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If you read my Friday Notes series, then it’s a good way to learn about me. Just sayin. Happy Saturday night!
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I’ve been quietly testing Exposure recently, an excellent visual storytelling service. I could probably replace my Smugmug page. That’s the goal of my experiment anyway: testing Exposure service’s ability to replace Smugmug. Stay tuned. This is my first short story.
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I don’t know what will happen with Musk at the helm of Twitter. It’s probably going to turn really bad before turning potentially better (no guarantee here) but I have a backup plan: Micro.blog.
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Clear Thoughts on a Confusing iPad Lineup
There we have it, a new iPad, a new iPad Pro, joining a growing and more confusing iPad lineup than ever. I won’t repeat the best comments from MacStories (“Apple Announces Strange New iPad and iPad Pro Lineup“) and Six Colors (“The iPad’s erratic odyssey continues”). How are this week’s announcements influencing my buying decisions?
I’m currently using a 2018 11-inches iPad Pro. Going to the 2022 M2 iPad Pro would be a significant step, at least from a processing power perspective. Should I stay on the 11-inches size or go to the 12.9-inches version and get a big screen upgrade? Using this new iPad as a photo-processing machine and as a second screen to any of my Mac would undoubtedly support the bigger iPad. But what a weird setup this would make to use a much-better secondary screen like the 12.9-inches iPad Pro on a 2020 M1-based MacBook Air machine. There is no comparison to be made.
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Adobe, Lightroom and the Camera
The Adobe Max conference was held this week. With each conference comes a slew of new application update releases. I’m not really into Adobe ecosystem except for using Adobe Lightroom on the Mac and the iPad Pro. This is my main photo processing engine, coupled with the excellent Pixelmator Pro. For About a year, Adobe spent some of its development money to “augment” Lightroom, a photo-processing application, with video-processing features. Why? I don’t get it. I don’t want it.
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On This AI-Generated Podcast Interview Between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs
What. The. Fuck.
This podcast example about a fake interview between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs is a blatant example of where some more thoughts should take place before putting high tech to work. What is the purpose of this? Is this a tech demo or some bad-taste proof-of-concept? It’s not hard to imagine how it could derail in the future when used in politically-heated contexts. Oh, and no, I didn’t waste my time listening to this garbage, and I won’t share the link to this podcast, either.
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When the iPad Is No Longer a Novel Device
As I write this, rumours are pointing to an imminent release of some updated iPads today. What is novel this time is not the CPU to be used, the screen attributes, or the long-awaited app called Freeform. What is novel is the fact that there won’t be an Apple event for the announcement but a few well-crafted press releases. Apple judges the updates as not worth tech pundits’ time, flight to Cupertino, or even a secret press briefing.
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The Waiting Game
In case you didn’t know, I’m a big fan of Apple (from the corporation, the products to the company’s history). Here’s a little secret: I maintain a document of possible upgrade paths for all my current Apple products. It’s fun. Yes, I’m a bit crazy.
Each year, during the fall, Apple releases a slew of new products. Each year, I spend some time updating my document to reflect my analysis of possible product upgrades. Take the iPhone for example. I’m currently using last year’s iPhone 13 Pro. I’m super happy with but I’m pondering the idea of upgrading to the iPhone 14 Pro Max. So, I list all the reasons why I should do it and all the reasons why I should refrain from doing the upgrade. It’s the same drill for my aging 2018 11-inches iPad Pro. Or my Apple Watch Series 6. It’s quite fun and educative because for each product, I spend quite some time studying it and pondering their technical advances over my current product. It’s really fun. And crazy.
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Russian's Strategy — Possible Response
🇺🇦It is becoming clear that Russians are angry about the near collapse of their army in south and east Ukraine. The strategy now seems to bomb all over Ukraine, mostly civilian infrastructures, to terrorize the civil population, double down with Belarus, and get ready for another take from the north for a second time. They probably hope to disrupt the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south by diverting precious Ukrainian army resources back to the north. Devilish.
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On the Dynamic Island Inception and Possible Future
A recent Twitter thread about the possible iPhone Dynamic Island inception by Matt Birchler caught my attention a few days ago but couldn’t find the required time to write my take.
