Always another new gadget? Why not show a little restraint?
I recently came upon a post on Medium by Serenity Caldwell of iMore: Giving the baby 9.7 inch iPad Pro another chance. I wrote a lengthy response which I’ve edited into this post.
Something I’ve noticed as a general trend in the Apple tech press is a consistent pattern of hyper-consumption always in the context of, justified as, “my last purchase just didn’t quite get me the device I needed”. It goes something like this:
- Apple releases new iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
- Apple blogger/writer/podcaster purchases one of each in at least one size.
- Apple blogger/writer/podcaster writes about how they are writing current blog post/review on said new device.
- Various reviews of various keyboards/cases/covers (if new device was iPad). This case was too heavy, this keyboard wasn’t clicky enough, that case was too flimsy, this other keyboard had the wrong texture, that other case was too heavy, and so on.
- If said new device is an iPad it is a near guarantee that said blogger will give up Mac laptop for at least 6 months.
- Normally back to laptop after 6 months. 2015/16 was different because of the new iPad size/Pencil. Most everyone (in the Apple tech blogger community) seemed to go from an iPad Air to the big iPad Pro then to the small “Baby Pro” iPads. Some even decided to keep the big iPad Pro but concluded it wasn’t quite enough so added the smaller Pro as a second iPad. A few even then bought (or will buy) a new Mac laptop because the iPad (or iPads), while great, is not enough even if being used in combination with a Mac desktop. The conclusion is that a laptop is also needed.
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My humble iPad Air 2[/caption]
The same tech press will also sound the alarm a few times a year about serious problems at Apple because iPad/iPhone sales are not going up and up and up. And they continue with the bad news that Apple is failing its customers because Macs are not being updated on a more regular schedule. Meanwhile, back on planet earth, most of the normal people I know are quite happy to be using a three or four or five year old iPad. Some of these same people are also happy to be using iPhones from last year or the year before. Gasp, they might be using Macs that are 4 or 5 or even 6 years old. My dad is still happy using his 2010 MacBook Air. A friend of mine is using a 2011 MacBook Air. My brother uses a 2012 MacBook Pro. I’m happily getting some of my work done on a 2012 MacMini, the only Mac I have. What work I do not do on the Mini is handled quite well by a two year old iPad Air 2. The horror!
It seems to me that many of the Apple-focused media are living in a sort of disconnected echo chamber. They repeat the same “news” stories, same reviews, the same rumors and the same “First World Problems”. Year by year my RSS feed gets smaller and smaller. Helpful, original content about real world usage seems to dwindle. I know that there is a push now at iMore to address this very issue of regurgitated news with a new emphasis on helpful tutorials, how-to type material. Great! I’d say that is a step in the right direction (as far as content goes).
Of the various Apple tech writers I think Serenity is one the few to post helpful details about workflows. I greatly enjoyed her series on putting the iPad Pro to work and learned a great deal from those articles. Federico of MacStories also does a pretty fantastic job of sharing the many ways he is using his iPad. I suppose I’m just yearning for content that is more illustrative of how Apple tech is being used in the real world by real people (who are not full time tech bloggers/podcasters). For example, though I’m not working for an educational institution I often find Fraser Spears’ content interesting and inspiring. Fraser does a podcast, Canvas, with Federico all about mobile productivity. Teddy Svoronos has written (and guest podcasted) a bit about his use of technology as a PhD grad student. Oh, and David Sparks of MacSparky fame is a lawyer (among many other things) and often brings that context into his discussion of technology. He’s got a whole series of field guides for getting things done with Apple tech. David’s podcasting partner, Katie Floyd, is also a lawyer. She also does an excellent job of discussing how she uses Apple tech. Their podcast, Mac Power Users, is focused on that very thing.
I suppose I’m also looking for a bit of environmental sanity and responsibility within the community. It’s not reasonable to expect that people will replace devices such as iPads every year or even every other year. The same might be said of iPhones. These are computers manufactured with limited resources, why squander them? Why treat them as disposable? I would argue that the tech media, Apple-focused and otherwise, have helped create unreasonable expectations in regards to the purchase rate of computing devices.
Would I enjoy a new iPad Pro? Of course! Even more, I can predict that I will buy one at some point. But why not continue getting the most out of the iPad I have? It’s a powerful computer quite capable of the work I need to do with it. The same can be said for my Mac and iPhone. Indeed, it has often been said that Apple devices are of the highest quality, that they are designed well, made to be beautiful and durable. If this is true shouldn’t we expect to use them for awhile? Why not be a bit more restrained, discerning in our consumption? Why not respect our Macs, iPads and iPhones as the high quality, resource intensive products that they are?
Star Trek Stamps!
“Star Trek” turns fifty this September and to commemorate the U.S. Postal Service will be issuing these four stamp designs. As a graphic designer I really enjoy these fantastic designs by Philadelphia’s Heads of State design studio. I grew up watching Star Trek Next Generation and am, at this very moment, working my way through the original series. Really wonderful series. Over the years I’ve also watched the Voyager series and Enterprise, both very good.
More at usps.com
Playing The Long Game Inside Tim Cook's Apple
What Apple has accomplished with Maps is an example of the kind of grind-it-out innovation that’s happening all the time at the company. You don’t hear a lot about it, perhaps because it doesn’t support the enthralling myth that innovation comes in blinding flashes that lead to hitherto unimaginable products. When critics ding Apple for its failure to introduce "breakthrough" devices and services, they are missing three key facts about technology: First, that breakthrough moments are unpredictable outcomes of ongoing, incremental innovation; second, that ongoing, behind-the-scenes innovation brings significant benefits, even if it fails to create singular disruptions; and, third, that new technologies only connect broadly when a mainstream audience is ready and has a compelling need. "The world thinks we delivered [a breakthrough] every year while Steve was here," says Cue. "Those products were developed over a long period of time."
There are other ways to get content
Peter Kafka at Recode has a bit on
Apple’s new TV plan is a TV guide:
But TV industry executives I’ve talked to view Apple’s plans as a mixed bag. They like the idea of making their individual shows easier to find, but they worry that moving consumers’ focus from their individual apps to a universal guide will reduce their power to promote their other shows.Some of them also suggest that Apple’s plan would irk pay TV distributors like Comcast* and Charter, which are used to controlling TV navigation through their own guides.
They really don't care about the user experience which is why I get my content elsewhere. No thanks fellas.
192 Square Feet: Part 2
This is part two in a series. The first outlined the first seven months of building and living in a 192 square foot house that would be the first of several tiny structures on a property in Missouri.
