Extreme Living
Several weeks ago I shared the below video on a family thread and one of the comments I received was:
Takes an extreme mindset to live this type of “one with nature lifestyle”.
Watching the video I’d had the opposite reaction. My reaction was that it felt natural, healthy, fun, beautiful. I mulled over that response, “that it requires an extreme mindset” and I suppose that for many that live and grow up in “Western/developed” nations would agree. Those living in this moment expect comfort in the form of modern convenience.
But, just to flip it… thinking about humans on earth… Based on an estimated homo sapiens origin of 300,000 years ago, we lived on Earth for 299,500 of those years in ways much like we see in the video. And it’s not really been until the last 100 years that many people (in western nations) moved out of agriculture and into cities. In a blink of an eye, we’ve come to view the natural way that humans lived on the planet for 99% of our existence as extreme.
What we have to day has only existed as normal for a very short period of time and won’t likely persist for more than another 50 years. And I see no evidence that it should. It’s a life out of balance with not just the planet but even with other humans who have had access to far less during this short, destructive experiment that began with the industrial revolution.
Why I quit the Mac (Mostly)
I had a chuckle late yesterday afternoon when I opened up the forum and found this thread: iOS and iPadOS are endlessly frustrating to me.
The reason for my amusement was that earlier in the day was one of the rare occasions I found myself at the keyboard of my Mac Mini and I found myself frustrated with the experience for most of the time. I had a few things I needed to do in the Contacts app that aren’t up to snuff on that app on the iPad. Also not great on the Mac but a little better. Side note, Apple needs to give the Contacts app on all platforms some attention. It’s been awhile since spent any time managing contacts and it’s not a great experience. (Cardhop on the iPad is fantastic, a much better experience and I could have used that but hadn’t checked on the Mac in a couple weeks so figured I’d check for software updates, etc).
So, as I was working on that I had a tech question texted to me from a relative that resulted, after a series of exchanges between us, in my checking my Time Machine back-up. Huh, no back-ups since January 11th. No notifications that it had stopped. Upon investigating I found an error “A disk you are backing up is case-sensitive, but the backup disk is not. Select a different backup disk or exclude the case-sensitive disk from backups.” One of those fun Mac power user exercises! I do some searching and no resolution. Fine, I’ll come back to that later. I’ve had issues with Time Machine for years. For some it seems to work very well, for me, well, this is just the latest in a long, long list of failures.
I get back to my task. A client is having issues with his Contacts app throwing up the spinning beach ball which is why I’m tooling around looking at options for possibly moving some of his workflow to Numbers spreadsheets for contacts relating mailings, class sign-ups, invoicing and various other bits of data tracking that he’s never gotten around to doing.
While I’m at the Mac this same client messages me with a few requested changes to his website. I instinctively reach over to the iPad attached to the Magic Keyboard and open Textastic in split screen with Messages to reference the text and images he’s sending. He also sends a hyperlink to gather additional images and text from a website so I tap over to Safari. I select some text with the Magic Keyboard trackpad and copy. Then I use my finger to tap and hold an image in Safari, then use another other finger to drag up the dock and open Files to navigate to my client’s website folder. I drop the image in. As my hands are already near the screen I use my thumb to drag the dock up and tap over to Textastic. I finger tap the images folder, then tap and hold the new image to rename from the contextual menu then rename it using the keyboard. The client wants another image that I have in my Photos library so I Command-Space and type “flowers” and from those Spotlight results I open Photos app which opens a search for my flower images. I tap the “moments” section of the photos search results which has groupings based on date and within a few seconds I’ve got the image. I tap the share icon to send the image to a shortcut that resizes and compresses the photo which I save straight to the website images folder.
Over the course of this 5 minutes of activity my fingers and hands have danced back and forth from screen, to keyboard to trackpad. I can’t say that I know exactly how I’ll do any particular task, whether it will be the trackpad or touching the screen, I just do it. If my fingers are already on the keyboard I’ll likely use the trackpad. But because they’re always close to the screen tapping is easy and often I find that I can go quite a bit faster because I can interact more directly with the screen via touch and with two hands - with the trackpad I am limited to one cursor. This kind of interaction isn’t possible on the Mac and I feel slower because of it. The Mac limits me to one cursor, one point of on-screen interaction with a mouse or trackpad. I have to drag that cursor, and aim it. Not so with the touch screen where I can much more quickly move a finger right to the place I want to interact.