How long could Dynamic Island have been in gestation at Apple? A few weeks, a few months? I think this has been in the works for quite some time. Besides the visual appearance, the API goes with it and needs a design period too. I’m sure Matt understands and knows about that. I would argue that Apple worked on this way before this year’s announcement. Best integration between hardware and software takes time because of how Apple is internally structured. Secrecy plays a significant role in making things longer to achieve too. Apple plan’s for the long run, and I think the pill shape was set in stone last year.
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Press Releases it will be — Next Round of Apple Products Releases
The way I see it, there is nothing in an updated MacBook Pro line with M2 processors and a tweaked iPad Pro line to warrant a keynote. There has to be something special, really special. iPadOS 16.1, macOS Ventura aren’t enough. The rumoured Mac Pro? Maybe, but no signals on its imminent release either. An updated Apple TV hardware? Nah. A larger MacBook Air (like 15")? Why now? That is why I agree with Gurman’s view and the next product release will go through a set of press releases later in October.
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On Software Subscriptions
Tweetbot hasn’t been updated for over 6 months, I thought a subscription was going to mean more frequent updates? Source: Letting my Glass and Tweetbot subscriptions expire – LJPUK:
This blog post triggered the following thoughts.
The movement to subscriptions in the software landscape is MASSIVE but is far from being a guarantee of more frequent updates from the developers. I’m utterly infuriated when I see a yearly subscription for a small utility with a limited scope when no “lifetime” options are offered with reasonable pricing. Many devs are lazy, and greedy and send you a big middle finger.
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Putin, the loser
🇺🇦 Putin is showing signs of being a loser (as if it wasn’t clear yet), because he is losing, slowly but surely. Sure we’d like things to happen quicker to save lives and infrastructures. But with yesterday’s “speech”, Putin is signing for more collaboration across western countries, hoping for reinforcements of support for Ukraine.
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So, if you want to push your career and your life in a new direction then take care of your blog. Because it all adds up. Source: Take Care of Your Blog
Yep, it all adds up pretty quickly and moves your life in the direction of your own choosing.
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Let Apple Fix All Bugs, Will Ya?
MacRumors in iPhone 14 Pro Owners Complain of ‘Slow’ Camera App - MacRumors:
Affected users are seeing the Camera app take four to five seconds to activate after the Camera app icon is tapped, with the problem occurring after the camera has been opened once already.
Coupled with other issues related to the camera and AirDrop, even though I’ll probably upgrade to the 14 Pro Max, I’ll gladly wait a few months before taking the plunge. But, fixes are coming very soon, apparently.
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On iPhone Internal Design - as Important as the External Design
iFixit writing about the internal redesign of the iPhone 14 in “The iPhone 14 Feature Apple Didn’t Tell You About”:
This is the most substantial iPhone redesign since the X. It’s hard to understate how big a change this is. For a reference point, Samsung hasn’t changed their phone architecture since 2015.
So, with the biggest update in years, we’re upgrading the iPhone 14 to a repairability score of 7 out of 10. That’s the best score we’ve given an iPhone since the iPhone 7. This is the most repairable iPhone in years.
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The more I think about it...
The more I look at reviews, watch YouTube videos and visit Apple.com, the more I realize that considering my current hardware setup, there aren’t many reasons to upgrade to the iPhone 14 Pro (currently with 13 Pro), the Apple Series 8 (currently with Series 6) or the AirPods Pro 2 (currently the original Pro version). The Apple Watch Ultra could be a reason, but I’m not the target customer for that one.
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The Unexpected Pain That Comes With Lock Screen Customization
So, I’ve been testing iOS 16 since its early beta stage, and I love it so much. One of the best features is the customizable Lock Screen. But it also creates an issue, the same with Apple Watch watch faces: how to decide which widgets to use and place in those limited slots. There are more and more widgets available each day, but the space is so constrained. I cannot find a strategy to create a Lock Screen that I’m fully satisfied with. I end up creating many of them, but switching among them isn’t smooth, except if they are linked to a focus mode. It’s not a first-world problem, but it is annoying. I’m left with a sense of constant dissatisfaction.
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Feeling So Happy...
🇺🇦 What is happening right now in Ukraine is nothing but encouraging! I was waiting for this to happen the day we started to help Ukraine. Now it seems it is making a difference. News is coming on an hourly basis from the northeast and the south. Let’s kick Russia out once and for all ASAP! Glory to Ukraine!
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