apple

Freeze.

I spent much of the day working my next video. I’m excited about the finished product of my latest artistic endeavor; I always feel a sense of peace and satisfaction when working on little projects that completely consume my interest for a bit.

I’m fortunate to have a husband that is understanding in this regard.

One thing I’m not excited about is my experience with Final Cut Pro, my video editing software. I recently updated MacOS on my M2 Pro Mac mini and ever since that update FCP is getting confused about something. The interface freezes randomly, albeit not that often but just enough to make things a little frustrating, and I end up with the little beach ball spinning at me.

The pessimist in me thinks this is because Apple recently released the M4 line of their Macs and perhaps they’re starting to deprecate the viability of older systems. This is most likely not the case, but one wouldn’t really know because Apple is a closed source ecosystem and no one really knows what’s going on under the hood. And I suspect the engineers that design half of Apple’s software don’t even know what’s going on under the hood any more.

My march toward an open computing platform has been progressing well here in 2025, but my video editing habits will be the last to get converted over. I have too much money invested in my current hardware and software setup to just abandon the platform and move that experience to Linux. But when it comes time to buy a new video editing computer, something I hope is still a ways down the road, I’ll be looking at all available options. I know big movie production studios have Linux mixed into their production workflow in some capacity.

I’m sure I can eventually make the switch for my little vlogging habit.

23 March 2025 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Local.

I’ve been pretty hard on Apple, and Tim Cook’s leadership specifically, for the past few months. It’s difficult for me to watch a company that once proclaimed that folks should “Think Different” kowtow to the demands of the current administration.

But in reality, that’s what corporations in the United States need to do these days in order to keep doing what they’re doing.

I’ve been avoiding most news since mid-January. I’ve been keeping abreast of highlights from time to time, but I’ve stayed away from the minutia of the idiocy. This is all for my mental health, which frankly, isn’t great these days. I don’t want to sound alarming, so I’ll just say this: I’ve had brighter days than what I’m experiencing in 2025.

Though I’ve been avoiding the news, I did catch a glimpse over the past weekend about Apple announcing the addition of 20,000 jobs and an investment of $500 billion U.S. dollars into the economy over the next decade. Apparently this was announced after Tim Cook had a meeting in the Oval Office.

Building up the American economy and bringing more jobs to the States is a good thing. It’s my understanding that this economic growth is around the ever present “A.I.” which is completely artificial but not that intelligent.

When it comes to technology in general, it’s my opinion that it has been many years since someone come up with a great idea that will truly benefit mankind. Without true innovation we don’t have new “things” to build, we just have new services to offer. Using American workers to build the infrastructure to power these services is better than nothing. Yes, there are plenty of environmental concerns around the resources needed to keep the lights on with these new services, and frankly, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m really happy to be on the back half of my life.

But with the way the United States works, it’s important that folks have job opportunities. And Apple bringing more job opportunities to the states can only be a good thing.

There’s plenty of room for improvement; I completely get that. But let’s take the small wins where we can find them.

25 February 2025 by Apple. 0

Simplicity.

I enjoy writing on my Lenovo ThinkPad T460s. The ThinkPad series, even in its IBM days, had some of the best keyboards I’ve ever used and this particular laptop continues the tradition.

I bought this laptop a couple of years ago on a whim; it was on sale at a refurbished computer place online, had decent specs, and I thought it would make a great second computer to have in the lab. It runs Debian Linux and has done so for quite a while. To avoid distractions in my home office during work hours, this laptop sits on the other desk in my office, away from my way work area, and is the only computer allowed in the room (other than my work laptop). I find if I have my Mac or iPad at hand I tend to be a little distracted, especially when the news is blowing up.

The news has been blowing up a lot the last month or so.

I decided to look up the age of this computer and was delighted to learn it’s eight years old. When the computer arrived a few years ago it was running Windows 10, which of course is no longer supported by Microsoft. The processor is decent; it has an i7-6600u CPU with 16GB RAM. For web browsing, writing with Obsidian, and doing stuff on the terminal, it does its job very well and I don’t see this machine being retired anytime soon.