Another place where the Mac slows me down is in the processing of mail. The iPad and a touch screen feels far superior when processing mail. When it comes time to delete and move mail around the two hand, multi finger process is excellent. My left hand goes up towards the left side of the screen and I use my thumb and/or other fingers to multi select multiple emails to drag and drop. Or I can slide delete or tap delete using a second finger on the delete key if I’m doing this with the keyboard attached. Lots of options and I tend to use all of them.
Same thing for files. I feel slower on the Mac with a trackpad or mouse. On the iPad, whether I’m in split screen with two Files windows open or just one, multi-touch file selection is fantastic. Two finger drag to select multiples is great. Almost everything feels faster.
Another area that I’ll mention is multi-tasking. It’s often said that multitasking on the iPad is cumbersome, difficult and still not finished. It is true that on a Mac I can have as many windows of as many apps as I want, all on one screen, placed free form wherever I want and overlapping as I see fit, and yes, sometimes that is useful. Sometimes, it’s just a complicated mess of windows.
After several years working on the iPad I prefer the iPad multitasking model of interaction, especially given the improvements of the past few years. Having a single app window open is generally fine and when it’s not it takes me no time to bring up a split screen and/or a slide over as needed. Dragging up from the bottom of the screen to get multitasking or using any of the new keyboard shortcuts, again, all of these work very well for me. I don’t need third party window managers to help me organize or keep my windows tidy. I just use the iPad as it is intended and find that it’s fluid and fast and fun to use.
To compare, I just hopped back to my Mac to see where I left things yesterday. A Finder window open and 7 minimized windows in the dock. I can run the cursor over those tiny minimized windows in the dock to get a label to identify them but it feels slow compared to multitasking on the iPad. On the iPad I can more quickly activate the multitasking view which gives me a view that’s much quicker and easier to navigate with less eye strain and cognitive load. Not only that, but I can more quickly get back to an app or task from further back in time right where I left off. This is especially true of the newer M1 iPad Pro with increased memory. I can often, with just a couple of swipes pull an app from multitasking right where I left off at some point earlier in the day or a previous day.
A few more ways that I find the Mac to be too restrictive are tied to the hardware limitations. I don’t know how folks can deal with a permanently attached keyboard. A MacBook Air is more flexible than a desktop Mac in terms of location but it’s still stuck to landscape mode and a keyboard/trackpad. Sure, I use my iPad with a keyboard/trackpad much of the day. But as needed I give the iPad a gentle tug and it’s free to continue using in landscape or rotated to portrait without the extra baggage. I can keep using my fingers to touch the screen directly or I have the additional option of using the Pencil. There’s a fluidity of form, handling and function that come with the iPad that I can’t get with a Mac that’s locked to a keyboard, trackpad and/or mouse.
I’m not sure at what point I began viewing the Mac as more of a hinderance and something I had to over-manage. I’m not certain if it’s the complexity of the OS, troubleshooting things like file permissions, window clutter or just the form factor that requires a cursor. But at some point around 2018 I’d spent enough time with the iPad as my computer that going back to the Mac was more trouble than it was worth. When I was younger I enjoyed the Mac more in part I think because I didn’t mind maintenance, it was a part of the fun. The iPad came along and matured at a rate that matched my own needs and inclinations I suppose. 12 years on and it’s not as simple (or limited) as it was in those first few years. But nor is it overly complex.
Ultimately we’ll all chose the tools we’re most comfortable with for various tasks, environments and at different times of our lives. I’m grateful that the iPad has been iterated in such a way that my mom can still have her easy to use iPad, mostly unaware of all of the new features that have been added. The same is true for my father and quite a few others in my family. For them the iPad is still that simple computer that they don’t have to worry about or spend time maintaining. But for me Apple has provided another version of this same device, one that is far more capable and yet, still, not cumbersome or overly burdened with troubleshooting or maintenance.
The Mac served me well for 25 years and while it will still have it’s place I’m happy to have moved on to the iPad.
Climate change requires degrowth
Yeah, this.