My first seven months in the cabin felt a bit like camping and they were fantastic! As I went into my first winter I had the essentials: a warm, dry tiny cabin with electricity and wood heat. I did not yet have running water but I did have a sink that drained. For water I filled three 5 gallon tanks at our well 150 feet from my cabin. Most modern-day citizens of the U.S. wouldn’t want to do that for long as we’ve been raised with indoor plumbing which delivers fresh water out of a faucet. I welcomed the experience because I knew it was temporary and because I knew it was giving me a bit of perspective.
There are still some in the U.S. without indoor plumbing, mostly on Indian reservations and in rural areas. According to this story by the Washington Post the number, as of 2014, was 1.6 million Americans. According to a WHO/UNICEF 2010 report “3.8 billion people, or 57 per cent of the world’s population, get their drinking water from a piped connection that provides running water in their homes or compound.” If I needed to live for a year or so without water coming into my home I might get just a brief taste of what many others live without not by choice but by circumstance. But there’s more. Many of those that do not have a water line into their home also don’t have the convenience of a private, powered well with clean source of water just 150 feet away. I considered myself very fortunate.
In October and November I put the garden to bed with planted garlic bulbs and lots of mulch all over. Mostly I used cardboard and straw. I mulched over paths as well as beds and areas of grass that were to be expanded garden beds in the spring. An unlooked for but happily discovered fall crop was the Autumn Olive! We have many of them in the area and the bushes not only smell wonderful in the spring but bear huge amounts of tiny red fruit that are not only edible but a real treat once fully ripe!
Heating with wood that first winter worked pretty well but in a small space even a smallish woodstove can be difficult for full time heating. What I discovered was that it was very easy to waste wood because it was very easy to heat the cabin too much. With so little thermal mass the cabin would heat quickly and cool quickly. I would put a couple logs in at the start of the day and every couple of hours add another log or two. If I was very careful I could moderate it but the slightest miscalculation meant the cabin was suddenly 85 or 90 at which point I could suffer through it so as to not waste the heat or I could open a window or take a walk, either way I was “wasting” the heat and wood. At bedtime I would put a log or two in and know that I would need to get up in two or three hours to put in more. If it wasn’t too cold I could let the fire go out and start fresh in the morning. I woke up many days to my inside thermometer reading between 45 and 55. Certainly tolerable but not very cozy. This would be an issue I would have to deal with in the future.
That first winter I also experienced the joy of uninsulated floors! Cold. Too late to do much about it I put down some carpeting and wore slippers. Future plans would include reducing airflow under the cabin as well as increased layers of carpeting. I did come up with a quick fix to slow the airflow on the west side of the cabin which included some salvaged garden timbers already assembled to the right height supplemented by a few bales of hay. The west side was the most vulnerable not only because it had the greatest gap but also because the greatest incoming wind, often over a frozen lake, was from the west. My cabin takes the full force as there aren’t that many trees on that side and those that are there are, of course, without leaves in the winter!
I also learned the importance of monitoring our little well shed. When temperatures dipped to 0 my heating was not nearly enough and the pipes froze. Never again. The key is “heat tape” and a combination of heat lights and/or a heater of some sort. Minimizing the waste of energy also means paying attention to the weather. When the weather warms the heat goes off but of course it is essential to stay on top of things. As soon as temps dip down into the 20s the protective heat has to go right back on.
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Ice funnels that form when moisture in grass freezes and expands outward.[/caption]
But it wasn’t just cold feet I had to get used to. I’d become comfortable using the outhouse during the warmer months. Using an outhouse at 0° is an altogether different experience! Brrrrrrrr. But as with the carrying of water I viewed it as a learning experience and an expansion of my personal perspective. Funny thing really, I got used to it. Not to say it wasn’t cold each time but it just became a part of life. Yes, it was cold but I survived just fine. Truth is it’s probably pretty funny for anyone within earshot of those first moments of my ass meeting toilet seat as my yelping could probably be heard for several hundred feet. Sorta like someone jumping into cold water. I always have a chuckle at myself in those moments.
One of the benefits of the outhouse, summer or winter, spring or fall, was the sense of connection with the outdoors. In an interesting way using an outhouse or just peeing outside reminds one that in the end we are also animals. Yet another benefit is the usage of “wastes” for the enrichment of soil. Eventually the poop is composted and can be safely used for fruit trees. The urine is great for adding nitrogen to compost. What goes in comes out and it’s best to put it to good use.
You may remember that I also did not have an inside shower. I used the outside solar shower until it got cold. I used the shower in Kerry and Greg’s cabin until they turned their water off for the winter. That was probably late November. Now, this is where some of you get grossed out and where I get to share my thoughts on modern bathing habits. You see, for me, this wasn’t a huge problem. And yes, I hear you snicker, but what about the people around me? Might my stink not be a problem for them? Oh, I see a rabbit hole, let’s jump in!
Modern humans of the “developed” world are far too concerned with being “clean”. We’ve got antibacterial soaps and wipes. Women are convinced that they must shave or otherwise remove much of their body hair. So as to limit our body odor we use deodorants and anti-perspirants. Some people shower daily. I’ve known some that shower twice a day regardless of whether they break a sweat during the day. What are we so afraid of? My disdain for too much cleanliness is not just opinion. Oh no, I’ve got science too. Well, to be specific I have preliminary science because as is often the case, science is tentative.
Ever heard of the “hygiene hypothesis”? In short the idea is that we have become too clean. In our war against “germs” we have greatly reduced the helpful bacteria on which we depend. The contention is that we have become more susceptible to asthma and autoimmune problems because we have reduced our body’s exposure to “germs” which it uses to program the immune system. This is especially important for children who’s bodies are most in need of the “programming”. Not only that but our gut and skin biomes have been greatly reduced. Again, these are necessary bacteria (and fungi and archaea) with which we have a symbiotic relationship. We_ need them to survive._ We call this aggregate of microorganisms the human microbiota. Get used to it, your “body” is actually a community with non-human cells outnumbering human cells by 3 to 1. Fantastic!
For a more academic read there is this. There’s a great deal to be said on the subject and I don’t want to go too far down this rabbit hole. For now I’ll conclude by suggesting that I am clean enough. I found ways that first winter to clean-up without a shower. And for the record, while I wouldn’t want to use an anti-perspirant I am happy to use deodorants. Interestingly I’ve been told by family and a few close friends that I have a unique Denny smell. They contend that it’s not a bad body odor but just a unique smell. I’m guessing that for most of human history each person had such a personal odor. It’s only in recent times that we’ve sought to so completely remove it’s traces.
Okay, now that we’ve covered that I’ll bring the tale of the first year to a close. I not only survived the winter but I thoroughly enjoyed it, frozen feet, icey butt cheeks and all. Spring was around the corner and I would soon be very busy with the garden. Tomato and other warm season crops were seed planted in trays and cool season crops such as peas and lettuce were direct seeded into the garden. The plan for the spring included a chicken coop and attached greenhouse as well as a new cabin for Kerry and Greg’s kids. Oh, and honey bees! Lots to do. More to come!
