Geek

My iOS devices running the iOS 13 beta tried to upgrade to Public Beta 1 of iOS 13.1 this morning. I wasn’t about to allow a “public beta 1” on any of my devices, as they often have lots of bugs and battery issues, so I decided to stick with iOS 13 Public Beta 8 until the official release of iOS 13.

It looks like that’s going to happen around September 10.

I’m a little confused as to Apple’s thinking around having overlapping betas like this. Personally I’m not a fan of the public beta program at all, but that’s just the old school developer in me. I think back to the days of “Windows Longhorn”, when you had to be pretty special to try out the pre-beta version of Windows Vista before it was released to the masses.

I’m a little concerned about Apple’s testing practices and their new habit of promising features in a new release and then pulling some of the new features out to release them in a .1 release a little later in the timeline. This is what Apple is doing with iOS 13.0 vs iOS 13.1.

It’ll be intriguing to see what is actually released with the announcement of the new iPhones in a couple of weeks.

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball revealed that iOS 13.1 Beta 1 is already out to developers. iOS 13 doesn’t come out until (presumably) mid-September, so the fact that Apple is already releasing the beta for iOS 13.1 is somewhat odd.

Come to find out, several of the enhancements slated for iOS 13, including folder sharing in iCloud Drive, have been pulled from the “.0” release and pushed to 13.1, which will come out toward the end of the year.

Perhaps Apple should stop telling everyone what’s going into a new iOS release and instead announce what’s already been built for the next iOS release. Another idea would be to release updates to the popular operating system when they’re actually ready instead of pandering to the marketing types and forcing out a release every year, whether it’s ready or not.

Marketing should not be determining release schedules, developers and project managers should be fulfilling that task.

I know Apple needs to play games to maintain relevancy and grab the attention of the ever increasing shiny object mentality of the lowest common denominator American, but pushing out half baked software, or worse yet, making promises they can’t keep (ahem, AirPower) is so non-Apple like. Maintain dignity, Apple, dignity.

And while I’m commenting on the state of Apple: one of the reasons I pay a premium price for their hardware, software, and services, is to escape data scraping for the purposes of ads, as well as avoiding ads from being pushed in my face. Yet, for the last couple of ApplePay purchases I’ve made, I’ve been reminded that I could have earned extra Apple cash if I had signed for an Apple Card.

When I’m ready to sign up for an Apple Card I will sign up for an Apple Card. I know many Apple fanboys are breathless over the thing, but we’re content with the thousands of air miles we are earning with our current credit cards. I don’t have a need for another card at this time.

Stop pushing the ads at me. Leave that sort of behavior to the Google set.

So I’m in Syracuse, N.Y. visiting family. I’m here for today and tonight and I’ll be heading back to the midwest tomorrow.

That’s a lot of driving. But surprising mom with a visit from her oldest born? Totally worth it.

The drive along the Indiana Toll Road, Ohio Turnpike, a thankfully short run through PA and then the New York State Thruway gives one a lot of time to listen to podcasts. I’m in a self-analysis and “fix some things” mindset, and I’ve been listening to episodes of Focused on the Relay.FM podcast network.

Really good stuff. I’m finding several areas needing improvement when it comes to focus and my professional life and I’m taking notes while I’m driving listening to these podcasts. Thank goodness for Siri and the ability to say “Remind me…” and whatever nugget of information I just gleaned from the dialog.

One of the things that interested me most this morning was a discussion about the “Infinity Pool” concept utilized by apps, mainly social media ads like Facebook and Twitter. Apple News and YouTube also fit into this category. These apps have endless scrolling. They just keep feeding you more and more information based on an algorithm as you scroll through the content they’re providing you. There is no end. You just keep going.

This is how social media becomes such a massive time suck. Do I really need social media like this on my iPhone? Twitter has become hard to take and using it was really impacting my mood in a negative way, so I’ve been taking a break for the past couple of days. After listening to these podcasts, I’m really hesitant to ever let Twitter on my iPhone again and I’m not missing it as much as I thought I would.

Taking stock in what I do, taking an honest look at my behaviors and habits with my iPhone has made me realize that there’s a lot of truth in the episodes I’ve been listening to. I plan on listening to more of these episodes on the drive home.

