March 2020, my work-related expanses are close to zero. I don’t go buy a coffee or snacks in the middle of the workday as I used to. I don’t 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. I’m more inclined to buy digital goods. Some are impulse buys. That’s why I invested in many macOS applications and utilities which gave me the idea of writing this article “Tips & Tricks & Utilities for Boosting Your Productivity with Apple’s macOS Big Sur”.

I don’t know if a return to normal will push me to cancel any of my applications or utilities subscriptions. I don’t think so as I think they are needed and useful to my blogger workflow. I return to this commuting world as I’ll keep working from home forever. I’m not alone and this makes me wonder how profound changes caused by this pandemic could be on so many economic levels.

It’s 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. It’s part of my Digital Garden. As you’ll see, my next Apple device is coming tomorrow: AirTags. I bought a four pack. Can’t wait to try these small wonders.

Happy end of week-end.

TGIF! 🙏🏻 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.

The way I look at this upcoming M1 iPad Pro is, according to this interview with some Apple’s 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 year’s iterative design. I’m still pondering the idea of buying such big iPad while keeping my “older” 2018 11” iPad Pro, it will depends of iPadOS 15.

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 I’m back to the 2005 Internet. I feel that I’m winning, for once. Numeric life can be good, thanks to NextDNS.

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

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 “🖕🏻” to Facebook et al. Now turning to iOS 14.6 beta which seems to bring new devices support only (2021 iPad Pro).

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. I’m 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. Can’t wait for WWDC 21.

This is one of those days where it will be hard to stay focused, thanks to the first Apple Event of 2021. I’ve got a pretty busy schedule at work, so I won’t 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 “one more thing”?

Tonight, I’ll 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. 😒