192 Square Feet
A note about writing this. My initial intent was to post a bit about what it’s like to live in a small space but as I worked on that post it occurred to me that for my own purposes I’d like to have a more complete story of this process. I thought it would be interesting enough to offer more details is a series of posts so, I present you with part 1.
Camping during construction. My niece and nephew.
In the spring of 2008 I made a decision to begin a new living arrangement. With the economy tanking and my life in a period of transition I put thoughts of moving to Maine or Oregon on hold and decided to stay closer to my family in Missouri. With the help of my brother-in-law Greg (who is the real builder) we began a project the family had long talked about. A little village of sorts on our share of land that had been left to us by our grandparents.
Now, before I get into the story I should offer up that I am not a builder. My first recollection of building things was watching my parents help my aunt and uncle as they built a barn and house. But the adults worked, the kids played. I didn’t learn much. A few years later I remember helping my dad build our deck. I should add that my dad is also not a builder. My recollection of the process was one of frustration. My dad’s frustration as well as my own. In the end we had a very nice deck but I don’t recall it being an enjoyable or rewarding process. It may well be that I was just a bratty kid that didn’t want to spend his precious weekend helping build a deck but other memories reinforce the idea that my dad was often frustrated when trying to take on such projects. He wasn’t confident and didn’t enjoy it or at least that’s my recollection. I say this to help explain my own adult tendencies to avoid construction projects and my own lack of confidence in such endeavors. But in the spring of 2008 I did want a cabin and I wasn’t prepared to pay for one. Given that we had larger plans for multiple tiny buildings the choice to learn and work was obvious.
Tomatoes in July!
I knew some of the basics. Previous experience (as an adult) included replacing a part of the roof at deCleyre as well as helping a friend with a roofing job. Also, I’d helped Greg on a few renovations of their home. He had the experience and had a pretty good idea of what he was doing but I’m observant and had watched him closely. During their home renovations I’d used a nail gun, hammer, circular saw, sawzaw, jigsaw and drill. I had a pretty good idea of what it meant to build a standard 2x4 wall. I ran the electrical wiring and helped put up the drywall. I knew the building of my simple one room cabin was really just a process of building a wooden platform, four 2x4 walls, and, finally, a roof. Then all the details of adding in windows, doors, outlets, insulation, inside walls, etc. Not only did we build my cabin but we renovated a shed and built 4 other structures. At this point I don’t doubt that I could build a cabin on my own should I need or want to. Thanks Greg!
Our first building on the property was an outhouse because we knew we’d need some sort of facilities. We had that built in a weekend. It was a simple structure designed so that I could easily empty a large bucket when full. I set-up an out of the way area for a humanure compost pile which can be safely used after a couple of years .
Trying out the new outhouse
The following weekend we set-up tents and an outdoor kitchen in an old shed. Then we spent a month (weekends only) building my 12x16 cabin. The plan for the cabin was simple. I needed something big enough to live in. I don’t own much so basically a single, multipurpose room for sleeping, working, hanging out, food storage/prep and eating. No bathroom as I planned to use the outhouse and bathing would be done outside with a solar shower and then I’d have figure something out for the winter.
Halfway with the floor
Looking back on it now there are two things I would have done differently. I would have insulated my floor and I would have built it bigger to accommodate a small bathroom. If I’d gone just 4 feet more, 12 X 20 instead of 12 X 16 I’d have more room for the bathroom. But that’s it. Generally I don’t mind the lack of a bathroom but if I stay put for the long haul I’m likely to want the convenience of one. As I expected I have found that living in a small space has worked very well for me but more about that later.
My sister and brother-in-law
We arrived to begin work on Friday night. We set-up camp and cleaned the cabin site a bit. Saturday morning we finished clearing the site of debris and started the floor platform made of treated 2x12, 2x8, and plywood. That was finished by Saturday evening. My back was already hurting.
Wall building!
Sunday morning started early with building the 2x4 walls. By Sunday afternoon we had the outer wall panels up. By Sunday evening we had the roof on and had the holes cut for the windows. We had a blast and had squeezed in more than 28 hours of work in 2 days and an evening. We were exhausted. We left Sunday evening after dark and I have no idea how we got home. Somehow Greg managed to stay awake while he was driving though I have no idea how.
Cabin Shell
The second weekend was adding in windows, door and electrical. I actually moved in at the end of the weekend because while it was far from finished it was a pretty weather proof shelter. It was like being in a tent except the eaves were not yet enclosed which meant flying critters got in. I woke up to a bird in the cabin one morning. There were a few flies, june bugs and other assorted winged creatures including a couple of birds that popped in one morning. There were mice. While I had my cabin ready for electric we did not yet have service hooked up so I would be using lanterns for a couple weeks. But it was home and I was happy to be in it. If that meant sharing it with a few critters well then, so be it. I was eager to get started on the garden. I had several trays of seedlings that we’re going to need a home and my garden consisted of a small field grasses and flowers.
Nearly finished on the outside!
The next couple of weeks were spent alternating between gardening and building. On weekends Kerry and Greg would come with the kids and we would build while the kids played. They’d not had a whole lot of time at the lake up to this point and were just getting to the age where they could explore a wee bit. Mornings were spent around the campfire then we’d break off to work on the cabin and the kids would fish or swim with Kerry. By the last weekend of May the cabin was painted and mostly enclosed. By the end of June we’d gotten the cabin fully enclosed, the cabin painted, a ceiling fan installed and the wood slat ceiling was in place.
Early days of garden
My weekdays were spent gardening and cleaning up the various bits of debris left from a tornado that passed through 2 years prior. I refused to use any gas tools with the exception of a chainsaw. All the darkening was accomplished with a mix of labor and time. I cleared out the garden area with a sickle and then an old fashioned non-gas reel mower. My family thought I was nuts but I put it down to idealism. It took longer to do it the way I did but it was great exercise and frankly, I enjoyed it immensely. The spring, summer and fall of 2008 might be best described as pure joy and exhaustion. In my 39 years I had never worked this hard. I’d always worked, always kept busy but never had I physically worked from sun-up to sun-down. I fell into bed each night aching and exhausted. I was gaining a whole new appreciation for what life would be like without modern conveniences, without oil.
Forest garden and orchard. Fencing up, beds in, compost pile underway.