As society moves further and further away from sustainability by following the lead of corporations and their planned obsolescence (I’m looking at you Microsoft and Apple), it’s good to breathe new life into these older computers. There’s no reason to fill landfills prematurely.

I know a few folks with Chromebooks lying around that have probably been dumped in the support department by Google. Again, here’s another opportunity to put a lightweight Linux on these machines and keep these older computers out of the landfill.

When Apple stops supporting the M2 chip in my MacBook Air, I’ll probably either convert it to a Linux box or donate it to someone. Aside from my multimedia production work, I don’t have a reliance on the Apple ecosystem anymore, and that’s a great feeling.

I know I’ve been rather “anti-Apple” for the past month, which has been in concert with the explosion of ridiculous news. I’ve come to the realisation that Apple is doing what they have to do in this new economical mindset. It’s the economical mindset that the most unfortunate, but it’s also unfortunate that the FAANG1 bros are perpetuating a legitimacy of this mindset by playing along.

I just want to keep things out of our landfills for as long as possible.

1 Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google

16 February 2025 by Geek 3

Think (Un)Different.

The circle is complete. With the introduction of Apple’s Macintosh back in January 1984, Apple introduced Mac to the world with their famous “1984” ad. The ad aired during the SuperBowl.

In the historic ad, amongst all the drone like humans, dressed in grey and black, staring at a large screen with an ominous face, a young, energetic runner dressed in colorful clothing comes running down the aisle and throws a sledgehammer at the screen, smashing the image.

At the time, Apple was rebelling against the establishment and the established and introducing a new way of using computers to the personal computing market.

Yesterday, users of Apple Maps in the United States witnessed Apple’s latest step in conforming to the wishes of Trump. The Gulf of Mexico is now labeled the “Gulf of America”.

The disappointments from Apple will continue until everyone is completely disappointed.

Anyone want to wager that Apple will not release an Apple Watch Pride Month watch band this year?

It began with Tim Cook’s enthusiastic tweets to Trump in November, continued with Tim’s personal monetary contribution to Trump’s Inaugural Fund, and his participation in the event last month.

Apple has successfully completed their complete 180. Apple is now just one of the folks sitting in the audience, staring at the big screen, because after all, according to SCOTUS, corporations are people too.

Great work, Apple. (slow clap)

Now, what about that runner? Well, I’m typing this entry on my Linux laptop. Released in 2018 and no longer supported by Microsoft, this Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 runs Linux like it’s brand new out of the gate. I would use my Lenovo ThinkPad from the early 2010s running Linux but I didn’t want to show off at the moment.

Take a pause, take a moment, and do some research before you buy the Next Big Thing, whether it be a laptop, or a phone, or a tablet. There are plenty of options out there.

