I really hope we get iPadOS 16.4 beta this week because right now, I never experienced so many weird behaviours on my iPad since iPadOS 16. Stage Manager is one problem, weird keyboard placement is another, rotation bugs, etc.

Continuing with this usability musing on possible touch-based MacBook, Jack Wellborn writes in response to an article by Federico Viticci:

The Mac was also built for a mouse, and while I would argue macOS is more usable than Windows, there is no getting around the fact that controls optimized for pointers are inherently unfriendly to touch input. It’s foolishly optimistic to think that Microsoft or even Apple can make pointer interfaces as touch friendly as iPadOS without also destroying the very thing that makes them more productive than iPadOS — information density. Smaller controls means these platforms can disclose more information and interactivity to their users at once. That’s why a bunch of windows on even a 11″ MacBook Air feels natural while only four windows on a “large” 13″ iPad feels ungainly.

Conversely, it’s impossible to make iPadOS more information dense without sacrificing the very thing that makes it the best tablet OS — touch friendliness. iPad users want more information on screen because that will help them be more productive, but the only way to present more information in iPadOS without sacrificing touch friendliness is a larger display. Not only is a larger display not portable, iPadOS’s support for larger displays still sucks. There’s nothing Apple can do about large displays not being portable, but better support for larger displays? That’s a problem Apple can solve. Source: Touchability, Productivity, and Portability — Pick Two – Worms and Viruses

I couldn’t put my finger on it (pun intended), but this article brings up an interesting point that might explain something I couldn’t do myself: The size of controls in a user interface largely dictates information density. Many longtime Mac users decry the iPadification of its UI. I’m not one of them but I value information density a lot.

Just found out about iA Presenter, from the makers of iA Writer. Looking at the website, this app looks like a superb macOS app! I can see a specific use case here for me: writing queue cards for when I’m recording my YouTube videos. Is anyone on the beta from TestFlight here? Any thoughts?

Benjamin Mayo commenting on laptops with touch screen:

All the time, I see people swipe up and down on their vertical laptop screens to navigate webpages and zoom into photos with a pinch gesture. The ergonomics of this are naturally poor. Stretching your arm out forwards to reach the laptop screen quickly becomes uncomfortable. And yet, people still do it frequently. The touch screen is used as an accessory to primary mouse input. They swipe around a bit, then they go back to the mouse. They read a screenful of content, then they swipe to the next page, and put their arm back down. It’s a surprisingly subconsciously natural thing to do. Source: Apple Working On Touchscreen Mac Laptops — Benjamin Mayo

I wonder if Apple could get away with only supporting minimal gestures on their touchscreen Mac. I’m thinking about things like “pinch to zoom” or “swipe” but nothing else… I could imagine using my left hand for a vertical swipe and the right hand on the trackpad to click on a button or text field. This way, I see only a need for a minimal macOS user interface rework.

In the “Competition in the Mobile Application Ecosystem” report published by the NTIA recently:

Pre-installed apps, default options, and anticompetitive self-preferencing should be limited, including in search results. Source: Biden Administration Report Recommends Sweeping Changes to Apple’s Ecosystem - MacRumors

Can you imagine unboxing your brand-new iPhone, powering it up, and after completing the initial setup process, you end up on a mostly empty home screen? What should the user do next? Could Apple provide a single icon pointing to their App Store to download “The Full iPhone Experience” package? Would Apple even be allowed to do just that? Reading the recommendation again, I think it would go against it. It there a more effective way at killing a product?

A few people here probably already know that I’m a big fan and power user of Craft, the document creation app. Over the years, I created and shared many documents online for different purposes. Today, I’m sharing an index of all the published documents. My goal is to showcase many of Craft’s capabilities. If you are curious, you can ask me questions about these. I’ll be more than happy to respond.

You might have noticed that I’m experimenting with YouTube shorts. They are easy to create using the YouTube app but the next ones will be created with Apple’s Clips, if it’s even possible. 🧐

Rumours and articles like this one about Apple’s upcoming headset, supposedly called “RealityPro” is simply getting out of hand. I wish we could put an end to them. I mean, this is ridiculous.

Even if Apple actually comes out with something this year, I’ll consider this as a technological proof of concept, nothing compared to the actually useful and usable iPhone we got back in 2007.

Use cases for a headset are not what the tech pundits would like us to believe. Family reunions with everyone wearing these things on our heads will not happen. Office meetings with people wearing them don’t make sense either. We can barely stand meetings in hybrid modes where some employees are working from home and appearing on the big screen while others are “present” in the meeting room staring at their laptop or tablet screen and doing something else.

The Apple headset could be the next HomePod or the next iPod HiFi. Set your expectations accordingly and better pay attention to what will come out from Hu.ma.ne, instead. Something that looks to be much more natural and less rebarbative.