I had a small garden going by the middle of June. I considered it garden phase 1. In a month I had put up fencing, put in double-dug beds and mulched it all with cardboard and straw. Greg had begun picking up fruit trees on sale at the big box stores towards the end of June and they needed to get planted. I sickled and reel mowed pathways into a couple of areas I had planned for fruit trees. July and August will remain a blur of planting fruit trees, hauling lake water in 5 gallon buckets and weeding the garden. I’m happy to say that I didn’t loose a single tree which is saying something because these were all pretty neglected when they got here as they were sale trees that hadn’t sold at Lowes and other places. By the end of July we had a mix of peach, plum, apple, and a single pear, about 15 all together.
In mid summer Greg and Kerry found a good deal on a shed that would become the base of their cabin. We had the shed hauled from 60 miles away and added it to our budding mini-village. It’s a work in progress that continues today with plans to close in the current porch and add a new porch of recently salvaged decking.
My outdoor sink
At some point in mid summer I also began clearing out the lake front which had a downed tree covered in tall grass and flowers. There was another tornado downed tree behind my cabin and damaged trees all around the area. I gradually removed branches and cut the fallen trees down to firewood sized logs and sickled away the tall grass. Yes, this was the summer I finally became familiar with the chain saw. Previous to this I’d only ever used a chainsaw a handful of times. I was never comfortable doing it in part because I did it so infrequently. By the fall of 2008 I’d racked up many back-breaking hours with my new friend, an old red Homelight which I’m still using today. It had been my dad’s but he loaned it to me and then gifted it when he saw that I was actually using it far more than he had occasion to. It’s not the biggest chainsaw but big enough to handle small to medium tree trunks. By early October I had one or two ranks of wood chopped and ready for winter and the lake front was cleared enough that I now had a mostly unobstructed view of the lake.
The Kitchen
Greg had come down several more times through the summer and in early August the walls had all been insulated and finished with wood paneling. As the leaves began to turn to their fall colors we put a bed and storage/guest sleeping loft followed by the wood stove. One of the last projects of the year was putting in some salvaged cabinets and a closet with some shelves and a countertop. My “kitchen”, improvised for most of the summer, started to look like a real kitchen. For much of the summer I’d used an outdoor sink set-up that functioned pretty well. But as the cold weather would be coming soon I decided it was time to move the dishwashing inside so we put in a sink though no running water. I used 3 five gallon water tanks hauled from our well house, usually just one a day. I had always been conscientious about my water use but when I was hauling all of my water by hand I can tell you I became even more careful. This was especially true in the winter when I was hauling the water 150 feet through the snow.
My bed, storage and guest loft above
The summer of 2008 was busy but we were just getting started. Part 2
Managing Websites with iPad - Update
A couple months back I posted about my workflow for managing websites from my iPad Air 2. I’ve got an update. At the time I was waiting for and hoping for an update to Editorial that would allow for split screen mode so that I could split with Transmit. As of now that still has not happened. I’ve seen it mentioned that it’s currently in beta testing but it seems ridiculous that it would take this long to put out an update that takes advantage of iOS features released 10 months ago. . Editorial is great and I guess I’ll get back to it for Markdown documents but for now I’m shelving it until it’s updated.
I’d thought that Textastic might work but I didn’t care for its method for using DropBox files so I decided to look around for another text editor. I’m happy to report that I found one a week ago and thus far it’s been a pleasure to use: GoCoEdit seems to be exactly what I was looking for. It’s packed with features, many of them I’m not likely to ever use but it has most of the features and supports the workflow that I rely on.
First off, the app is updated on a regular basis and takes full advantage of the features of the current iOS. Second, I can connect to my Dropbox account (or ftp, sftp, or google drive) and easily browse all my project folders and documents in one pane of my split screen. Editing those documents is live and does not require that they be downloaded first and I can have multiple documents open with tabs. GoCoEdit includes syntax highlighting, find/replace, code completion, a variety of syntax options and a preview of documents. Oh, and the app supports oodles of keyboard shortcuts if you’re using a Bluetooth keyboard or an iPad Pro with attached keyboard.
When I’m done with an edit in my left pane I can copy and paste into the same document on the server in my Transmit document edit window. Which reminds me, Transmit for iOS is pretty damn crashy. (Side note: maybe I’m just cranky in my old age but I think Panic gets far too much praise. They seem to have this kind of celebrity thing going on in the Apple community. I don’t get it. While I do use Coda and Transmit I find them to be a bit buggy. I’d rather see updates to buggy apps than blog posts about fancy signs and other hipster goings on at Panic headquarters. Yes, your sign is cute but your app is crashing far too often. Fix it.)
WWDC 2016
It’s that time of the year when Apple nerds gather in a big herd in San Francisco for Apple’s WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference.) There is, of course, the other big event in the fall when Apple announces/releases the new iPhone and the new operating systems. But June is centered on app development and it’s where the coverings come off of the details of the new operating systems: watchOS, tvOS, iOS and now, the newly renamed macOS.
I’m not going to deep dive the various platform changes as plenty of others have done that, here’s the MacStories Overview and Walt Mossberg’s Unpacking. Rene Ritchie has a great overview of the whole week: WWDC 2016: Beyond the Keynote.
As usual, there were a great many expectations (and hopes) in the Apple and larger tech community. Some of them realistic, some of them not so much. This year there was much rending of clothing and gnashing of teeth about Siri and how far Apple has supposedly fallen behind Google and Amazon. The expectation being that Apple would bring forth major improvements to Siri, putting itself back on level ground with it’s competitors.
Of course Apple did announce improvements but as it often goes, the improvements are iterative. Siri will be opened up to the developers of apps in a few categories only. The intelligence of Siri will be improved but within the privacy goals previously set by Apple. They will rely on in-device processing as well as something called “Differential Privacy” which is very selective processing by Apple of your data but only in aggregate (with other users) and with injected random noise. The idea here is that they learn about the collective base of users but each individual user’s data remain’s private. Whether the results will be up to the expectations of users remains to be seen. Google collects far more data. Amazon is a bit more open and aggressive.
Along the lines of a more powerful Siri many hoped for the announcement of a new Siri-powered Apple device that would compete with Amazon’s Echo and the devices announced by Google. No such announcements were forthcoming. The closest Apple came was in announcing a new app called Home as well as the Siri improvements. For now the current lineup of Siri enabled devices will be Apple’s offering with the AppleTV and iPad (plugged in) serving as Home-kit hubs.
I’ve been a bit disappointed with the 4th gen AppleTV. I’d been looking forward to Siri searching my content but alas Siri doesn’t search Homesharing content nor has it been announced for the next version of tvOS. But the new remote app will be a welcome addition and no doubt the other improvements will be welcomed by many. I’ve found that the Plex app is far more useful than Apple’s Homesharing interface which seems clumsy by comparison.
