Instagram Destroys Our Planet

June 21, 2019
2 min read

I’ve been reading an article on how Santorini became an attraction for Instagram influencers. People go there just to take a photo. Because the place is so photogenic, it looks like it was artificially made for beautiful filters and Instagram.

Unfortunately, I’ve never been there, but heard from a lot of people that it’s mostly unbearable. There are just too many people. I remembered that I felt that way before. Last summer we’ve decided to make a trip to Prague, as I’ve heard only good things and never been there. We’ve drove all the way there, stopping in Krakow and Warsaw in the meantime. 

I liked the architecture and the look of the city. But I disliked the trip overall. There is just too many people. You don’t enjoy walking through the city, because everywhere you turn, there are millions of tourists with phones and cameras. Some by themselves, some in groups.

The other example was in Thailand. There are islands which are destroyed by people. They have to be closed off for tourist in order to fix everything. If you think about it – it’s miserable.

There is an idea to limit the amount of people that can visit an attraction in a day, as an example. I know this limits the freedom of travel, but I’m more and more in the agreement with the proponents of such an approach. 

I love spontaneous trips and going somewhere, my favourite thing is to rent a car and go somewhere. In the above mentioned trip to Prague, we didn’t even book the hotels, we’ve decided during lunch that we wanted to go and just drove. We’ve booked hotels along the way. But if this will give me the ability to enjoy new places more, I will be happy to plan my trips in advance.

Even Apple Is Not Perfect

June 17, 2019
2 min read

Considering some recent Apple struggles with antitrust cases around App Store I want to focus today on the search. I don’t think about it much or often because we are lucky enough to live in the 3rd world country, where there are no App Store search ads, but I have US account also, for the apps that are not available in Latvia, so I’ve seen some amount. 

Of course, I want to preface the story – that it is anecdotal, something I’ve noticed and I’ve heard or read that others noticed this too.

It feels like App Store search adds for no other reason, only to get money from developers. Even on Instagram, there were adds after seeing which I’ve bought something and even was happy. With App Store it feels like there is completely different stories. 

There are in big part two types of ads – first, completely useless apps, rip-offs or apps the whole purpose of which is to extract more money and not providing any service. Those are the apps that are never the right answer for your search query.

Second type, is mostly big developers, who want to get the spot, so the apps from the first category won’t be at the top. 

Considering this, it’s hard to see any good for the users and developers from those kind of ads. I really hope that I am wrong on this and there are small developers who were able to grow sustainable business using App Store search ads, but I’m very doubtful.

Saved For Never

June 16, 2019
2 min read

Some time ago there were no shortages for read it later services. Not it feels like only a handful of them left. There are Instapaper and Pocket, and built in Reading list in Safari. Those are big three that come to mind. I’ve been using such a service for a quite some time, going from Pocket to Instapaper and back a couple of times.

Last one, was when GDPR came into action, Instapaper just wasn’t working for European users. Such a negligence was unbelievable. Stories and information about GDPR were all over the Internet for a long time and not such a small company, that owns Instapaper couldn’t figure it out. So I’ve migrated all of the saved articles and videos to the Pocket and deleted my account. 

But that’s not the point of the story. The point is – when I open my list, I feel overwhelmed, there are tons of articles saved, some from the beginning of 2018. That got me thinking – what is the chance, that I will read the article or watch the video I’ve saved so long ago. I’ve lost the context of some of those articles. Surely there was a thought that went through when I’ve saved it, but I probably won’t remember it now. Nevertheless, I don’t delete such old items, I keep them with hope that some day I will have time to go through all of them. 

As you can guess, that will probably never happen. So I’ve decided to change my mind around it a bit. Now I look at my Pocket queue as an infinite source of articles and videos. Some of them short, some long – depending on the amount of time I have. Right now I can only hope that some day I will read and watch them all, but realistically speaking, I don’t see it happening any time soon.

Leaky culture – Pixel 4

June 14, 2019
2 min read

As the announcement date comes closer, for quite some time, there were a couple of leaks of the new Google Pixel phone. Considering how things are going for a couple of years – nothing new here. There are leaks of pretty much every noticeable hardware well before the announcement. The production chain is so big it’s hard to keep something secret. On some point or another somebody will provide press with a photo, case or sometimes even device.