You can choose to not sit in the audience and just watch the drab, grey world from your assigned seat.

~~~

If you enjoyed this blog entry, feel free to share the link. I appreciate the feedback.

12 February 2025 by Apple. 0

In Flux.

Fellow blogger Chris recently wrote about his attempts at “Moving Away from Apple…Again“. Like Chris, I haven’t liked where Apple has been headed for the past couple of years, and since the change of administration in D.C., I am becoming increasingly concerned with any sort of tech corporation, but especially one headed up by a donor (ahem, Tim Cook) to the Trump administration.

My eighth grade English teacher would have said that previous sentence was a run on sentence and then I would have been forced to diagram the sentence. Do they still diagram sentences?

Now, before folks get worked up that I’m picking on Tim Cook, I know that we now live with a government that is basically “pay for play”. I know Tim had to do what he had to do; it still doesn’t make me feel more comfortable about the situation. Plus, Apple has had some less than stellar showings lately, like defaulting Apple Intelligence to “opt out” instead of “opt in”. I don’t like things like this.

I recently wrote up some thoughts around my computing leanings in a quasi-manifesto type format.

I. Computing Platforms

  • Lowest friction is always ideal
  • Focused applications somewhat avoid ADHD fiddling
  • Linux to embrace my privacy concerns, geekiness, and existing hardware. Linux distro of choice is Debian based, and the simplest path for me right now is Linux Mint.
  • Mac for creative projects due to existing hardware and financial investment, while researching other options. At this point my video production relies on Final Cut Pro.
  • iOS for mobile because I feel it’s more secure than stock Android, and I have new hardware

II. Sharing Platforms

  • Meta is absolutely untrustworthy but unfortunately embraced by too many. I maintain an account, though my activity has been drastically reduced. Meta products like Facebook and Instagram shall always be used in a container and through a VPN. “Shallow” personal data only. Access limited to once a day. No promotion of creativity on Meta products. Bring the audience to you through more trusted channels.
  • “Deeper” personal data is mine and mine alone. No ad supported platforms allowed. Google Drive, Google Photos absolute no deal. iCloud is mostly untrustworthy and my remaining trust is declining. Anything that is in a corporate cloud will probably have an open backdoor or backend by the end of 2025.
  • Twitter is absolutely untrustworthy and is in the same bucket as “truth social”. No use.
  • WordPress and Automattic are untrustworthy. Leadership is too unstable. Need to move away from this platform.
  • Bluesky is there for some things, especially aviation and storm chasing. Monetary contributions indicate a for-profit status probably in the future
  • Mastodon is there for most things. The community is strong and I enjoy maintaining my own instance, as well as pushing blog posts to the Fediverse.
  • Instagram is part of Meta and falls into the same privacy/data mining/etc concern.
  • Pixelfed is there for most things, though friction is rather high. I’m not pleased with the iOS app at all, opting for Impressia instead. Leadership and the developer of the official Pixelfed client is moderately unstable. Not overly impressed. Just sharing this content on my blog is probably the best way to go.
  • YouTube is used for creative output, minimal scholarly consumption, and mindless consumption. It’s Google. Watch Google very, very carefully. Implement plugins to eliminate the cruft.
  • ActivityPub wherever possible. Fediverse wherever possible.
  • Need to reseach PeerTube

III. Trusted Companies

  • Apple is deemed trustworthy to a point, however, it is falling fairly fast on my trust scale. To be fair, Apple, appears to be more trustworthy than the rest of FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google)
  • OmniGroup is deemed trusted, but use friction is high and fiddly and data is proprietary locked to a platform. Plus, no Windows client for mandatory Windows 11 work computer. Web interface is lacking critical features. Out of the running.
  • Same with CulturedCode and Things. Proprietary locked.
  • Obsidian is deemed trusted, available on all platforms. Sync seems solid and mostly safe.
  • Bitwarden is deemed trusted, available on all platforms. Sync seems solid and mostly safe.
  • Not pleased with Proton’s stance around the Trump administration, looking at other options like Fastmail for email, in concert with self hosting.
  • Mullvad seems to be good on most fronts for VPN.

IV. File Storage

  • Personal data in stored locally and backed up separately on a nightly basis
  • Personal data is backed up locally
  • iCloud is for cautious use. Minimal personal data.