I was a bit disappointed that there were not more iPad related improvements to iOS. It’s possible that there will be some improvements that were not highlighted in the opening presentation or in the week afterward. In time more of the hoped for changes will come. Of course Federico Viticci had some thoughts on this.
AppleMusic and News are both going to look a lot nicer. Photos is getting some great improvements and Messages was obviously a focus and is benefiting more than any other app. I use Messages a lot and am looking forward to enjoying the new features. Notes is getting collaboration which will come in handy for folks that need that feature. Split screen Safari might be handy.
macOS Sierra is getting some nice improvements. Most notably, Siri which will be able to handle local file searches, image searches on the web and much more. Some of those searches will be pinnable or saved for later use. Other notables: tabbed interface for many apps, ApplePay, Picture in Picture, iCloud Drive sync for your Documents and Desktop folders, Universal Clipboard, and Auto Unlock.
Katie Notopoulos writing for BuzzFeed The End of the Apple Man
But the effervescent demo of Apple Music by the charismatic Bozoma Saint John — a black woman who looked and acted nothing like the typical Apple Men onstage before her and who in her opening remarks mentioned being a mother — felt like a breath of fresh air signaling that perhaps the winds are changing. There were other signals too. In the video segment cheering on developers using Apple’s Swift programming language, the video ended with a black woman joyfully expounding how awesome coding was — certainly not the stereotype of a coder, and not totally reflective of the crowd there watching the video. At another Apple event in March, another black female Apple executive, Lisa Jackson, took the stage to talk about Apple’s environmental efforts.I’ll end with one of the highlights of the keynote and that was Apple’s announcement of Swift Playground which is a part of their efforts to encourage coding:Everyone Can Code. Many were hoping for full-on app development on the iPad, this is not it but it is a great start. I expect many kids will get their start coding via Swift Playground and many adults too. Very exciting.Breaking the Apple Man stereotype in the people who appear on stage as the Apple’s evangelists is symbolic. Having a black woman present on stage might just mean the company is more aware of the optics of its events.
Our Gigaton Future
This is, without a doubt, the best climate change infographic I’ve ever seen. The perfect starting point for a conversation with friends or family that have not taken the time to consider the scope or time frame of the climate change crisis. How Many Gigatons of Carbon Dioxide? You should definitely swing over and check out the site. They give additional infographics as well as source information for this one.
Apple and NASA collaborate on short film to celebrate Juno Mission: ‘Visions of Harmony’
As an avid amateur astronomer, NASA supporter and all around science nerd I was pretty happy to read today that Apple has partnered with NASA to produce a nine minute short film to celebrate the Juno spacecraft entering Jupiter’s orbit. The film is available on iTunes and Apple Music for free and is called “Visions of Harmony.” On a personal note, as is often true for many amateur astronomers, Jupiter was one of the first things I looked at with my own telescope when I was a 9th grader working on a science fair project. The view through that little telescope was breathtaking though strangely, it didn't quite seem real and it was a moment I've never forgotten.
From the NASA website:
NASA announced a collaboration with Apple that will serve to enhance the agency's efforts to inform and excite the public about dramatic missions of exploration like Juno. “Destination: Juno” is a synergy between two seemingly disparate worlds: popular music and interplanetary exploration. The works resulting from this collaboration showcase exploratory sounds from artists who have been inspired by Juno and other NASA missions, including Brad Paisley, Corinne Bailey Rae, GZA, Jim James featuring Lydia Tyrell, QUIÑ, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Weezer and Zoé.
Apple has captured moments in this journey with a behind-the-scenes documentary spearheaded by the Juno mission's principal investigator, Scott Bolton, and scored by Academy Award winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The content is available on various Apple platforms. Other Juno-related content, including educational opportunities with Bill Nye on and an “Interactive Guide to NASA's Juno Mission,” will roll out over the course of a year and throughout the length of the Juno mission.
The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.
One thing I can say from personal experience as an amateur astronomer is that music does indeed go very well with our exploration of the Cosmos. When I go out to spend an evening at the telescope observing distant galaxies or planets in our solar system I always have a bluetooth speaker with which to play my “Stargazing” playlist. While the quiet sounds of nature are always a nice soundtrack it's usually when I have music playing that I'm most likely to have those moments which seem most otherworldly. There's nothing quite like looking through a telescope at Jupiter or something more distant such as galaxy that has been sending its combined starlight out into the universe for 12 million years. That's the kind of visual experience that is wonderfully enhanced by music.
To go along with the short film, Apple has created a new featured section on Apple Music called “Destination: Jupiter” that highlights the short film as well as the music that appears in it. I've not yet listened but it includes tracks by Trent Reznor, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Quin. The film not only includes live music by the above artists but also an interview with Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton.
NASA missions into the solar system are always exciting. Years of planning followed by years in space and then months to years of data collection. Juno, launched in August 2011, will have been traveling just shy of five years when it enters a polar orbit on July 4.
The spacecraft is to be placed in a polar orbit to study Jupiter's composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere. Juno will also search for clues about how the planet formed, including whether it has a rocky core, the amount of water present within the deep atmosphere, mass distribution, and its deep winds, which can reach speeds of 618 kilometers per hour (384 mph).
According to Apple the goal of its partnership with NASA is to educate and inspire people, while also highlighting the link between exploring space and making music. From USA Today: “The goal is to make science and technology more accessible and relatable to everyone.” - Apple vice-president Robert Kondrk.
For those that might ask, what's the connection between space exploration and creative expression? I would answer that there's nothing we might do that requires the imagination and creativity like space exploration does. Science, in a general way, is often rooted in a creative process. Much of what Einstein accomplished had it's origins in creative thought experiments in which he imagined different scenarios so that he might work through. And he isn't the only one to have used such thought experiments! Spend some time browsing around the fantastic NASA website, have a look at the many ongoing missions and past missions and consider the beautiful dance of science and creativity that goes into the designing of our space telescopes, rovers, and orbiters. NASA often exhibits the best of humanity. Okay, now I'm gushing. This is what happens when I'm allowed at the keyboard unsupervised while on the topic of NASA.
Also, in case you missed it, one last bit of NASA news. Earlier this month, NASA released an application for iOS and the fourth-gen Apple TV. The app includes live streaming NASA TV, a real-time view of the Earth from the International Space Station, as well as on-demand access to over 10,000 NASA videos and more than 15,000 photos, either individually or as a slideshow. It's a fantastic tool for exploring our solar system from the comfort of your couch. From your Apple TV search for NASA in the App Store. Or, from your iOS device get it from the iTunes App Store.
To view the new Apple Music/NASA short film, head to Apple Music.
Originally published at beardyguycreative.com on July 1, 2016.
