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The (short) story of a scratch
Here is a picture of my 2020 MacBook Air that I recently bought. I wanted to use it as a banner somewhere, but this visual defect on the Apple logo put an end to my intention. Then, I started to think how bad things go for Apple these days and I came to the conclusion that this scratch perfectly illustrates the current status of Apple as a symbol. What a useless post. 🙂🤦🏻♂️
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A thought on the Apple Watch Series 7
In recent days or weeks, rumours are rampant on the updated design of the Apple Watch: bigger but flatter screen, boxier design are the main themes, with no new health sensors. I’m not so sure about the boxy design. It’s ok for the iPad or the iPhone but for a watch? To me, it could make it less approachable, less jewelry. We’ll see in a few weeks. There is one thing that I’d like to point out about the Series 7: Apple is not only presumably launching an updated design, they are creating a new price point. The bigger screen helps legitimate this. They have been doing this since Tim Cook is CEO.
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A typical month on Substack
Five publications each month. Four Friday notes posts, one monthly newsletter. Some new subscribers. No comments. A lot of fun at writing and publishing these posts. I’m writing for myself. I don’t feel the pressure of regular writing schedules. It’s easier than I thought. The more I do it, easier it becomes. Substack is a slowly evolving publishing platform. I wish it was a bit more like Twitter’s Revue. Anyways. https://numericcitizen.substack.com.
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And so it begins. What's next?
According to the Wall Street Journal:
South Korea today passed a bill that bans Apple and Google from requiring developers to use their own respective in-app purchasing systems, allowing developers to charge users using third-party payment methods
Now what? How will Apple respond? Will they create a different version of iOS for South Korea? Can they simply appeal this law, if such a thing is possible? How is this going to help other countries and parties to go after Apple’s practices? How much time will Apple be given to change its practices? Three months? A year? South Korea is probably a small market for Apple compared to other places in the world, but this new law seems like a tsunami in the making.
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I spend between 4 to 5 hours each month to put together my Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter.
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I’m mostly done with my next issue of The Numeric Citizen Introspection newsletter. Get ready to get it in your inbox, subscribe, it’s FREE. It’s the best way for you to show support! Even better, share the word about it if you already are subscribed! Thanks! 👍🏻
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On Apple's M1 MacBook Air energy efficiency
Funny and fascinating to see that 95% of the time, the four energy-efficient CPU cores are doing all the legwork on my M1 MacBook Air. I rarely see the performance cores doing work for a long time.
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While waiting for iCloud Private Relay...
I’m using NextDNS.io for a better web experience… not the same but it does a great job of making the web more privacy friendly and a lot faster too. Too bad that we will have to wait for iOS 15.1 or later for iCloud Private Relay. Each year there are features that get dropped from the initial release… remember iMessage in the cloud, anyone?
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Late to the party, but...
Just got this yesterday. You know what this mean, right? Well, maybe not. Anyway, I’m a bit late to the MacBook Air party, but this thing is probably THE best Mac Apple ever made. It’s not the best Air Apple ever made, though. A tad too big probably, yet so powerful. And this keyboard… a real and trusty keyboard. 🥰
I’m working on an essay about my new adventure in the MacBook Air land. Stay tuned.
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If all goes well, I should be getting my CraftingMAChine today. 👈🏻 👨🏻💻 #macbookair #applesilicon #m1chip
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Gosh, importing my stuff from Notion into Craft is not funny. There has to be a better way. 😵💫
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Feeling honored
It doesn’t happen too often but when it does, I feel very proud about it. One of my blog post about the story of 1Password 8 going Electron on https://numericcitizen.me received a backlink from Michael Tsai (look for “JF Martin” and you’ll see the excerpt).
Mr. Tsai does a tremendous work with his link posts in general. I can imagine how much work he puts into this each day.I would love to have a peek at his blogger workflow.
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About this “in-public” design
Gruber writing about how Apple mostly fixed Safari 15 on iPhone with beta 6 (emphasis is mine):
The unusual part is that we got to see Apple’s design process play out in public. The Safari team has been kept busy this summer. (There has to be one hell of backstory here, right?) There was a certain pessimism amongst some who perceived the problems with the original iOS 15 Safari design, simply because Apple seldom makes drastic UI changes between their unveiling at WWDC in June, and when they officially ship in the fall. But seldom isn’t never.
I’d love to read the behind-the-scene-story about this “in public” design process that we all witnessed. The Safari team surely scrambled to fix the design issues between beta 1 and beta 6… or was just all planned in advance? I bet on the former. The whole saga was unusual for Apple. They look less confident from a design perspective.
I love Safari 15 in beta 6. They nailed it, and it is an improvement compared to the pre-iOS 15 implementation.
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When designers can’t decide...
iOS 15 beta 6 is out and Apple is making great progress with Safari on iPhone. For me, they finally hit the right notes. I think that’s the design they should have included since day one of iOS 15. Yet, I find it funny to see Apple put a new option in settings for those who prefer the pre-iOS 15 release. I guess it’s another case of “If you can’t decide which design is the best, just add another option in Settings so the user decide.”
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We will have to wait for these... sadly.
SharePlay, ID Cards, App Privacy Report, Custom email domain, detailed 3D navigation in CarPlay, Legacy Contacts, Universal Control won’t ship with iOS 15.0 this fall. We’ll have to wait for an update later, like 15.1, 15.2 or even later. That’s a lot of stuff missing the deadline. I was looking forward to Legacy Contacts and Universal control… Apple is often a waiting game.
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What a bizarre advice
A successful Apple investor, Paul Lane, had advice to give to other Apple investors, as reported on PED: buy Apple gear to return some money to Apple as a sign of appreciation and support. That’s the most bizarre advice I ever heard of from an investor. I would expect something along the line: buy low, sell high. I, personally, own a few Apple shares and a lot of their products. Yet, I don’t feel invested in a mission to show my support to Apple, either by buying shares or their products.
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Doing all the things I love
After an emotional week-end, long in coming, today I’m doing all the things I love the most: doing computer stuff — writing in a coffee shop — feeling like a real blogger — doing some photo processing — walking — biking. I know time will fly.
Life is good. Those days are so rare. I’m enjoying every single minutes of it. Work resumes tomorrow.
Photo by karl chor on Unsplash
