I did some redecorating for the occasion!
But now I’ve really got to go to bed because—what’s that?—oh yes, I have my very first client hike for Onward Mountain Guides tomorrow! 😁
🆕📝 Vote for Kamala Harris & Tim Walz
Kamala is the only choice—but also the right choice—for our free and democratic values, and basic human rights, to be upheld. And it's well past time that we ask a woman to lead us. 🇺🇸
This has me rethinking some things on my lock screen…
Always enjoy reading @nashp and I like this idea of the Lock Screen being the Home Screen. https://nashp.com/134
My 1-hour review of this silicone cover for AirPods Max: I was skeptical pulling it out of the package, but so far so good! It’s totally fixed my problem with the all-stretched-out headband fabric. Way more comfy again. Plus the red color pops and feels like an homage to my beloved red iPhone mini!
Wes Davis at The Verge tallies up his Apple product usage, comparing to Tim Cook’s routine:
Final count: 15 devices, nine services, 26 apps, and eight accessories.
Describing all of that made me feel like I’ve stared into the abyss only to find it staring back at me. But it still leaves out countless other Apple apps, non-Pro iPads, the iMac, and the Mac Pro. How would someone, even the CEO of Apple, fit those in?
I rarely stop to consider just how many Apple devices and services augment my daily life. It’s a high number, to be sure, but I’m not sad about it.
Jason Kottke, maker of “fine hypertext products”, points out how hyperlinks bring the receipts:
What makes this piece so effective is its plain language and its information density. This density is a real strength of hypertext that is often overlooked and taken for granted. Only 110 words in that paragraph but it contains 27 links to other NYT opinion pieces published over the last several months that expand on each linked statement or argument. If you were inclined to follow these links, you could spend hours reading about how unfit Trump is for office.
It struck me reading that piece too.
Happy to see The New York Times Editorial Board’s succinct urging to vote against a Trump presidency:
Mr. Trump’s corruption and lawlessness go beyond elections: It’s his whole ethos. He lies without limit. If he’s re-elected, the G.O.P. won’t restrain him. Mr. Trump will use the government to go after opponents. He will pursue a cruel policy of mass deportations. He will wreak havoc on the poor, the middle class and employers. Another Trump term will damage the climate, shatter alliances and strengthen autocrats. Americans should demand better. Vote.
They endorsed Harris in September. 🇺🇸
Choosing the Share Item Location option creates a link that allows someone to see the location of a lost item when they open the link. The link can be opened on a non-Apple device, so people without an iPhone or Mac can help you find something that’s lost. Find My links that you share expire after a week and you can see how many people visited the link.
It remains to be seen if an airline employee will do anything with that link to try to find your lost luggage.
🔗
This means that if you want a trio of color-matched Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad, you’re simply out of luck.
Buying a Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad separately will limit you to the standard black and white color options. Thus, your accessories won’t match.
Boo! 👎
👀 Amazon’s got the M2 MacBook Air with the new 16GB RAM and 256GB storage standard at $200 off (down to $799). That’s quite the deal. (Via MacRumors)
Just ran across this Verge article from October 2023 in my reading queue:
SpaceX has published a new webpage to promote its upcoming “Starlink Direct to Cell” service that plans to offer cellular connectivity to “existing LTE phones” via satellite. The website, which PCMag reports went live earlier this week, notes that the service will initially be limited to texting services in 2024, with voice and data functionality following in 2025, alongside support for IoT devices.
This would be a big leap for connectivity, but 2024 is running out. Beware Musk timelines. ⏳
📺 Agatha All Along was really good (if not great) and I’m excited to see where they go with the story next.
Matt Birchler, in a member post, points out that Call of Duty has both massive computing requirements and a complex interface, and still “normal” folks figure it out just fine:
None of this is to say that good user interfaces don’t matter, of course they do. I do think it’s a good reminder of two things:
- The “average user” is more capable than we give them credit for
- People will tolerate a bad UI if they enjoy the product as a whole
A good reminder for all of us pontificating about the average user.
Dan Moren’s The Back Page column this month, ‘Tim Cook’s busy schedule’, is worth the Six Colors membership price all on its own:
4:30pm: Afternoon stroll to close rings and use iPhone 16 Pro to track down AirTag that Phil Schiller hides daily on Apple Park campus. […]
11pm: Wake from dead of sleep to fumble for bedside Mac Studio and Pro Display XDR. Check email. Breathe sigh of relief and go back to sleep.
🤣🤣🤣
Joe Rosensteel masters the sub-tweet with this post throwing shade at Apple’s rollout strategy for Apple Intelligence, which is to get everyone talking about the next upcoming beta features just as the current stuff gets released.
‘The Pre-Taped iOS Call-In Show’:
Okay, okay, there you go. That’s boo-boo number one. If you wanted to talk about iOS 18.1, you should have called last week during the iOS 18.0 show. We’re talking about iOS 18.2 now. If you see me talking about the genmoji and Image Playgrounds waitlist then it’s too late to talk about those. We’ve moved on.
Chef’s Kiss
🔗
What this means is that you can now purchase a Mac mini with a 14-core M4 Pro for $1,599 in the U.S. and get similar to faster peak performance than a Mac Studio with the 24-core M2 Ultra, a configuration that starts at $3,999.
As for year-over-year performance improvements, the M4 Pro is up to 45% faster than the highest-end M3 Pro chip in terms of multi-core CPU performance, based on the Geekbench 6 results that are available so far.
Not bad when that beats the fastest chip in a Mac Pro, too.
I totally missed the 2-minute sketch at the end of today’s MacBook Pro video. So worth watching. 😆
Greg Morris on modern apps:
If I am a power user, I might also demand Shortcuts support, Siri integration and even a fancy API if the app calls for it. There are widgets to think about, live activities and in the near future, Apple Intelligence integration. Great apps don’t just exist as a square on your Home Screen, they extend into numerous areas and through different interaction methods. We expect them to be available everywhere we are, and still moan because the developer wants to make an income from their work. Worth bearing in mind next time an app you love asks you for a contribution.
🍿 Watched: Memento (2000) directed by Christopher Nolan 👍👍
It’d been a while since I saw this, and I got my wife to view it with me. Doing so while high really kept things interesting! We love a good time-based plot device.
Imagine being in a gym where accidents happen—maybe a stray elbow here, a bump there. Aurelius notes that in these moments, we don’t hold grudges; we simply acknowledge the mishap as part of the process and remain vigilant without bearing ill will. He suggests taking this approach into our everyday lives, dealing with emotional and social bumps with the same nonchalance. […] In the close quarters of life, just like in a gym, people might ‘collide’ with us unintentionally. According to Aurelius, we should view these incidents as neutral events, not personal attacks.
