File this under another iPad user has not bothered to make even a minimal effort to learn how to use their iPad. Over on Threads @mrnathansi writes
I have maxed out my storage on Apple iPad air, because Apple does not allow to offload files 🤔 What is the purpose of Cloud storage then?
Of course this is easy to do and only requires the most minimal effort: In the Files app, long press (or two finger click with trackpad) a file that is stored in iCloud until you get the contextual menu. The very first item at the top of the menu is "Remove Download".
Over at the Mac Power Users forum iPad user and enthusiast Tom asks:
Why do we even want the iPad to be able to stand alone and serve as a replacement to our Macs?
And then:
What is it about the iPad that makes people want it so much?
It's a fun and thoughtful post explaining what it is about the iPad that he most enjoys.
For me it goes back to Apple's first iPad and the Keyboard Dock. It was, and is, that the iPad starts as a hand held tablet. I love that form factor. A slab of thin glass and aluminum that is the computer. To this day I still marvel at the simplicity of it. The iPhone never hit me the same way and in fact I didn't get my first iPhone until 2012. I always felt the screen was too small and still do. It has it's place and its uses but for me that's when I'm out on a walk or engaged in other outdoor activity. But that's a very specific role.
Transformer
Going back to Steve Jobs' positioning of the iPad during his keynote introduction of it, it's the device in the middle. The iPad, with its larger screen, felt like a real computer without the attached baggage of a keyboard getting in the way. The iPad as a transformer, a modular computer that fits into my environment in ways other computers cannot.
Right now I have it attached to stand that's connected to the shelf next to my futon. I have a similar stand attached to my desk. This allows the iPad to be elevated and moved around to a variety of angles and heights. I've got it elevated to eye level, 16" above my lap where I've got a keyboard/trackpad. The stand has a magnetic attachement for the iPad so I can pull the iPad off easily to move, hand hold it or pop it into the Magic Keyboard. It is the hub of any configuration. The only limit is my imagination and willingness to experiment... well, that and available accessories. I have imagined so many more than currently exist. More than anything I want exactly what Microsoft is offering with the new Surface: a thin keyboard/trackpad combo that connects via Bluetooth. If the Logitech Combo Touch had Bluetooth it would be that.
Touch and multitasking
Interacting via touch has never gotten old. Instantly natural and magical. Like something that shouldn't be possible but is. That's the delight. It's magic paper. That's the connection you describe. Multitasking via touch gestures continues to be a delightful experience and is central to productivity and enjoyment in my use of the iPad.
App ecosystem
My dock is bursting with apps that get daily use. Over the years I've rarely had a problem finding an app solution for what I've needed. It's generally the case that there are several apps to choose from for any particular task I need to do. And it's generally true that a well done, built-for-iPad app doesn't feel like a compromise. The last gap in my toolset was filled by Affinity Publisher in the fall of 2022. Like the other Affinity apps, it sets the bar for what's possible with a "desktop class" app. The opposite approach to that taken by Adobe.
iPadOS
It's become a common request that Apple make a touch MacBook or allow macOS to be installed on iPads. Would I switch to macOS if it were available as an option on the iPad? No. I've come to prefer iPadOS and with each year I enjoy it more as Apple has taken steps to expand it's capabilities. My experience has been made much better by the addition of macOS-like features to iPadOS for those that want them. I think of it as two modes of the same OS. The original basic experience for those that want that and the more advanced Mac-inspired mode that's been added over the past 3-5 years. Most notably, the addition of cursor support, Stage Manager, external display support, and the improved Files app have created a far more capable, flexible experience in iPadOS.
Speaking of Files, just today I learned that Files in iPadOS 18 will be able to erase and reformat hard drives. A feature too small that Apple didn't mention it during the WWDC Keynote. But this is exactly what we can expect: year by year, Apple keeps adding features to close the previous gaps.
Exhibit 3,249 of jumping to the wrong conclusion about iPadOS because it fits the bias and the narrative: djlf on Threads:
iPadOS is fundamentally broken. How is it possible that I can’t drag and drop files onto Google Drive in the app let alone Safari? I can do this on Mac with no issues. But WHY does it not work on iPad?
Of course this is easily done using three different methods: via the Google Drive App, Safari or using the Files app.
It helps to take the time to learn the apps and the OS.
Apple has added another important utility feature to iPadOS 18: the Files app is able to erase and reformat drives. Kaleb Cadle of ByteBits writes:
Now in the Files app on iPadOS 18, when we right click or hold press on an external drive and select “Erase”, new options appear for reformatting the drive. Currently, the format options here are APFS (with options for Case Sensitive or Encrypted), ExFAT, and MS-DOS (FAT), the same format options available in Disc Utility (with the exception of macOS extension formats which wouldn’t make much sense for this feature on iPadOS).
They're really showing the world who they are. They're proud of their dehumanization of Palestinians and their war crimes. There's no shame for them, just pride in their deliberate acts of cruelty.
Reuters reports that Israeli army forces strapped a wounded Palestinian man to the hood of a military jeep during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Saturday.
According to the family of Azmi, there was an arrest raid, and he was injured during the raid, and when the family asked for an ambulance, the army took Mujahed, strapped him on the hood and drove off.
Pundits in 2023-2024: Siri is terrible and must be fixed. Also, Apple is behind in AI and must do something!
Apple at WWDC 2024: We're fixing Siri which is now powered by Apple Intelligence, our in-house LLM which will also help you edit your local text with suggestions when requested.
Pundits: But, wait, what is this, you trained your LLMs on the open web including our websites, without our permission!