  • Dropbox is being weeded out of my personal ecosystem, down to a handful of bash scripts
  • Dropbox is sandboxed to one internal server in the house and one laptop
  • Google Drive is not trusted for use on any machine
  • Local NAS solutions are optimal. The WD PR4100s have been bumped up to 16GB RAM

V. Recap

  • I’m taking a “must be accessible from the terminal” approach to all of my data
  • Proprietary lock-in is avoided, including less than full functionality web interfaces for the data
  • End-to-end encryption wherever possible

These are just a few points of where my head is at with my personal computing habits. The rest of the family is mostly on Macs and iOS/iPadOS devices, and compatibility across the board is important. I have no expectations that anyone in the house will move to Linux and that’s fine. I’m comfortable enough with Apple to not fret about it at this time.

7 February 2025 by Geek 3

Intelligence?

Apple has been touting “Apple Intelligence” hard since last year’s WWDC (Worldwide Developers’ Conference). All the marketing said Apple Intelligence would be available with the release of the iPhone 16 series. It wasn’t released with the new phones but has rather been ‘dribbled’ out to users over the last few months since late October. Apple has stated these releases are in “beta” status, which means they’re not polished, still under active development, etc.

Why a company is hinging its latest and greatest thing on beta software is beyond my comprehension as a software developer. Can you imagine this scenario if we sent astronauts to the Moon using beta software? “I’m sorry folks, we need to reboot the onboard computer due to a glitch, hold your breath for the next 10 minutes while we look into the bugs”.

Beta software being released to the general public has significantly lowered expectations in computer hardware and software and frankly, across society in general. Everyone expects bugs and glitches to be everywhere now.

We live in a society infested with virtual fleas.

I’ve been trying to use the dribs and drabs of Apple Intelligence since their soft release in late October. I’ve let the A.I. sort my email. I’ve smirked at horrible text and mail message summaries. I should have grabbed one particularly funny screenshot, “Mother is making screaming noises”. I believe the actual text had something to do with frustration with an iPhone.

But it’s in beta, so it is what it is.

That’s Apple’s excuse for everything now. Slap a “beta” on the feature and call it a day. If Apple Intelligence were to summarize this approach, “Apple doesn’t really know its direction or platform. Wedging Apple Intelligence into everything. Please stockholders”.

Today I turned off Apple Intelligence across my devices. The ‘feature’ is getting in my way too often. I upgraded my MacBook Air to the latest version of MacOS and now I can no longer do a spotlight search for an application. As a keyboard centric user, if I want to open my web browser I’ve always been able to hit CMD-SPACEBAR, type Firefox, and hit return. Now the top result of that search is a W-2 form from 2020 when I used Firefox to download the associated PDF.

In no way is that intelligent.

When I turned Apple Intelligence off I was warned that Siri would no longer be able to use the advanced features of Apple Intelligence. If what I’ve experienced with Siri since late October is the result of Apple Intelligence, well then Apple needs to just give up the ghost. To put it another way, I often fantasize of hitting a HomePod mini with a baseball bat and watching it fly out into the wash behind the house, but I don’t want to pollute the desert with garbage.

I’ll take my chances with Siri until I move to something a little more intelligent.

I honestly don’t know what Apple is trying to achieve outside of lining the pockets of stockholders these days. Anything that used to make Apple stand out has all but vanished. Yeah, the hardware is excellent but nearly not repairable. For a company that featured the awesome Octavia Spencer as Mother Nature, they seem to be doing everything they can to try to shove Chiffon in her face.

As I finish up this blog entry I am listening to motivational music using Bluetooth headphones connected to my iPhone. The music just abruptly stopped, even though the player shows everything humming along nicely on my iPhone display. I had to restart the app and restart my headphones to get things working again, and even then Bluetooth seemed to struggle.

Bluetooth has been around for only a few decades, so perhaps it’s still ‘beta’.

I gripe about Apple more than I praise them these days and I’m not ashamed of this. It’s warranted.

I don’t want Apple Intelligence and I’m pretty sure anyone reading this doesn’t want it either. With the latest AI (LLM) models coming out of China and completely spanking the American “AI” industry, I’m hopeful this stupid AI bubble will pop sooner than later.

And that’s smart.