Apple and NASA collaborate on short film to celebrate Juno Mission: ‘Visions of Harmony’
As an avid amateur astronomer, NASA supporter and all around science nerd I was pretty happy to read today that Apple has partnered with NASA to produce a nine minute short film to celebrate the Juno spacecraft entering Jupiter’s orbit. The film is available on iTunes and Apple Music for free and is called “Visions of Harmony.” On a personal note, as is often true for many amateur astronomers, Jupiter was one of the first things I looked at with my own telescope when I was a 9th grader working on a science fair project. The view through that little telescope was breathtaking though strangely, it didn’t quite seem real and it was a moment I’ve never forgotten. From the NASA website:
NASA announced a collaboration with Apple that will serve to enhance the agency's efforts to inform and excite the public about dramatic missions of exploration like Juno. “Destination: Juno” is a synergy between two seemingly disparate worlds: popular music and interplanetary exploration. The works resulting from this collaboration showcase exploratory sounds from artists who have been inspired by Juno and other NASA missions, including Brad Paisley, Corinne Bailey Rae, GZA, Jim James featuring Lydia Tyrell, QUIÑ, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Weezer and Zoé.Apple has captured moments in this journey with a behind-the-scenes documentary spearheaded by the Juno mission’s principal investigator, Scott Bolton, and scored by Academy Award winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The content is available on various Apple platforms. Other Juno-related content, including educational opportunities with Bill Nye on and an “Interactive Guide to NASA’s Juno Mission,” will roll out over the course of a year and throughout the length of the Juno mission.
The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.
One thing I can say from personal experience as an amateur astronomer is that music does indeed go very well with our exploration of the Cosmos. When I go out to spend an evening at the telescope observing distant galaxies or planets in our solar system I always have a bluetooth speaker with which to play my “Stargazing” playlist. While the quiet sounds of nature are always a nice soundtrack it’s usually when I have music playing that I’m most likely to have those moments which seem most otherworldly. There’s nothing quite like looking through a telescope at Jupiter or something more distant such as galaxy that has been sending its combined starlight out into the universe for 12 million years. That’s the kind of visual experience that is wonderfully enhanced by music.
To go along with the short film, Apple has created a new featured section on Apple Music called “Destination: Jupiter” that highlights the short film as well as the music that appears in it. I’ve not yet listened but it includes tracks by Trent Reznor, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Quin. The film not only includes live music by the above artists but also an interview with Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton.
NASA missions into the solar system are always exciting. Years of planning followed by years in space and then months to years of data collection. Juno, launched in August 2011, will have been traveling just shy of five years when it enters a polar orbit on July 4.
The spacecraft is to be placed in a polar orbit to study Jupiter's composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere. Juno will also search for clues about how the planet formed, including whether it has a rocky core, the amount of water present within the deep atmosphere, mass distribution, and its deep winds, which can reach speeds of 618 kilometers per hour (384 mph).
According to Apple the goal of its partnership with NASA is to educate and inspire people, while also highlighting the link between exploring space and making music. From USA Today: “The goal is to make science and technology more accessible and relatable to everyone.” - Apple vice-president Robert Kondrk. For those that might ask, what’s the connection between space exploration and creative expression? I would answer that there’s nothing we might do that requires the imagination and creativity like space exploration does. Science, in a general way, is often rooted in a creative process. Much of what Einstein accomplished had it’s origins in creative thought experiments in which he imagined different scenarios so that he might work through. And he isn’t the only one to have used such thought experiments! Spend some time browsing around the fantastic NASA website, have a look at the many ongoing missions and past missions and consider the beautiful dance of science and creativity that goes into the designing of our space telescopes, rovers, and orbiters. NASA often exhibits the best of humanity. Okay, now I’m gushing. This is what happens when I’m allowed at the keyboard unsupervised while on the topic of NASA.
Also, in case you missed it, one last bit of NASA news. Earlier this month, NASA released an application for iOS and the fourth-gen Apple TV. The app includes live streaming NASA TV, a real-time view of the Earth from the International Space Station, as well as on-demand access to over 10,000 NASA videos and more than 15,000 photos, either individually or as a slideshow. It’s a fantastic tool for exploring our solar system from the comfort of your couch. From your Apple TV search for NASA in the App Store. Or, from your iOS device get it from the iTunes App Store.
To view the new Apple Music/NASA short film, head to Apple Music.
Help Send iPads to Barefoot College in India
Fraser Speirs, who helped set up the world’s first whole-school 1:1 iPad program at the Cedars School of Excellence, has launched a campaign to buy and ship iPads to the Barefoot College in India.
The Barefoot College is an organization in India that works with women, offering educational and advocacy programs designed to improve village life in a variety ways. The base is the development of capacity to grow their economies and standards of living through training not only in the use of appropriate technology but with a goal of trainees becoming trainers. In other words, each one teach one. In addition to the development of technological skills areas such as women’s reproductive health, sustainability and general occupational skills are also addressed.
The “Barefoot Enriche Curriculum” is designed to
“Enriche offers comprehensive training in things like basic technological skills, women’s reproductive health, environmental stewardship and occupational skills.The programme’s founders say it is digital, viral and co-created. These three aspects are the foundation of the programme’s unique impact and success.
- Digital: Technological tools are developed for specific use among semi-literate and illiterate learners from various regions of the country.
- Viral: Each woman trained becomes a trainer, actively participating in the ongoing knowledge transfer to others.
- Co-Created: Enriche is developed and delivered in partnerships with local social enterprises and NGOs.”
By donating to the campaign, you’ll be helping send 100 used iPads, chargers, cables, and battery packs to the Barefoot College. Fraser is looking to raise about $15,000 by the end of August to cover the cost of buying, testing, and shipping. The iPads will help with all matters of education, advocacy, training, communication, etc.
“The Barefoot College is a place where words like inclusion, social justice and equality are not just words. They are a way of life. We have been championing ideas of capacity building within the rural poor community through solutions like water, solar and livelihood development for our entire history.” MEAGAN FALLONE, CEO BAREFOOT COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL
An iOS Home Screen Long Press Proposal
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Seems like a simple solution?[/caption]
Just a modest proposal for replacing the current 3D Touch on Home screen app icons found on the newest iPhones: why not an enhanced long touch? The current problem is that 3D Touch only works on the newest iPhones. What about older devices and iPads? Why not remove 3D Touch from the Home screen altogether and replace it with a long touch? Currently the long touch is just mapped to one function: Managing apps. Seems a waste when that function could just be added in at the bottom of the menu. Am I missing something obvious?
Illustration Fun
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Just a little something for my niece![/caption]
I should say that “illustration” is not something I generally do but it is something I’ve been trying out for fun and I intend to improve. I don’t know that it’s something I would be comfortable offering as a service anytime soon but it’s certainly something I’m enjoying.
