Coming back from vacations. 🛬 Returning to normal programming this week. Vacations are always a great opportunity to disconnect and let new ideas pop up.
2023-04-15

RIP Twitter 2007-2022 is now live (well, mostly live as tweets are still being processed and imported). Thanks for this @manton!
2023-04-16

Just curious here, is anyone paying OpenAI to get one of their apps (like Raycast AI) to work with ChatGPT?
2023-04-16

iPhone 15 Pro 'Action' Button to Replace Role of Volume Buttons When Performing a Power Off/Force Restart

the leaker also claimed that the "Action" button will replace the volume up button for taking photos in the Camera app, with force-sensitivity enabling a light press to auto-focus the camera, a hard press to take a picture, and a hard/long press to record video.

Ok, this is a rumour, but it's an interesting one. If Apple does this, it would bring the iPhone 15 Pro / Max closer to traditional camera behaviour. Coupled with the upgraded cameras and possible addition of the periscope lens, Apple seems geared to make the next iPhone iteration another potential winner.

2023-04-17

I read the "Making Something Wonderful" book during my vacations. It's full of great reading moments, for sure. Albeit not as personal as I would have liked, that last picture of Steve Jobs glasses took me off-guard and got me on the verge of crying. Go and find them.
2023-04-21

Apple Entering the Journal App Landscape Soon? Hell Yeah, Count Me In!

As reported by the Wall Street Journal (since it’s paywalled, look at MacRumors report instead), Apple is supposedly working on its own journaling application. Code named « Jurassic », many interesting details are emerging from this report.

As an avid user of Dayone (read « Documenting My Numeric Life With Dayone »). , I find the prospect of having Apple entering the journaling apps landscape quite exciting. The idea of using journaling to help users with mental health issues is pretty clever. There is so much information available on our devices from which, I guess, we can infer some mental states. I’m guessing machine learning can be of some tremendous help here. Coupled with Apple’s stance on privacy, this provides a potentially very compelling story for a lot of people. Me included. Yet, some people could find this move to be crossing a line that is not acceptable for them. We will see.

The WSJ story is referring to very specific detailed aspects of the rumoured app. For example, journaling suggestions would be based on call history and iMessage conversations, and be ephemeral. After four week they would vanish from suggestions. I’m guessing this would help automate some aspects of daily journaling.

I asked this question to ChatGPT: « Is the young generation into journal as much as older generations? ». Here is what it has to say:

 There is no definitive answer to this question, as attitudes towards journaling can vary widely among individuals of all ages. However, some studies suggest that younger generations may be more likely to engage in forms of expressive writing such as blogging or social media updates, which could be seen as a form of journaling.

The debate might still be out if the youngsters generation is very into the writing journey, but having some part of the journaling automated would alleviate some rebarbative aspects of maintaining a journal.

Can you imagine having the journal app assembling photos, messages, phone calls, geo locations into pre populated journaling suggestions? Wow. I’m really looking forward into that one.

2023-04-21

BasicAppleGuy writes about his website turning three:

Today marks the third anniversary of basicappleguy.com. A challenging but also very successful year; I want to continue the tradition of recapping the year and thanking you all for the tremendous support.

I worked from home for the first two years of the site because of the pandemic. That meant 19,200 minutes saved on commuting each year alone, which afforded me hundreds of hours to write and work on new wallpapers. This also meant I had around-the-clock access to a Mac (and a good internet connection), giving me abundant opportunities to work on projects with much more freedom. Source: 3 — Basic Apple Guy

His blog post resonates with me a lot. Since March 13, 2020, I have worked from home, and I also save a lot of commute time. I couldn't do all that content creation that I did since then if I was returning to the office downtown. I'm super appreciative of that, and I hope that it will stay that way. I don't see why it would change.
2023-04-22