28 January 2025 by Everyone's A Critic. 0

Thrifty Rebel.

I’ve mentioned before that as of late, Apple has been disappointing me a little more than usual. Not only is the new iPhone 16 Pro kind of ‘meh’, but their latest version of MacOS seems to be a bit more buggy than other recent releases. Yes, the camera on my iPhone 16 Pro is amazing but otherwise the phone feels like the previous two iPhones I’ve owned. And iOS 18 doesn’t really blow my skirt up.

Tim Cook’s recent donation to the Trump Inauguration Fund rubbed me the wrong way as well. I know he did it in Apple’s best interest, and plenty of other tech moguls have done the same, but if there was ever a tech company to have a rebellious streak, it’s Apple.

I am keeping a close eye on Apple’s progression through the 2020s. When the time comes for me to buy a new laptop, which let’s face it, is going to be a couple of years since my M2 MacBook Air is still pretty new and snappy, I’ll be considering all options. I’ve always been a fan of Linux, but I don’t know that Linux can do what I want it to do in the creative space. It’s something I’m exploring right now.

But I’m not going to get rid of my current setup just to make a point. Not only would it be expensive, it would also contribute to this endless cycle of buying the shiny things to keep the American Dream alive.

I am writing this blog entry on my M1 iPad Pro, which I purchased a number of years ago. It’s still quite snappy and does everything I want it to do. I’ve even edited video on it.

I don’t know that I’ll ever get another iPad Pro, but this one continues to purr along, even with a chunk missing on the corner of the screen.

I’m a bit of a rebel, but as I get older I’m trying to be a thrifty rebel.

16 January 2025 by Geek 0

Today I Learned …

  • Per the BBC, Apple has agreed to pay $95M in a settlement claiming the tech giant was recording users without their consent.

The tech giant was accused of eavesdropping on its customers through its virtual assistant Siri.

The claimants also allege voice recordings were shared with advertisers.

Apple, which has not admitted any wrongdoing, has been approached for comment.

In the preliminary settlement, the tech firm denies any wrongdoing, as well as claims that it “recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete, conversations recorded as the result of a Siri activation” without consent.

Apple’s lawyers also say they will confirm they have “permanently deleted individual Siri audio recordings collected by Apple prior to October 2019”.

But the claimants say the tech firm recorded people who activated the virtual assistant unintentionally – without using the phrase “Hey, Siri” to wake it.

They say advertisers who received the recordings could then look for keywords in them to better target ads.

  • Per Forbes, Meta (the owner of Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and other things) has added “AI Generated Users” to their application user bases.

Connor Hayes, vice president of product for generative AI at Meta, tells London’s Financial Times, “We expect these AIs to actually exist on our platforms in the same way that [human] accounts do.”

So, now we’re going to have non-human users using social media owned by Meta, interacting with regular users. And let’s not get into my feelings around that profile summary shown in the screenshot.

  • Per Windows Central, Bluesky added nearly 23 million users in 2024, with half of those users joining the platform within the past six weeks.

Bluesky saw a massive surge in users in 2024. The social media platform has become one of the primary destinations for those leaving X (formerly Twitter). This year, 22.9 million people signed up for Bluesky. Over half of those new users (over 13 million) joined the platform in just the last month and a half.

Welp, look what happened after the idiotic results of the U.S. Presidential Election.

2025 is going to be a very, let’s go with interesting year, especially in the tech space. As FAANG* continues to use “A.I.” as a solution looking for a problem, we’ll probably see record temperatures as the “A.I.” industries continue to need more and more energy for these ‘solutions’.

* I also learned this week that FAANG stands for Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.

3 January 2025 by This Ain't No CNN. 0

Priority Spam.

The latest update to iOS (the operating system on the iPhone), dubbed 18.2, brings more Apple Intelligence “goodness” to the platform. That is, if you’re fortunate to have an iPhone 15 Pro or new iPhone. I guess Apple Intelligence doesn’t work at all on the iPhone 15, or any of the earlier models. Because, planned obsolescence and all that.