Having a bit of fun...
[caption width=“878” id=“attachment_107” align=“aligncenter”]
Where the magic happens![/caption]
Just been having a bit of fun illustrating a few scenes. Here's one of the Beardy Guy and his fantastical pup, Cosmo, hanging out on a recent summer day.
Apple's Spaceship
Popular Science gets a tour of the new Apple Spaceship, Campus 2
Three miles from Apple’s Cupertino, California headquarters, the tech giant is building something as massive as its own global reach: Apple’s Campus 2. The Spaceship, as many have nicknamed it, is over one mile in circumference—that's wider than the Pentagon. When it’s completed later this year it will house 13,000 employees— including design grandmaster Jony Ive, who helped sculpt the iPhone, and CEO Tim Cook, who helps keep profits in the “billions-with-a-B” territory.Impressive.Campus 2 will run entirely on clean energy, powered by renewable sources. But what’s really grabbed our attention are the thousands of panels of curved window panes—the largest pieces of structural glass ever made—that will encase Apple’s mothership. Equally cool are the 60,000 pounds of hollow concrete slabs that allow the building to “breathe,” bolstering its eco-friendly qualities. With so many futuristic features, we wanted to get a closer look. Here’s what we found.
THE NUMBERS
176: Acres the new Campus will occupy 1.23 million: Square footage of glass involved in the project 3,000: Approximate total number of glass panes used 7,000: Weight, in pounds, of the heaviest panes of vertical glass 4,300: Concrete slabs needed for the floor and ceiling 60,000: How many pounds the heaviest concrete slabs weigh 75: Percentage of renewable energy that campus itself will produce during peak daytime hours 16: Megawatts of power produced by rooftop solar panels 5 billion: Total cost, in dollars, this project is reported to approximately cost (Apple declined to comment on an official figure)
Observing Mars
Mars. The Red Planet. We’ve made great progress learning about our neighbor in recent decades. We’ve currently got two active robots performing experiments and have had others. Imagery from Curiosity is incredibly detailed as is the science coming in from it’s ongoing collecting and processing of samples. I’ve mentioned before how easy it is to get lost in NASA’s Curiosity website.
But in terms of visual, amateur astronomy, I’ve only ever given Mars a cursory glance. If memory serves, it appeared as a off-white, pinkish disc. Nice to look at on occasion but nothing like a view of Jupiter or Saturn both of which offer surface details, moons and in the case of Saturn, rings. But Now I’m wondering if the fault was mine? Did I not look hard enough? I recently revisited the planet and saw surface details I’d not previously noticed. This was a view of Mars worth repeating more often!! A quick look in my preferred astronomy app for the iPad, Sky Safari, suggests that “In a small telescope, Mars shows many of the surface features that sparked the imagination of science fiction writers.” It may be that I was looking when local atmospheric conditions weren’t good or perhaps at a time when something was happening on Mars to obscure the details.
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Observation of Mars June 5, 2016, 10:30pm. Sketched with Procreate on iPad. [/caption]
Now that I’ve had a good look and seen some detail I can say with certainty that I’ll be visiting the planet every chance I get. The surface details will change based on the season as well as the fact that a Mars day is 37 minutes longer than an Earth day which, if I’m thinking about this correctly, means that over time the side facing Earth will gradually change. In some ways viewing Mars is like a blend of viewing our moon and viewing a planet like Jupiter. By this I mean that, like our moon, we can observe features on the surface of the planet. But it’s not a static image. Our moon has no atmosphere and presents a static image to us. As with our observations of Jupiter, what we see with Mars will change over time. From month to month the view will change not only because of the difference in period of rotation but because of season and atmosphere. Fantastic!
Big on Small
I’m big on small and have been for much of my adult life. Not just small but tiny if at all possible. What might it mean to be small?
I’d suggest that we just start by acknowledging our own smallness. We spend much of our lives in a relentless effort to find or create our identity which is a part of proving our worth to the world around us. It might be that we do this with good deeds or, as often seems to be the case, with accumulation of one sort or another. It’s this latter bit that leads so many to a lifetime of bigger houses, faster cars, prettier clothing.
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Spring Peeper[/caption]
But really, we are, each of us just a tiny being sharing a tiny planet with 7 billion other tiny beings such as ourselves. And, of course, our tiny planet is just one of many billions in our galaxy which is itself just one of many billions in the known universe. To say that we are small is an understatement. And yet, our scale, both in physical size as well as in time, is what we experience day to day. It’s what we know and what we function in.
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Earthrise[/caption]
Our lives are small in so many ways. In the span of humanity we are but a tiny blip. Humanity itself is just a moment in the larger span of time. It’s easy to feel insignificant and in a strange way we many of us spend much of our lives trying to prove ourselves otherwise. Steve Jobs referred to it as “putting a dent in the universe.” The striving to leave a mark, to leave our mark. Sadly, in our striving to leave a mark, the collective mark we may leave is more a scar on the tiny planet we inhabit. Our mark might well be not just our own extinction but it is, as I write these words, the extinction of many other species.
Another example of small is small as in intimate, which is to say, being aware of the simple things up close. When I take a walk in the woods I walk slowly. I’m happy to take a long hike for exercise but to truly explore I only need to venture out a few hundred feet outside my door. More often than not we miss the little detail going on all around us. It might be a cluster of tiny fungi growing in a carpet of moss. Or a snail moving across a rock. Those tiny things are easy to miss, especially for adults. We get busy with making life complicated and we tower so far above our toes that we rarely take the time or make the effort to see the world around us from a different perspective. Some of the most interesting stuff of life happens on this small scale.
What begins as awareness can grow into appreciation and respect. It’s been my experience and observation that in the hustle and bustle of “modern” life we have disconnected from many important processes that are obvious if we’re paying attention but easily invisible if we’re not. Everything from soil building via decay to the hatching of turtle eggs to the transformation of a Monarch from larvae to butterfly. Life and death is happening all around us.
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Spicebush Swallowtail nectaring from Butterfly Weed[/caption]
I’ll admit here the limits of these words. As much as I respect science and the scientific method I’m not a scientist and what I can offer here is personal perspective based on observation. Like many of the words shared throughout history, be it on paper or pixel, I am, in my own way, reaching out. Not so much to convince as to connect. Might I suggest we might do better embrace small? It is really just another way of suggesting that we embrace fragility. That we acknowledge that the life on our planet rests precariously on a tiny edge that we are collectively tipping out of balance.
So, how might this embrace manifest itself in how we live our lives? I’ve got a list! By no means exhaustive. Just a few of the things I try to implement in my life. Just something to get you started.
- Take more time eating breakfast
- Make it a point to go outside and get on your hands and knees. Find something tiny, something fragile.
