So many of us use our computers at what I would consider a “surface level”. This is especially true around using a Mac; Apple has baked in a lot of productivity shortcuts into the MacOS experience but at times they can be difficult to find.
Matt at “A Better Computer” shows the magic of the Option key on MacOS. I found his video fascinating.
I often can’t decide if I want to focus on “digital minimalism” or “avoiding all capitalism” when it comes to my computing habits.
When I’m in a Digitally Minimalistic mindset, it’s all about the MacBook Air, my iPhone, and occasionally my iPad. I reduce the number of applications I’m using to the bare minimum and I focus on what works without a lot of tinkering. It’s during these moods that I usually step aside from all forms of social media.
But then the pendulum swings the other way and I get all “avoiding all capitalism”, where I decide that even though I believe Apple still provides the best consumer grade computing experience out there, they’re too expensive and they want me to buy too many apps, so then I resurrect an old laptop with the latest flavor of Hip-Linux and focus on that. I get rid of all the apps, move my data somewhere else (again!) and start chatting with folks online about the benefits of using a home grown operating system and the like. Then I apply an update, the computer goes completely sideways, forcing me to punch out an email via telegram and/or Ye Old Scroll, and then I give the pendulum a shove back in the original direction.
Such a quandry.
I look at all sides of a problem or a puzzle or an opportunity and then I look at all sides again. I see all the goods, all the bads, and all the maybes, so then I look at all sides again. Then I start spinning around and try as I might, there’s no bright flash of light with a thunderclap and, to the relief of memory, I do not find myself in star spangled shorts with matching cape.
I think I’ll just stick to the Mac.
These iPhone 16 Pro ads were all over Denver and they’re all over San Francisco. As mentioned in an earlier blog entry, I have the new iPhone 16 Pro. The Camera Control has not impressed me at all; I find the UI (User Interface) very confusing. Light press, hard press, press once, slide, press twice, what do I do to take a photo. It’s easier to just use the Volume Up button like I’ve done since the iPhone 3G or so.
I’m surprised that Apple is advertising Apple Intelligence so much since it hasn’t been released. There’s now rumors that the first pieces of Apple Intelligence, but not the complete package, will be available to consumers by the end of October. I refuse to install the beta version of iOS 18.1 on my brand new iPhone because beta software is used for testing, not pre-releasing new features to the public. Traditionally, beta software has meant “it’s not ready for production yet, it’s buggy, and we need some folks to test it so we can continue to move it towards production”. Releasing beta software to millions of users just seems like typical gross (as in ‘yuck’) marketing.
I’m hoping that Apple Intelligence steers this whole “A.I.” trend in a different direction that what we have to do. A.I. is not smart. In fact, all A.I. does is predict the next word that you’ll want to see based on what it’s presented in response to your request. It’s a word salad maker. In fact, it’s like throwing words into a salad spinner and getting the words out in the expected order. That’s it. A.I. does not know fact from fiction, it just knows what the next word in the paragraph should be.
I’ve gotten into the unfortunate habit of disregarding work emails that were obviously written by the company’s in-house A.I. by the way. If you can’t take the time to write an email to me I can’t take the time to respond.
I’m getting off track.
I’m hoping “Apple Intelligence” steers A.I. into a direction akin to what was described as a new approach to operating systems about a decade ago with the “MercuryOS” project. The desktop paradigm that we use on our desktop and laptop computers has become woefully outdated, as it’s based on actual office desktops from the mid 20th century. You shouldn’t have to organize all your stuff into files and folders. You shouldn’t care about file names and the like. Anything touting “Artificial Intelligence” should handle that stuff for you, so you can find your words and images and the like in your personal word salad.
I don’t want “A.I.” to find facts, I want A.I. to find my stuff and perhaps guide me into a natural workflow for responding to emails and scheduling meetings and the like. Sure, it can summarize those meeting notes, just don’t actually write my notes. It’s not that smart.
Just for fun, I had ChatGPT summarize everything you’ve read in this blog entry thus far.
In this blog entry, JP discusses his experience with the iPhone 16 Pro, expressing disappointment with its Camera Control interface, finding it confusing and preferring the old method of using the Volume Up button to take photos. He is surprised that Apple is heavily advertising its upcoming “Apple Intelligence” feature despite it not being released yet, and he avoids beta software, viewing it as an unpolished product for testing.