Part of the new “goodness” to iOS is automatic Mail categorization, something Gmail has had for over a decade on all devices. Through the mystery, mystique, and magic of Apple Intelligence, the default Mail.app on iOS 18.2 now sorts your email into “Priority” and other buckets. It apparently also only shows the unread count for those messages in “Priority”; the rest of your messages are on their own. So, if Grandma has written you a message that does not meet the Apple Intelligence Fairy Dust and Moonbeams algorithmic threshold, Grandma is shoved in a box and does not get to be represented in the red bubble count.

I wasn’t a fan of this new sorting, because like all things relying on A.I., and Apple Intelligence in particular, the success rate is seemingly below the 80/20 threshold. On Monday I turned it off completely, but apparently I didn’t do all the things to the settings that aren’t in the settings menu (they’re under three new dots that appear in the upper right hand corner), and I still received a number of Priority Notifications from Apple Intelligence, which is basically Siri with an attitude, indicating that I had a number of invoices sent to my PayPal account. Said invoices totaled thousands of dollars.

There was absolutely NOTHING in these email messages that looked suspicious, because iOS’s Mail.app basically hides everything above a first grade comprehensive understanding of how the world works, so I had to jump on my Linux box to look at the headers of these emails. But first, I jumped onto PayPal directly to see if I had any outstanding invoices.

I didn’t.

A look at the headers and other underpinings of these emails revealed that the craftsmanship of the messages was fairly impressive, though there were some obvious clues that the emails were indeed spam. One of these clues indicated that they were sent to a distribution list, and my email address wasn’t showing anywhere in the “To:” field, it had to be appearing in the “BCC:” field.

I really feel like Apple Intelligence, and A.I. in general, should have figured this out. I mean, it’s Intelligence and it’s a pure Apple experience, right?

I marked the messages as spam and went on with my day. A little while later I received a Priority! Notification! on my phone indicating another invoice was sent to PayPal, with payment expected post haste.

I didn’t even bother looking at the message. I searched to see how to really turn off this Apple Intelligence foolishness around my mailboxes off and then I went one step further.

I completely deleted my PayPal account.

With the tap to pays and shake your mama ways to pay for things these days, PayPal is fairly redundant and unneccessary in my life. I don’t like my credit card number hanging out there with random people, and since I don’t really use the platform, there’s no reason for my credit card number to hang out with those people.

So, Apple Intelligence “prioritizing” my email and PayPal altogether have both left my building.

18 December 2024 by Apple. 0

Portal.

As I get older, I’ve been finding it harder to focus on tasks. I’ve never been one for “deep focus” if the activity is not on my checklist of intense interests. Unfortunately, work tends to not be on that list.

In the past I have listened to music to try to eliminate distractions around me. This generally works, but over the past few years I’ve noticed that anything with lyrics in the music tends to be a distraction as well. I blame this on listening intently to the words, a habit learned since becoming a pilot, where I’m always listening to my call sign from Air Traffic Control.

There’s a part of me that wonders if this increased struggle with maintaining focus at work has something to do with my couple of rounds of COVID since 2020. I know most of the world believes COVID was a hit ‘n run sort of thing, where we got vaccinated, and if we feel recovered from it we were just as we were before we contracted it. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I know that I’ve never been able to shake off a certain amount of brain fog since my experiences of having COVID.

I have found that listening to soundscapes like thunderstorms or even brown noise has done wonders for my focus at work. Luckily, I’m in a position that lets me enjoy such a thing. I alternate between my Apple AirPod Pros and my Bose noise canceling over-the-ear headphones.

Today I discovered an app, via the Apple Store Story page, called Portal (link to the Apple App store). A beautifully designed app, not only is it a joy to use, but it provides gorgeous imagery to go along with the amazing soundscapes. Here I am enjoying the sights and sounds of a waterfall in Iceland.

At $49.99/year (or $250 for a lifetime) it’s a bit on the pricey side. I just started the seven day free trial today. So far in the past hour I’ve knocked out more work than I’ve knocked it in the previous three.

Peace of mind and feeling grounded through better focus might be worth that price of admission.

6 June 2024 by Apple. Geek Inspiration and Motivation. 0

About Me.

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!

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