I’ve got some house cleaning to do.

So now there are charging cables that can be used to hack into your iDevice. Vice.com reports that hackers are making cables that look and act like a regular iPhone lightning charging cable, but there’s extra electronics in the cable that gives them access to the device it’s charging.

Luckily, I’ve never plugged my device into an unknown charging cable but I am going to start looking twice at these public charging stations that are showing up all over the city.

I think I have finally found an iOS Weather app that I truly enjoy. It’s beautiful to look at, it provides a lot of information at a glance, and it appears to be quite accurate. Weather Meteogram uses Dark Sky for weather data, but it presents it in a much improved interface. If you’re looking for a new weather app experience on iOS, take a look at Weather Meteogram.

Here’s a link to the app store.

I mentioned a while back that I had started rewatching “Star Trek: Voyager” from the very beginning of the series. Today I watched my daily episode; I’m in the middle of Season 4. I’m still thoroughly enjoying rewatching the show and Janeway is still my favorite captain of the entire franchise.

The “Star Trek: Picard” trailer came up in my Youtube video suggestions again this evening so I watched it again. I am still getting goosebumps when Voyager’s Seven of Nine (played by Jeri Ryan) appears on the screen.

I’ve never been able to stomach “Star Trek: Discovery”, but “Picard” has enough familiar elements hinted in the trailer and press I’ve seen thus far that I’m already budgeting for CBS All Access when this series is released.

I just have a feeling it’s going to be awesome.

Reading ahead a chapter or two and it looks like Riker and Deanna Troi are also going to be in the new series this season and there’s talk of Voyager’s Doctor appearing in the second season.

Is there a small possibility that we’ll see Kate Mulgrew’s Admiral Janeway as well? I really, really hope so.

Last week, Apple announced a recall for a specific model of their MacBook Pro line. In line with this recall was an FAA announcement that this certain model of MacBook Pro would not be allowed on passenger and cargo flights, much like the Samsung Galaxy Note a year or two ago. It seems there was an issue with the battery and a concern that the computer would catch on fire or explode, especially with the variable pressure encountered during airline flights. I paid little attention to this announcement other than surprise that an Apple device would be in company with the likes of something made by Samsung. I figured the recall affected a small handful of computers and Apple would carry out the battery replacement program, some pundits would gripe, and that would be that. I felt slight disappointment in the creeping mediocrity Apple has demonstrated over the past couple of years, but I wasn’t super surprised.

Well it turns out the recall affects the last version of the 15-inch 2015 MacBook Pro (the late 2015 model). Not really knowing the specifics of the recall until this morning, I was a little surprised when I ran across another news release and realized my beloved laptop could be part of the chosen pack; an entry of the serial number in Apple’s informational webpage confirmed my suspicions.

Apparently my MacBook Pro could explode or catch fire at any moment. The website advised to stop using it immediately and arrange for the recall. The issue is, I’ll be without my computer for two or so weeks, because they have to be shipped by ground, since they’re banned from flying.

Honestly, my MacBook Pro has flown thousands of miles over the past four years.

Now I’m a little ticked. If Apple went ahead and allowed for batteries that could be swapped out this wouldn’t be an issue. But the battery (or batteries, I’m not sure) are soldered into the motherboard and so the whole computer has to be ripped apart by a qualified technician.

On the bright side, I’ll have a new battery in my computer which was just starting to show signs of battery fatigue. On the not so bright side, I’m going to be without my MacBook Pro for a while.

My question is, will the FAA allow my computer on a flight after the repair has been made? Is there going to be some sort of little sticker that indicates a battery repair?

We can’t afford a new computer at this time. I’m going to just get this one fixed and hope for the best.

I hope it doesn’t explode in the meanwhile.

Apple has stopped human monitoring of Siri interactions worldwide. When it was discovered that sensitive information was being pulled into the transcripts, Apple did the responsible thing and ceased the human monitoring of these transcripts. A future release of iOS and Mac OS will include the ability to opt out of this monitoring feature.

At no time was your Apple ID included with the transcript.

More from CNN.

Cross posted from Voenix Rising.

I’ve rediscovered my bliss: sitting on the balcony, a nice summer breeze filling the air, and a good book to enjoy.

This is how we grow.