The global conversation about climate change has revolved largely around a single, misguided idea: that we can replace carbon-intensive technologies with cleaner ones and reach the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions without fundamentally altering our economy. In other words, that we can achieve, and indefinitely maintain, green growth.But a competing narrative argues that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible, and that even supposedly green technologies will perpetuate the extraction of natural resources and the destruction of the natural environment. Even if these technologies help us mitigate climate change to an extent, they might backfire, for example, by disrupting biodiversity. In this narrative, the underlying problem lies not in the so-called cleanliness of our technologies but in our compulsion to keep growing our economies.
Proponents of this second view argue that to preserve the planet, we must reduce our consumption of resources, a strategy that has come to be known as degrowth. This approach calls for us to shrink parts of our economy, and to move away from measures such as gross domestic product as indicators of economic health.
…
Ultimately, degrowth is inevitable. We will either choose this path voluntarily, or we will be forced into it violently and uncontrollably as a result of environmental disasters. If we want to prevent the suffering and tragedies that accompany such drastic shifts, we must bring about a culture of degrowth. And where the cultural winds blow, the political winds will follow.
Source: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/01/degrowth-undark-climate-crisis/
I’ve never come across the term degrowth but it’s exactly what I’ve been thinking.
Combining Binoculars and Apple AR
I’m an avid walker. Usually with dogs, sometimes without, but always attentive to my surroundings. I enjoy listening and watching birds and whatever other wildlife might be around. This is especially true when I’m out trail walking. That said, at 52 years, I’ve just bought my first pair of binoculars and took them out on my walk today. As I paused numerous times on the trail to look off into the distant woods I wondered, what would Apple do were they to decide to make a pair of binoculars. Now, to be clear, binoculars are a very specific tool and not necessary the sort of thing one might think of Apple making. But hold on a second because there’s been a lot of speculation that Apple IS making some sort of AR or VR headset and eventually something smaller then a headset, perhaps glasses. But, stick with that larger “headset” form factor for a minute.
Tech pundits surprisingly have had a very limited scope when discussing this sort of thing. I’ve heard the topic brought up countless times over the past year but generally speaking it seems that most of the discussion is a big question of what such a technology might be used for. But the discussion I’ve heard focuses on typical nerdy, computery sort of things. Generally, how might the tech be an extension of computer interaction for video games or FaceTime or maps and directions. All pretty typical stuff one might think of and nothing that really interested me.
But as I used my binoculars this morning and pondered Apple and AR and this suggested headset form factor I began to wonder about the potential applications that arise when Apple’s technology is combined for the specific purpose of increasing, in a supplementary way, optical abilities and adding knowledge and context at the same time. In that context, an AR optical device begins to take on a whole new meaning with amazing potential and I do find that very interesting.
Here’s a scenario: I’m in the field with a headset that has as it’s foundation Apple optics and Apple’s powerful silicon. It’s also camera that can record as video or still images. Considering what Apple can do with a device as thin as an iPhone I have to wonder what they could do if they were free to operate in other dimensions. What kind of magnification might this new device be capable of? Whether magnifying the viewing of distant objects or a close-up macro mode. Add to this the machine learning we now see emerging in the Photos app for identification of birds, plants, etc. So, in this context and considering binoculars in outdoors experiences, an Apple AR device begins to sound much more useful.
Another scenario. Take as the base of this next experience that with a current iPhone I can look up into the night sky and take an excellent photo of the Milky Way galaxy. The new iPhones are fantastic at photographing the night sky but of course, no magnification. What might this new device do for an amateur astronomer? Using my $60 binoculars I can see the Andromeda Galaxy. Though I’ve not yet tried it I’m sure I could get a decent view of the Orion Nebula or comparably large, bright “deep sky” objects. Better binoculars will provide views of globular clusters and comets. And of course, a view of the moon with almost any pair of binoculars is spectacular. What might an AR device from Apple be capable of for anyone interested in the night sky? Want to look at the above mentioned Andromeda Galaxy? Ask Siri and be directed which way to look. Interested in learning some of the primary features of the lunar surface? Hey Siri, take me on a tour of the moon or Hey Siri, show me the Sea of Tranquility on the moon. Obviously there would be limits to such a device but again, with binoculars as the base technology, what might be possible?
