I really like how Substack is evolving as a platform for content creators, especially for writers. I kept my account open after moving from Substack to Ghost.org. You may disagree with the fact that you don’t really own the content or whatever, but Substack is evolving quite a bit. If I compare the features set when it started and today, it is night and day. They are really killing it. As a member of Substack (free) and Ghost (paid), I would say Substack > Ghost.

I would really like to find a niche use case for Substack. And I thought that 2023 was the year of focusing more.

As we can see, while there are definite improvements in Windows 11’s design consistency, they are somewhat superficial (but still more thorough than those that were introduced with Windows 10), and there still is plenty of room for improvement. However, compared to Windows 10, at least most of the “casual” UI is somewhat consistent.

In 2023 Windows 11 will reportedly get 3 of the new “moment” updates, which are supposed to bring in new features and UI fixes. Not only that, but Microsoft is thought to be working on decoupling the UI elements from the rest of the OS even further, so we should probably see more improvements more quickly. Source: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11? – NTDEV

The conclusion of this excellent article about Windows 11 UI design inconsistencies is a bit off compared to the rest of the article. You really have to have a look for yourself. Windows, as it is shipping today, contains a plethora of previous-generation UI design languages, all packed together. When I look at macOS, I fail to find any similar example. Now, my question: why can Apple change everything in the UI (like when they introduced macOS BigSur) and not keep old UI designs? What is Apple doing differently? Is macOS easier to maintain than Windows? Or is it because Microsoft simply doesn’t care enough?

And the Mac and the iPad continue to move closer together… Source: Gurman: Apple working on touchscreen Macs – Six Colors

Jason Snell reacting to an article on Bloomberg about a possible new development for the Mac in 2025: touchscreen. I’m unfazed about this rumour at all. Touching the screen will probably represent 10%-20% of user interaction use cases, while the touchpad or the mouse will grab the rest.

There is one thing that I wonder if it would be possible: can you imagine the macOS UI reacting to the finger coming closer to the screen without actually touching it, something along the lines of the hover gesture with the latest iPad and the Apple Pencil? That could be interesting to watch. Apple will need to increase the size of UI elements, right now, many things are way too small to interact with the fingers. So yeah, the Mac is getting closer to the iPad.

One last thing: I would have thought that Apple would start with the iMac instead of a MacBook Pro, though. The bigger screen and the lack of a touchpad on the iMac would make the touchscreen a helpful option.

A pivotal year for AR/VR? Hu.ma.ne are set to announce their thing this year. Apple is reportedly set to announce their AR/VR headset this year. Other than that, it is expected to be a quiet year for Apple, helping to set the stage for a focus on the headset. BYW, the updated Mac Pro, a niche product, won’t make much noise in the grand scheme of things. What else will bring noise on the line? The iPhone 15 switching to USB-C? Then what? Nothing that I can think of.

Must watch video about the iPhone photography quality. Are the photos shot on the latest iPhone 14 Pro better than other high-end phones?? Are they the best ones? There is no universal answer for sure, but I find iPhone photos to be overly processed by Apple"s “magic sauce” called: software or, better yet, computational photography.

Has anyone noticed this weird behaviour in Apple’s Photos app when browsing images shot in RAW format? Let’s say you shoot a photo in RAW and then switch to Apple’s Photos app. Tapping on the thumbnail brings up the image, and after a few seconds, the image gets changed to a lower-quality version. Contrast is lost, and exposure is somewhat lowered. The result is a dull image. My possible explanation is that the thumbnail is a JPEG post-processed interpretation of the RAW image that is presented in the UI. When tapping on the thumbnail, the RAW version gets uncompressed and presented, which replaces the full-size JPEG preview version, hence the image quality degradation. 

Do you have a similar understanding, or do you have another explanation?

Dear @manton, please consider adding share sheet support on MB client on iOS so we can easily create link posts. What should be included: source link, options for quoting text and a comment. Thanks. 👋🏻🙏🏻

During my trip to South America, I started to experience RSS feeds sync issues in News Explorer. None of the feeds would update, even after resetting the sync status for all feeds. It lasted a few days. It was very inconvenient. I couldn’t get my news and instead had to visit websites individually, which implied getting content I didn’t care about (ad placements, other promotional stuff, etc.) After a while, the issue fixed itself. It was due to very slow network connectivity.

Long story short, RSS feeds are central to my content reading workflow. Without them, I’m lost. The convenience of having all the feeds converge in one app, without the noise, is unbeatable. Long live RSS!

Why is it so slow to read content in Apple News in general? Opening an article in News takes 2 to 3 times longer to render than its equivalent through the RSS feed in News Explorer (my RSS reader). Another case for RSS feeds.