JP is skeptical about the broader trend of AI, criticizing its limitations as a tool that merely predicts the next word without understanding fact from fiction. He shares his frustration with work emails generated by AI, seeing them as impersonal, and hopes that Apple Intelligence will take AI in a more practical direction, such as helping users manage files and workflows instead of generating content. Ultimately, he advocates for AI to assist in organizing and navigating tasks rather than replacing human thought processes.
See? ChatGPT and the like are great at spinning the word salad.
I’m hopeful that Apple Intelligence is going to spin the words in the right direction and focus on productivity and the like, instead of content creation. We shall see.
Someday.
Dave over at Blogography wrote a most excellent review of his new iPhone 16 Pro. Much of what he talks about in the review mirrors my feeling on my new iPhone 16 Pro. I like my phone very much, but even upgrading from my iPhone 13 Pro has felt quite iterative instead of evolutionary.
And what in the world is Apple thinking with touting “Built for Apple Intelligence” everywhere when Apple Intelligence hasn’t been released to the masses yet?
I really miss the days of tech being released when it was evolutionary or revolutionary instead of just a mark on the calendar.
A snapped a photo during our walk the other night. I’m really enjoying the camera on this new iPhone 16 Pro.
My husband occasionally struggles with the interface on our AppleTV. But when it comes to football season and his NFL Sunday Ticket, he effortlessly watches four games at once, navigating between all of the action with ease.
I enjoy that he is able to do this. There are plenty of situations where technology seems to impede our lives; in this instance, it’s doing wonderfully at providing entertainment.
Here’s are some quick thoughts on today’s Apple Event, “It’s Glow Time”.
The event was geared primarily to this year’s iPhone announcements, the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Pro lines. I watched the event while working, so this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive coverage of the event, but rather some of the quick takeaways I picked up while I was attempting to be productive.
Since the pandemic Apple has been doing pre-recorded announcements at these events, and will probably continue this trend for the foreseeable future. I know these events are all recorded on iPhones and then edited on Macs, which I find nifty. This approach is leading me in the direction of going to an all iPhone approach to my YouTube content. Someone just needs to inform my husband in the budgetary department.
The video itself was gorgeous and I’m always impressed with the production values. For some reason I found Tim Cook’s cadence a little “off” during his portions, like there was an extra beat or two of awkward silence between sentences. Perhaps the teleprompter was difficult to read in the outside sun.
The new Apple Watch Series 10 features a bigger screen that is designed to be easier to view from an angle, which makes sense to me because it is a watch. I like the look of the new version of Apple Watch, but I’m not sure I need an update as of yet. I’m still rocking my Apple Watch Series 7 (the version with cell service) and it seems to be fitting my needs quite well. As I type this blog entry I just turned “Always On” back on to see how it affects the battery life. I had a few applications that were crashing battery life earlier this year and I had turned that feature off. Let’s see if it’s figured itself out.
Apple Watch Ultra 2 got some upgrades but I still think it’s version two. Even though I enjoy hiking, I don’t know that I need an Ultra at this time. We’ll see.
I was dismayed to see that Apple announced beefed up speakers in the new watches, as that’s just going to encourage rude people to start playing music and phone calls over the speakers all the more while they’re in public and that really grates on my nerves.
The entire AirPods line was updated and I was surprised to see Apple leaning on health related features in this line. There was a noted focus on hearing protection and hearing augmentation. The software can now do some nifty things with pass through and noise cancelation, which is interesting. As a Gen Xer I usually translate “they’re wearing headphones or EarPods” to “they don’t care and/or they’re not paying attention to me”. However, now that these devices can be used in place of hearing aids, I should be less judgmental about the use of the devices in every day life. Though, to be fair, I don’t know why anyone would want music piped into their ears during every waking moment; that’s why we Muzak where you can shop at Safeway to a lively beat.
The big announcements were the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro lineups. There’s a new camera button underneath what I still call the power button, and that button is used for photo and video purposes with enhancements to the camera app. I really liked that. The new button is haptic, so there’s a difference between touching the button, pushing the button, and stroking the button. I need some hands on time to see how much it enhances the camera experience.
I find the new “Desert Titanium” iPhone 16 Pro the most appealing. The color is gorgeous and I really like the idea of a titanium phone. The cameras on the pro series have all been beefed up and of course the entire iPhone 16 line is ready for the upcoming Apple Intelligence coming out later this year.