AirPods Pro - Adjusting fit to fix the thumping problem
I’ve been using the AirPods Pro for two or so years and have greatly enjoyed them. Particularly nice is using them when doing outdoor chores such as mowing grass. That said, they’ve not been without problems. I’ve had the buds replaced a couple times due to the known issue of crackling sounds. Beyond that I’ve had no complaints until now and to be honest the newest issue may have been there all along and I’m just beginning to notice Or, it may be new, I’m not sure. It’s the thumping sound I hear when walking. Some on the internet report this as an issue from the beginning, others say it happens over time. In my case, I may have just accepted the sound or just not really noticed it. But, whether it was a sound there all along that I’m just now noticing or a new sound, it’s a loud thump with each step I take and as I generally wear them when I’m out for long walks, it’s a problem.
A few notes from my experience is that with the medium tips I’ve had a good seal and still do. Some on the internet claim that as the fine mesh side grill gets dirty over time this can cause a problem with performance and getting a good seal between the tips and ears. Some claim that cleaning by blowing or sucking can remove debris and fix the thumping and seal issues. Different users, different ears, etc, who knows what exactly is going on as there are so many contradictory reports. All that said, here’s what I’ve found and what is working for me.
Steps I’ve taken that didn’t help but which others report as being helpful:
- Cleaning the mesh openings
- Resetting the AirPods and repairing them to my Phone
- Trying the different tips
That last step of trying different tips led me to a solution for my personal situation. It occurred to me that perhaps the problem has been there all along and I was just ignoring it. My thinking here is that I was able to get a good seal from the first try with the medium tips. And as expected, when I’m sitting still or standing still, the noise cancellation or transparency modes, whichever I’m using sound great as does the audio. But with that seal comes a kind of vacuum. It’s that tight seal and the resulting vacuum that seems to allow one to hear the loud thumb, the vibration of the bones from heal to head with each step. It’s hard to describe really because it’s not just a sound, but a kind of resonance.
As an experiment I spent a few days with my older AirPods 2 which do not have such a seal. Of course, they do let in a good bit of environmental sound but they are free of that vacuum and generally still sound very good. It’s a trade off. It occurred to me that perhaps the AirPods Pro might be better with less of a seal. I changed to the large size tips and put them in my ears. The settings app that one uses to check the seal of the AirPods reported that I no longer had a good seal but I still got the thumping when walking. So I gently tugged them out just a little. They still felt secure in my ears but no longer tightly sealed. I wiggled my eyebrows up and down, which basically results in my ears also moving up and down. I could now feel that while the pods were still secure in my ears the seal was maybe only 80%. The sensation of a vacuum was gone. I walked and there was no thump. Over the past two days I’ve walked with music, podcasts, and nothing playing with both modes, noise cancellation and transparency, no thumping. I’m also trying the smallest size tips and as expected, less seal, little to no thumping. I’m not sure yet if I prefer the small or large tips but in both cases it’s fairly easy to enjoy a walk without the thumping.
The downside to this method is that noise cancellation is not as good as it would be with a 100% seal. No doubt, I’m getting a little bit of environmental sound. That said they are still sound far better than the standard AirPods. And I should add that I do all my walking on trails in the woods where the environmental sounds are actually something I like. Birds, frogs, leaves under foot… there’s no traffic, honking of horns or anything I don’t mind hearing. And I suspect that when we get back to summer-time mowing I’ll have no problem just pushing in the AirPods and getting a near perfect seal for those times I need it.
So, in my case at least, the solution has been to simply spend a few moments at the beginning of each walk to gently unseal the AirPods from my ears with light tug and a few eyebrow wiggles. It may work for you or it may not, but a little experimentation might with different tips and positioning might be what you need.
Apple continues to lead on renewable energy
Apple continues to lead the way on corporate climate change action.
Apple announced its Power for Impact initiative in 2019, designed to provide communities with renewable energy while promoting economic and social growth. One of the 10 new Power for Impact projects involves working with the Oceti Sakowin Power Authority in the United States to collaboratively develop renewable energy resources for the wholesale market, with the objective of creating a large-scale wind power development in the Midwest. Apple CEO Tim Cook said:
Every company should be a part of the fight against climate change, and together with our suppliers and local communities, we're demonstrating all of the opportunity and equity green innovation can bring. We're acting with urgency, and we're acting together. But time is not a renewable resource, and we must act quickly to invest in a greener and more equitable future.