I took back the iPad Air that my mom was using a few years ago. I would like to repurpose the iPad as a photo frame. It was updated to the latest iPadOS release the iPad can support, but unfortunately, slide options in Apple’s Photos are pretty limited. I wish there were a “Photo frame” mode in Photos. Synology Photos required iPadOS 13.

How would you reconfigure this iPad, so it becomes a photo frame?

Tim Cook’s introductory comment on Apple’s latest quarter:

“As we all continue to navigate a challenging environment, we are proud to have our best lineup of products and services ever, and as always, we remain focused on the long term and are leading with our values in everything we do,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “During the December quarter, we achieved a major milestone and are excited to report that we now have more than 2 billion active devices as part of our growing installed base.”

How many devices count as being active if a user has an iPhone and two Apple Watch, two HomePod and an Apple TV? Six. That’s a lot of devices but not as many users.

DHH’s concluding words about testing an Android phone:

I’m no fan of Google in general. And I still prefer the fit and finish of iOS over Android, but there’s something deeply appealing about having a phone where at least it’s actually possible to install Forbidden Software, like Fortnite, without wild interventions like jailbreaking. The fidelity gap is real, but the freedom gap is bigger. Source: Another Android

His post is a reminder for me that I never tried or used an Android device for real. Never ever. Should I? Why would I? But then I read this article from Gruber commenting about his perception of the Android app landscape:

Android enthusiasts don’t want to hear it, but from a design perspective, the apps on Android suck. They may not suck from a feature perspective (but they often do), but they’re aesthetically unpolished and poorly designed even from a “design is how it works” perspective.

After all, I might never waste my time testing an Android phone. Life is too short.

Don’t bother reading too much into the latest Apple financial numbers. They’re not too bad. What you should be paying attention to is this: Apple is eliminating one of its most high-profile executive positions. According to a new report today, Apple is eliminating the role of “industrial design chief” as part of a broader shake-up. This role was once held by Jony Ive, and most recently held by Evans Hankey. Continue reading →

If I had enough time on hand, I would build a one-pager website comparing all Mastodon clients. Then, I would update it as new app releases come out. I can see the feature-by-feature comparison table with an overall score at the bottom. I think it could be helpful for new Mastodon users and developers to better understand their app’s position in the client landscape.

Some telling excerpt from a recent story in the Globe and Mail about a Canadian helping Ukraine:

“There’s a couple of shots I made that day that will be with me,” he said. One was a Russian in a T-shirt who was carrying a box of ammunition more than 1,800 metres behind the front line – a distance Teflon says was the longest shot he’s ever made. “He saw no threat, he thought he was safe. But it’s my job to ensure that they know that they’re not safe anywhere,” Teflon said. “The role of a sniper is to ultimately push into the minds of the enemy and make them question everything.”

And

“There’s allegations that all these Russians must be drugged. There’s no way. I think it’s just lack of training. Because they still act like human beings. I’ve watched guys cry and I’ve watched guys scream and I’ve watched guys try to pull their friends back when they get killed. They’re humans but they don’t have an ounce of training when it comes to fighting a war.”

And

“Sadly, it’s working. That’s why they’re doing it. We’re defending until we can’t defend that spot any more because they just destroy it with tanks. And they just keep sending another wave. It’s just relentless,” Teflon said. “So, they’ve gained 500 metres of dirt, but they just took over a completely destroyed position and lost hundreds of guys to do so.”

Finally

“The world deserves to hear the truth and after losing Joe and Greg, they need to understand we’re not stopping this work,” he said. “There’s no point me dying without telling my story.”

This a poignant story about a Canadian snipper “working” on the front line in Ukraine.

CarPlay in 2023 will see its most significant upgrade since its launch. I don’t know when we’ll actually be able to get this in a real car, but I certainly look forward to it.

I recently spent some travel time in a high-end Mercedes. The Dashboard was very impressive. Still, the future CarPlay version seems a bit pale in comparison.

Why did Apple choose to make this early announcement?

It is so slow to recharge an Apple Magic Mouse. Considering how we need to connect this thing for a recharge, Apple should have made it much quicker to recharge. 😒

Wow, I spent 10 minutes searching for “how to save an email into a .EML file on the iPad”. It’s not in the action menu. The only way is to do a “drag & drop” of the mail into Files.app (or any app that understands this file format, for that matter). Who knew it could be that hard to discover such a simple thing. It should really be in the action menu too.

Any Little Snitch users here? Thoughts? I’m using NextDNS to block tracking sites, but what would be the added value of using Little Snitch?

A special message to all the people who expressed their support for the loss of my mother. It really means a lot, even though I don’t know you personally. Thanks.

I’m back. Mostly. It was an enduring experience to see my mom go as she did. It was an unintentional instructional experience too. Life has many lessons in store for us. We just have to open our minds and our heart. Easier said than done.

Writing is part of the healing process, I guess.