I understand last week's dramatic demonstration of frustration at the discovery that Perplexity and others have been ignoring the request of site owners to not scrape content. That seems like an obvious wrong doing. And it's worth pointing out that Perplexity, OpenAI and others that are being used as a substitute for a standard search engine, are offering up their own summarized content that may be more likely to reduce clicks to original content. This seems like the core of the problem.
I've never made an income from my writing but I understand that independent content creators that are making a living via online publishing need click thru. The indexing and scraping of content is not new, that's what Google and other search engines have been doing for years. It's the presentation of the results that are the real problem.
Perhaps the solution might be an industry standard for the presentation of LLM content to users with a limit to generated text and a greater emphasis on attribution and links to the original sources? For example, consider the traditional display of search results via a search engine with the link at the top followed by a summary. I can easily imagine a page of results that present source links front and center with a summary of the source below. Closer to the traditional search engine result in visual formatting but with a longer, better formatted text description beneath the link.
Moving on to Apple's use of public data scraped from the web, I fail to grasp the problem. If it's being used to train the LLM only, what does it matter? It's a use of text in a generic way, nothing like the above example of Perplexity using scraped and very specific text to reuse in the presentation of search results to users. It's a process of a processing of a mass amount of text to teach the model how language is used. Training an LLM is not about world knowledge, it is about language patterns. These are two very different things.
All of the LLMs have been trained in the same way using massive amounts of text. The reaction of some publishers to this aspect of the use of their text seems over-the-top and, frankly, it feels more like attention seeking outrage.
All that said, I would suggest that most tech folk are missing the most significant problem of AI and that's the increase of energy use and the resulting atmospheric emissions. Unlike others in big tech, Apple has been consistent in its climate goals and commitments and has met many of them. Many of these new features will rely users' local devices and those that don't will connect to Apple's custom servers. That portion of the new offering seems likely to be more aligned with achieving climate goals.
On a very serious downside, Apple will also be adding many millions of new users of ChatGBT via Siri's option to use that service. Of all the concerns swirling around the various AI offerings, the extra energy use and carbon being dumped into the atmosphere should be one that is actively discussed and yet I rarely see Apple pundits bring it up. Why is that?
‘Multiple disasters all in one day’: New Mexico’s brutal week of fire and flood | The Guardian
It’s part of a troubling trend. By Rye’s tally, the number of state-declared disasters in New Mexico has quadrupled since 2019. “We are seeing an increase in the impacts to our state in various ways and it has become increasingly challenging over the last couple of years,” she said. “And we are not out of the clear yet.”
The threats are only going to rise as the world continues to warm.
“What I do have expertise in and what I do have authority to do is make assessments of criminal conduct. And we’ve done that in relation to the recent events and you can see that in the report. And the only conclusion you can draw is that the Israeli army is one of the most criminal armies in the world.”
Youth Activists Score Huge Climate Win in Hawaii – Mother Jones
Hawaii officials have announced a “groundbreaking” legal settlement with a group of young climate activists, which they said will force the state’s Department of Transportation to move more aggressively towards a zero-emission transportation system.
Mehdi Hasan's latest is important for anyone that may not have a grasp of the role AIPAC is playing in pushing US politics further and further to the right.
“We need to talk about AIPAC” - YouTube
In Mehdi Hasan's latest monologue, he unpacks how and why AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of the most powerful lobbying group in the US, is spending record amounts of money to topple - not for the first time - a pro-Palestinian Congressman.
Climate activists, Stonehenge and art: it's about protecting humanity's heritage. But, also, it's about prompting the public to consider and debate: what is the common heritage of humanity?
The plump seed heads of a grass meadow and a dew covered daisy were bathed in sunlight along my walk today. Soundtrack provided by Wood Thrush, Yellow-throated Vireo, Northern Paula, White-eyed Vireo, Ovenbird and some bull frogs!
More than 1,000 hajj pilgrims die amid temperatures approaching 52C in Mecca | Hajj | The Guardian
The death toll from this year’s hajj has exceeded 1,000, with more than half of the victims unregistered worshippers who performed the pilgrimage in extreme heat in Saudi Arabia.
Well Beyond the U.S., Heat and Climate Extremes Are Hitting Billions - The New York Times
Between May 2023 and May 2024, an estimated 6.3 billion people, or roughly 4 out of 5 people in the world, lived through at least a month of what in their areas were considered abnormally high temperatures, according to a recent analysis by Climate Central, a scientific nonprofit.
The damage to human health, agriculture and the global economy is just beginning to be understood.
LOL, you think it's costing a lot now? Just wait.
Climate disasters around U.S. are costing Americans billions - YouTube
NBC News’ Bill Karins details how intense weather around the country is wreaking financial havoc. The data from the weather agency shows the country might be on track to match or even pass the cost of 28 individual billion dollar weather disasters last year.
The sights and sounds of a morning walk. Birds songs identified as: Red-eyed Vireo, Northern Parula, White-eyed Vireo, Northern Cardinal, Yellow-breasted Chat and Acadian Flycatcher.
A beautiful yellow slime mold! I love the details of the little ruffles and the threads attaching to the leaves.
Louisiana to require the 10 Commandments displayed in every public school classroom : NPR
BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom, the latest move from a GOP-dominated Legislature pushing a conservative agenda under a new governor.
The legislation that Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law on Wednesday requires a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities.
There's a lot of confusion and contradiction in the recent back and forth between Netanyahu and Blinken on restrictions of weapons shipments to Israel. Biden has denied that he is withholding weapons and, in fact, is pushing against some in his own party:
Biden has pressed forward with aid despite opposition from within his own Democratic party, where progressives have accused Israel of committing genocide in a war that has now killed more than 37,000 Palestinians.
Meanwhile as US claims that Israel supports the ceasefire deal that is being negotiated Netanyahu pledges to “finish the job”.