Other projects in South Africa, Nigeria, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Colombia, and Israel seek to provide renewable energy to healthcare and educational institutions, as well as surrounding households, using rooftop solar installations. Apple believes that this will create a source of local revenue and lower energy costs, freeing up funds for educational scholarships, equipment, and medication.
I've been a happy Apple user since 1993ish with a my first Mac, a Color Classic II. I'm really happy that they are not just setting a good example on climate change but that they are setting the best example. And they should given that their success. But many do not attempt even half of what they have. They're thorough and are leaving nothing un-examined in their engagement with the problem of resource use and climate change.
At the core capitalism is about profit, continual growth and resource use beyond all bounds. I applaud Apple in the effort they are making and hope others follow but it's not something I expect to happen as it goes against the logic of capitalism as a system. That said, they are proving that it is possible.
Apple continues to lead on renewable energy in 2021
Apple continues to lead the way on corporate climate change action.
Apple announced its Power for Impact initiative in 2019, designed to provide communities with renewable energy while promoting economic and social growth. One of the 10 new Power for Impact projects involves working with the Oceti Sakowin Power Authority in the United States to collaboratively develop renewable energy resources for the wholesale market, with the objective of creating a large-scale wind power development in the Midwest. Apple CEO Tim Cook said:
Every company should be a part of the fight against climate change, and together with our suppliers and local communities, we're demonstrating all of the opportunity and equity green innovation can bring. We're acting with urgency, and we're acting together. But time is not a renewable resource, and we must act quickly to invest in a greener and more equitable future.
Other projects in South Africa, Nigeria, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Colombia, and Israel seek to provide renewable energy to healthcare and educational institutions, as well as surrounding households, using rooftop solar installations. Apple believes that this will create a source of local revenue and lower energy costs, freeing up funds for educational scholarships, equipment, and medication.
I've been a happy Apple user since 1993ish with a my first Mac, a Color Classic II. I'm really happy that they are not just setting a good example on climate change but that they are setting the best example. And they should given that their success. But many do not attempt even half of what they have. They're thorough and are leaving nothing un-examined in their engagement with the problem of resource use and climate change.
At the core capitalism is about profit, continual growth and resource use beyond all bounds. I applaud Apple in the effort they are making and hope others follow but it's not something I expect to happen as it goes against the logic of capitalism as a system. That said, they are proving that it is possible.
2021 General Strike?
At the Guardian, Robert Reich asks if America is experiencing an unofficial general strike?
Corporate America wants to frame this as a “labor shortage.” Wrong. What’s really going on is more accurately described as a living-wage shortage, a hazard pay shortage, a childcare shortage, a paid sick leave shortage, and a healthcare shortage.Unless these shortages are rectified, many Americans won’t return to work anytime soon. I say it’s about time.
Agreed.
Using Apple Notes and iCloud as a Facebook Alternative
This past spring I returned to a topic I’ve often thought about in regards to Apple, iCloud and Facebook. With the rumors that Messages was getting lots of attention I started hoping that we might see a push towards a platform that might replace Facebook. I left Facebook 8 or so years ago and as time has gone on I’m convinced that was one of the best decisions of my life. That said, most in my family and friend circles are still there so I often wonder what an alternative might look like. In particular, what might Apple do with an expansion of Messages and perhaps some new iCloud service or app?
With 2021’s updates to macOS, iOS and iPadOS we’ve now got even more cross pollination between the iCloud ecosystem via the “Shared with You” feature that connects Messages, Photos, Notes, Safari, Apple News, Podcasts and Music. Messages seems to form the basis of most if not all of the sharing. The one missing feature, when compared to social media, particularly Facebook, is any kind of persistent timeline. Often times it seems a messy substitute for a timeline is the group chat. I know for a long time we’ve had a large group family chat and several smaller such chats with subsets of people. Pinning chats helps but it can still be hard to keep track of.