Speaking of “coming out soon…”, there seemed to be a LOT of mentions of features that would be available this year throughout the entire presentation. It seems like the company has become a slave to its own marketing department and stock holders and for some reason it really feels like they’ve been caught off guard a little bit with this “artificial intelligence” fad that has gripped the tech world. Apple Intelligence seems to be the most appealing approach to me, in that Apple is predictably leaning on security and doesn’t seem to be encouraging people to take photos of things that aren’t really there and trying to pass them off as real. I’m not a fan of the “artificial intelligence” fad, but I figure I’ll be beyond this lifetime before it completely destroys society. At least Apple seems to be doing it in the most sane way possible.
As a budding videographer I am very much interested in the new iPhone 16 Pro to replace my iPhone 13 Pro. The camera upgrades, processor upgrades, and the now year-old upgrade to USB-C would be a big benefit to my videography experience. While I did hear some remarks from folks who wonder if we want to be locked into an Apple ecosystem when it comes to photos and videos, I don’t really think of the content creation on iPhones as a lock-in to the Apple walled garden. There are plenty of apps out there that allow a creative to treat the in-phone cameras as a regular camera with plenty of adjustments across the board.
It’s all a matter of budget for me, and if Apple can record their gorgeous productions on an iPhone 16 Pro, I can do the same with my hiking, storm chasing, and aviation videos.
Our new(ish) car has Apple CarPlay (and Android Auto) built into the entertainment system. It’s a corded affair but it meets our needs and after going for years without the functionality in our Jeep Cherokee, we have enjoyed using Apple CarPlay.
Most of the time.
I have a love-hate relationship with Apple Maps. At times it shows us traffic lights that aren’t there, or it labels roads with route numbers that never came to fruition. But I think the biggest frustration I have with Apple Maps is that it doesn’t “plan ahead” when displaying maps in rural areas and cell signal is suddenly lost.
As you can see, I have apparently driven off the edge of the planet, even though I still have a 5G signal on my iPhone. Whereas Google Maps will download ahead as we drive merrily along, Apple Maps doesn’t seem to be as proactive in the practice. Google Maps has other issues, hence the reason I use Apple Maps.
Maybe there’s a setting or something that I need to tweak. In the meanwhile, it’s a bit maddening driving in a pedestrian version of a Tron grid.
I don’t have a lot to write about today’s announcements during WWDC24 from Apple Park. Is that what we call the spaceship? Apple Park? I should go there and get the full Apple Park Spaceship Experience. I hear it’s a real “E” ticket ride.
As a daily constant user of Apple products, I was interested in what the latest iterations of all the operating systems was going to bring the to the masses. I even blocked time off in my work calendar so I didn’t miss a beat. I walked away feeling kind of “meh+” about the whole thing.
A.I. doesn’t really get me worked up with excitement. I mean, it’s kind of neat, but it’s just a computer program cleverly grabbing whatever it can and regurgitating it back to the user based on some sort of input. It sounds intelligent, but A.I. isn’t really intelligent. It’s the new hype thing though and all the companies think they’re going to make money by mentioning “A.I.” in their products. But in too many cases it’s like saying Tide Pods are Gluten Free.
Anything to beef up Siri’s capabilities with a dose of sanity and basic functionality is a welcomed addition to the experience, so there’s that.
I definitely don’t need to make cartoons out of images of my friends to let them know they should have a happy birthday, and in that way I feel like Apple REALLY dumbed down and/or cheapened their line of products with gimmicks like this. I usually feel a warm and fuzzy from Apple; this doesn’t give me a warm nor fuzzy. But integrations with calendars and relating my schedule to things I have to do and the like… that’s something I can get on board with.
I was really surprised at how little time, comparatively, was spent with the Vision Pro enhancements. I feel like Apple has lost a bit of their enthusiasm for their Spatial Computing platform, even though it was just released in February. I don’t feel bad for the folks that spent $3500+ on these new devices, as I feel like it was sold long before it was ready to be useful, but I was surprised there wasn’t a little more movement forward with the platform.
The other thing that surprised me was the on-board A.I. processing is limited to the latest and greatest “Pro” edition of the iPhone, and that’s it. Obviously it’ll work with new phones coming out this fall. But if I had the latest “consumer” edition of the iPhone and I was left out of the loop I’d be a little perturbed. I still have an iPhone 13 Pro that works quite well, so I knew I wouldn’t be in that mix.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!