- Observe the processes going on around us, especially those of the natural variety.
- Find nature even if you’re in an urban setting. Seek it out, preferably on foot.
- Plant a seed and make sure it grows. Best if it is something you can eat like a tomato.
- Be okay with being small.
- Think about your use of resources, especially fossil fuels. Reduce travel especially if it requires a plane or auto. Embrace trains and bicycles for travel.
- Reduce your use of resources. Then reduce it again. And again. Don’t stop.
- Increase your capacity to renew life around you. Start small. That tomato plant needs friends. Why not grow a pepper and some basil too?
- Take time to learn about the non-human species that inhabit your region.
- Mulch something. Mulch some of your grass lawn if you have a lawn. Grass lawns are a waste of resources. *Plant fruit trees or fruit bushes.
- Compost your organic waste. Don’t forget to dig into the pile every so often to check out the process.
- *Your tomatoes, peppers and basil are probably a little lonely. Plant some native wildflowers. There’s a bird or a butterfly just waiting to be fed by the flowers you plant.
- Remember, smaller homes require fewer resources to build, maintain, heat and cool.
- Share resources with your friends and neighbors.
The New Diggs!!
Aaaaahhhh. Yes. Here we are. Well, here I am. I assume that there might be a we. It is certainly my hope that there will be a we. In any case, I am most definitely here. This will be a continuation of the blogging I’ve been doing over at ourtomorrow.blogspot.com for the past 10 or so years. I expect it will be more of the same, no big changes in direction. I’ll write about the thing I enjoy and occasionally the things that frustrate me. By and large though I expect to keep it positive.
So you can expect musings and observations of life in the woods, observing the local critters as well as the distant objects in our night sky. Thoughts on science, society, and the Universe in general. Also, of course, bits about my experiments with permaculture.
How I use Siri
According to Caitlin McGarry, a writer over at Macworld, Siri is seriously behind:
Google previewed its new voice assistant, the generically named Google Assistant, at its I/O developers conference on Wednesday, and while the assistant hasn’t actually launched yet, its features made Siri’s lack of functionality all the more obvious. Apple’s iOS assistant now lags so far behind not only Google, but Amazon’s Alexa, intelligent iOS apps like Hound, and new technology from Siri’s creators, that it’s unclear if Apple has any interest in catching up.That’s silly. Linkbait. And here I am linking to it. I’ve not seen what Google previewed in a currently unavailable application but to jump to the conclusion that Siri is suddenly so far behind that Apple’s plans to keep it up-to-date are now in question. Seriously? Where do I wash this muck off.Siri usually reverts to a web search for questions it doesn’t know the answers to, and now I’ve come to expect that if I want anything more than a timer set or the weather forecast, I’ll have to look it up myself.
And the suggestion that Siri is mostly just good for setting timers or getting the forcast only tells me that either Caitlin does not know how to use Siri or that she’s being intentionally dishonest.
I’ll agree that Siri could be better. Of course it could. That can be said about any of the other virtual assistant services currently available. No doubt Amazon has done a fantastic job with Alexa and has moved the bar. But to paint Siri as this useless, abandoned technology is just ridiculous.
As someone who actually uses Siri on a regular basis let me share just a small sampling of my requests. Yes, timers and alarms and the weather. And really, those are quite useful. But as an avid amateur astronomer I also routinely seek out quick facts. When I’m at the telescope I’m using my favorite astronomy app, Sky Safari, which has much of what I need. But there are times when I’m out for a walk and thinking about some aspect of astronomy. I have on occasion put together Keynote presentations for the local library and might be mulling over a few topics or possible content. For example: What is the largest moon of Jupiter? Siri comes back with an answer via Wolfram Alpha (Ganymede). Another: What is the distance to Pluto? Yup, again via Wolfram Alpha (32.41 astronomical units in case your curious). It gets better and better. Siri, when was the Mars Curiosity Rover launched into space? Yup, another answer from Wolfram Alpha:
If I need the time that a planet is going to rise above the horizon because I’ve got friends coming over to spend some time at the telescope? Yup. I can get the time via Wolfram Alpha right in Siri’s search results. Now, to be sure, some questions do bring up web searches, usually with Wikipedia right at the top which is almost always what I want.
But I’m interested in more than astronomy. I have a keen interest in local flora and fauna. That flower over there that I think might be a gray headed coneflower? Or that bird that might be an indigo bunting? I can ask Siri for images and I have them presented right in the results.
Podcasts or music while I’m out for a walk? I can ask for a specific episode of a specific podcast or the most recent and it opens up nicely. I can have specific music played or a shuffle of everything.
What about local errands or day trips? If I’m interested in directions or the open hours of nearby businesses that usually works out. I’m in a small town in rural Missouri and with Yelp as the basis for these searches it can be hit and miss. If I ask “where is the nearest Trader Joes and is it open today?” I get the results with a map and Siri let’s me know the hours for today. I can tap the map for full directions. I’m not likely to drive that far but it’s possible I might drive into a closer town for Panera Bread. Again, I’m presented with the hours and a map which also indicates that they accept Apple Pay. If I ask about movies for that town I get a list of movies with nice movie art as well as times. If I click one I get more details, directions and an option to play the trailer. Maybe I decide to stay in and rent something on iTunes. A request brings up the information, artwork and option to rent or purchase. Maybe get some pizza? The phone number, map and hours all pop up.
I can do this all day long. Sports? I’m not into sports but I’ve played with it a bit just to see what Siri can produce. Excellent results. I grew up following baseball and that’s something I still follow a bit. If I’m curious about my favorite Cardinals player, Yadier Molina I can ask how he’s doing this year and I get a nice report:
Recipes? Easy enough to find via a Siri web search. Of course, that goes for anything at all and I realize that while handy, initiating a web search is likely pretty low on the list of any voice assistant’s skills. I’m not going to suggest that Siri is perfect. If I ask her to make me lunch I get a simple no. If I ask her to water my garden, no again. But you see, those are obviously absurd requests of a virtual assistant. Actually, now that I think about it there might come a time when Siri could water my garden if and when HomeKit and the necessary components are made available but I don’t think that’s happened yet.
The takeaway here is that there is plenty that Siri can do and I suspect that Caitlin knows it. As a writer for Macworld I certainly hope she does. Anyone can activate Siri and ask “What can you do for me” and get a very helpful list that goes far beyond my examples. Sure, we all hope for more and no doubt more is coming. But for now I’ll happily go on using Siri in the ways that I know I can. I’ll even continue learning new ways to use “her” as I try new requests some of which will fail but many of which will helpfully provide information or complete a task I need help with. For that I’ll be grateful to Apple and it’s engineers.