Creating a timeline with Apple Notes? I’m currently experimenting with Apple Notes as a kind of group timeline. I’ve set up a shared folder that I’ve just called “Family Stories”. I’ve invited much of the extended family to that, in particular, those that I’m closest to. I’ve written a kind of “Introduction/FAQ” note to explain the purpose of the folder of notes which is, in short, a place for any family member to post a note which might be a personal experience, story, thought or photo. The sorts of things that might be posted on social media but more personal. And while technically it’s not possible to add the kinds of comments one would find on a blog it is of course possible that thoughts, questions and comments can be added free-form at the bottom of any note. That will have the added benefit of re-surfacing older notes when or if comments or questions are added to any particular note.
While Apple Notes is not likely an app that comes to mind when we think of fun social sharing, I think the updated functionality and ease of use will lend itself to this kind of group activity and that it might serve as a kind of timeline for sharing. In particular, the new Activity sidebar will make it easier than a scrolling Messages thread to notice recent activity. The question that remains is whether or not it will prove to be sticky enough that it will become a new sharing habit that will bring folks back. My impression is that it’s a fairly popular default app - perhaps that popularity will increase the likelihood of it being used in this way?
Flooding and Burning
As of September 2nd we one coast of the US is flooding while the other coast is burning and has been for weeks. Just early days in what will be a long, long climate crisis. We’ve failed to stop it and we’ll do a poor job of adapting to it.
We all admit that our government is corrupt, broken, and generally dysfunctional but as individuals we also are broken and dysfunctional. Looking around during covid we see how irrational people can be. This is how I’ve felt for the past 10+ years, looking around as the climate crisis has become increasingly clear, I see most of the people around me behaving in the same irrational, ludicrous manner. In denial and angry at the notion that they should have to change their lives. They see the irrational behavior today in regards to covid and so many in the US but they don’t really see themselves in the same light in regards to the climate crisis.
I know that we are doomed. All evidence points to that. There is just no way that this huge, broken ship can turn itself around fast enough and I’m trying to accep
Two months with iPadOS 15
I’ve been using the beta on my iPad Pro since the first day of the public beta and thought I’d write a bit about what stands out to me as noteworthy. This is just a tiny fraction of what’s coming and again, it’s what I’ve found noteworthy. The most comprehensive coverage that I’ve found thus far is this fantastic mini-site over at MacRumors.
My impressions…
First and perhaps unexpected, I’m enjoying and using the new widgets far more than I expected.
With iPadOS 14 and earlier I generally kept my Home Screen clear except for the sidebar of widgets. All my apps were in a single folder in the dock. With iPadOS 15 I’ve moved all my apps to the App Library and now have a full Home Screen of widgets which functions as a fantastic dashboard. I’m finding the 2nd largest widget sizes the most useful with just one small section for 4 of the small widgets. So, a view of my Home Screen gives me the current weather, easy access to my most recently listened to music, my most recent email, a selection of frequently used Shortcuts, my most recently accessed folders and files, calendar, current daily calories, battery status and upcoming reminders. Edit to note that I’ve since changed this by moving the 4 small widgets back to the sidebar which stays hidden. I’ve since added the large-sized Contacts widget which does a great job of providing an overview of my latest interactions with my closest contacts.
With earlier versions of, the public beta some of widgets were l a bit buggy, especially the Files widget though it seems to have settled down as of this date. Also, the mail widget does not always update recent new mail in the background as I would expect though that may be an expected limitation. Obviously having to switch to mail to see updates isn’t helpful.
I’ll mention Spotlight next because it’s somewhat integrated with the above mentioned Contacts widget. In short, Spotlight has a few new additional results added to searches. Most important for me is the improvements in it’s surfacing of my contacts related information such as photos, shared notes, messages, etc. Also, Spotlight now does more with web searches of public figures and built in web search generally. Rather than go to Safari it’s possible to just start with a Spotlight search of a topic. Web results starting with Wikipedia, images, top web results are all neatly organized in the Spotlight results. For some searches the results can be quite extensive ranging from your content, shared with you content, articles from Apple News, TV shows or movies and on. By default the extensive content categories are hidden behind a “Show more results” button.
Next, while I’m still training myself to use it the new globe keyboard shortcut is great. I forget too often to use it but suspect that as that habit takes hold it will become a really nice feature. Specifically the Siri shortcut Globe-S as I’ve always wanted such a shortcut on the keyboard. I enjoy using Siri and know I’ll use it more with that shortcut. Also, the globe shortcuts for multi-tasking are very useful. Again, one I need to practice more to more fully integrate and take advantage of. It’s not that it’s difficult so much as remembering it’s there and making it a new habit.
On the subject of multitasking, using the keyboard to navigate through app windows In the multitasking view is really nice. I normally use the trackpad but the arrow key navigation works great too.
Also in the category of multitasking, the active window indicator is still too subtle when using split screens. It’s better than before but Apple insists on making the indicator subtle enough that I have too look longer and with more attention than I should. Actually, in a nod to macOS I wish they’d offer an option to have the same red-yellow-green color scheme. Not likely and probably not that useful. But at the very least, more contrast would actually be useful.
Keyboard shortcuts are improved in presentation when using an external keyboard and the new organization of keyboard shortcuts to resemble the Mac’s categories of File, Edit, etc are nice improvements. This whole area is more compact and useful.
The Safari redesign. This one has been talked about a lot as it should be. I agree in general that it’s nice to see an effort but it made Safari worse and seemed to be an attempt to solve problems that most people don’t really have. Glad to see the dedicated tab bar back as the default now they need to take the next step of putting it where it was and also removing the extra padding that the new rounded rectangles have. It’s wasted space that hides the description of the tab. Also, the active tab indicator is far too subtle.
But there’s some good stuff with the updated Safari too. Tab groups!! This falls under the “I didn’t know I needed this until I had it” category. I’m using it a lot to create topic areas. I’ve got a climate change group and a tech group. A week ago I was searching for a new chair and had a group of tabs for that. I’ve got a group now for a new WordPress site I’m working on for a client. I expect some of these will be persistent as they are topics I always read about. Others will come and go as needed. The key is that a tab group is easy to create from any window with tabs, easy to re-open via the sidebar and easy to delete when you’re finished. It’s also easy to add a tab from any other Safari window to an existing tab group.
I’m glad to have the updated Notes and Reminders apps. The ability to tag will be useful in both of these. Also, Quicknotes in Notes is very nice though I’m not using it as much as I think I will. Notes really is an excellent app. The indexing of Notes text, attached pdfs and now text recognition in images is fantastic. It’s all very fast and shows up nicely in Spotlight. If I hadn’t recently integrated Obsidian into my daily workflow Notes would likely shine brighter. As it is though it will still have a place. It’s a great place do do photo and document scanning and as I’m currently scanning in a bunch of old family photos I’m enjoying it for that.
The updates in the Photos app are really proving useful. I love the improved metadata, editable location and machine learning that now identifies plants and other objects. Some of that was identification was already there but it’s much, much better now with more accurate results and far more specificity in the identifications. Where before Photos could show me my dog pictures it now also suggests the specific breed and has an integrated Wikipedia link. This is especially useful for all of the photos I get out on the trail for identification of plants and flowers. It’s not yet offering specific insect ID but it does recognize more general animal categories such as insect, butterfly, bird, horse. I suspect that over time range of objects for which specific IDs are offered will grow.
Live Text in photos is absolutely fantastic and useful. Not only does it improve search but if you’re someone that deals with a lot of text and images it comes in handy often. I often need the text that’s in an image for a document or a website. Lazy clients will just send a photo or screenshot with a bit of text rather than retype it for me. This is the sort of feature that once you start using it and realize how often it can be useful, well, you’ll wonder how you did without it.
Messages has some nice improvements, namely “shared with you” which integrates into all the other system apps. Nothing earth shattering but nice. I’ve not had a chance to use FaceTime with any other beta testers and am not a big FaceTime user generally but the announced changes look very helpful for those that use video calls.
A couple more tid-bits. System-wide “shared with you” is a nice new feature. Continuous dictation is great for those that like to dictate text rather than type. Especially useful on the iPhone where I’d much rather dictate than type a long message.
That’s it for the moment. There’s far more of course but they’re features I’m not going into as this isn’t really a review so much as my notes on what I’m interested in and finding most useful. The above linked mini-site over at MacRumors has all the details! Also worth noting, at the bottom of the page is a list of helpful how-to articles for iOS 15.
I started this post in July and am just now, having used the beta for almost two months, finishing off my notes. The final release will likely be coming in the next couple of weeks and with it a load of very detailed reviews.
Back in the late 90s, Memphis, engaged in a bit of community/neighborhood media activism in the form of micro-radio broadcasting. In this photo we were broadcasting out of the trunk of my car at a local punk rock show. Good times.
An early morning bike ride with a view of the waning moon over distant mist covered fields: beautiful!
The First Website
August 6 marked 30 years since the first website. Benj Edwards at How-To Geek has an excellent story about the origin. It began with Tim Berners-Lee of CERN posting to the alt.hypertext newsgroup to invite people to visit his World Wide Web project on August 6, 1991:
In 1989, a British software developer at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (commonly abbreviated “CERN”) named Tim Berners-Lee grew frustrated with how scientists shared research at his organization. With many different file formats, programming languages, and computer platforms, he found it frustrating and inefficient to locate electronic records and figure out how they should be used.
To solve this, Berners-Lee envisioned a network system using hypertext that would allow computers of different kinds to effortlessly share information over a computer network. That invention, first documented in 1989, became the World Wide Web, or WWW for short.
In 1991 I was going into my last year of college. I wouldn’t know about the www until 1996. That said, I was on the internet in 1993 using a service called eco.net which provided email and a few other online text-based services. But after a year of using that for school I discontinued the service. Then it would be two years before I started hearing of Netscape and websites. In 1998 I built my first website, hand-coded and uploaded via Fetch, around the time the young www had begun it’s first growth spurt with web-hosting services like Yahoo’s GeoCities.
Good times.
Another butterfly observed along the road on my daily bike ride. This time a great spangled fritillary, again on the same group of wild bergamot.
Thinking of Loretta
Over at Micro.blog Miraz shared a post about being followed home by a heron which stayed on the deck for a visit. Reminded me of Loretta, a Canada goose, a daily visitor the summer of 2009.
[caption id=“attachment_1947” align=“aligncenter” width=“625”]
Lorretta, our visiting Canada Goose[/caption]
Obsidian Mobile
Finally!! Been waiting for this one for months. Obsidian Mobile released! I set this up on my Mac several months back but have been doing all my iPad writing in Taio or 1Writer because the mobile Obsidian app was not available. That’s worked out pretty well and frankly, I really enjoy working in both of the above mentioned apps. But I’m curious now to see how Obsidian works. After setting it up on the Mac I hardly touched it because I don’t really use the Mac much unless I have to.
So, I’ve now got a Vault set-up in iCloud for Obsidian. Will give it a whirl and add to the post when I’ve had a chance to spend some time with it.
Edit, two weeks later…
Okay, I’m back after a two week shake down. I can’t really say that I’ve explored the app as deeply as I expect to over coming months. But, I’ve given it a light shakedown and I like it! Many have commented that, as an electron app it does not have a native feel to the Mac, iPad or iPhone. I disagree. It certainly lacks the native UI elements a developer has access to but with the Minimal theme it feels close enough and looks quite nice.
The app is very stable and I’m having no problems with the switch from 1Writer and Taio. I’ve got both of those apps set-up to be able to access the Obsidian library should I feel the need to jump into one of those apps to edit. More importantly, I’d created a nice workflow for publishing to my blogs using Taio and that continues to work perfectly. When I’ve got a post written in Obsidian I can jump over to Taio and export to html then I load a new post in WordPress on Safari. It works pretty well.
And coming back again to add to this. I’ve now seen several different writers post on their Obsidian set-ups and have been following threads over at the MacPower Users forum. But today’s post by Federico at MacStories is certainly worth mentioning. It’s the first in a series on his Obsidian setup and covers Sync, Core Plugins, Workspaces and other settings. While I often find his posts interesting and sometimes helpful, he tends to go into a depth of detail that covers his very particular workflows that they don’t often translate well to how I use an app. So, I’ll at least skim his posts but unless I can easily see how it is relevant to my workflow I may not finish it. But his post above is very relevant in that it points a finger to the importance of Obsidian the plugins, various options and shortcuts.
After reading his post, the threads at Mac Power Users and a few others, the depth of features in Obsidian really do set it apart from most other apps. It’s easy to get started with the basics and then spend weeks or months just slowly poking around those depths to get to the many possibilities. That said, I’m glad it is based on Markdown files that other apps can access because even as feature rich as it is it does lack the export options that most other apps seem to have.