What’s surprising about this story is companies tweet on June 12th. Google provided photo of the device.

I still can’t wrap my head around this decision. At first, considering, the amount of leaks this made sense. It’s fun, it got a lot of press and device is already out there, so why not use it as an advantage. But then I’ve thought some more and decided I don’t like this move.

First, I don’t like leaks. That’s why I try to ignore it on Twitter, don’t open links if they are about unreleased product. I still like to be surprised. When Apple announces a new device, I want to see it first there, with the intended reveal.

So second comes right out of the first, if someone like me wasn’t following along all the leaks – why spoil the surprise? Now I’m sure what it will look like, we all now how new Android looks, because of the betas. So there is not much left there to announce.

Regarding the phone itself, the only notable thing is – two cameras and a camera bump. Why it’s something of notice? First, Google made of fun of Apple that they removed headphone jack from their phones, two years later it was gone from Pixel. Then they’ve took pride of how there was no camera bump and you could do all the effects with just one camera – seems they’ve changed their mind about that also.

Hope there are some software surprises left for the announcement as hardware seems like “announced” already.

Playdate

June 13, 2019
2 min read

One day in May, I opened Twitter and everyone was talking about one thing only. Surprisingly it wasn’t another story about Trump, it was an announcement for completely new game console. I’ve checked the calendar, yeap, it’s still 2019 and yet here we are.

I was pretty late to the Mac party, when I got my first Apple computer, so I’m not personally amazed by the Panic (company behind Playdate), but I’ve heard a lot about it. Considering I follow mostly Apple enthusiasts on Twitter, I see that name mentioned often. I also haven’t played Firewatch, their video game, but heard only nice things about it.

But after looking at the device, I knew that it’s something I would like to buy. And I could see why everyone was so excited about it. Nowadays nobody launches a new platform for video games. Even some old ones struggle to compete in the market. So one thing that’s going for the developers is the desire to support something new and fun.

Another reason why I think people love this new device – they are tired of huge corporations sucking all of our data, of games consisting mostly from lootboxes and monetization. They want something simple, pay the fair price and get a couple of fun games. That’s all. No paying to get to the next level faster or to get another try. Just plain old game. 

The device itself is very simple, but very attractive. It has black-and-white screen, but also the best connectivity options there are – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB-C. There is also the crank, which is used for some game mechanics, which is very interesting to see.

We still don’t know a lot about the games, but I’ve already signed up for the e-mail, so when it comes out, I sure want to get one. Hopefully they will ship to Latvia.

Bringing Order to Life

June 12, 2019
7 min read

As I’ve mentioned before, after listening to Cortex, I thought a lot about yearly themes. It’s an idea when you choose a theme for the year and try to do most of the things considering that theme. Looking at some aspects of my life I’ve decided that The Year Of Less would be a great start. Removing unnecessary things from life will become a great foundation for the future years.

There is just too much happening and I wanted to make sense of it and try to tame it down a bit. There was one day when I came home and just lied down and felt like my head is going to explode. The next day I’ve decided not to consume any content. Podcasts, Tweets, Instagram, blogs, news. I’ve just listened to the music. I felt much better after just a day. So that’s why I wanted to get some order in all of the content I’m consuming on the daily basis.

The biggest problem is, I’m a completionist and have big FOMO. I know this is the problem, but I don’t know how to tackle it right now. So I’m trying to first do everything I can to manage the amount of content I consume. 

TV shows

I’ve started watching a lot of TV shows. Mostly after I’ve had an operation and had to stay in bed for two weeks, I’ve watched a lot of TV shows. So I have to catch up with those. In the time when the greatest TV shows are made it’s hard to stop watching, everything is just too good. I track episodes of TV shows I’ve watched on MyShows. Right now, I’m watching those that are finished, so the amount of shows goes down. I’m trying not to start new ones, but sometimes I fail.

I’ve been able to change my mindset about that, as I think of this as not a backlog, but just a wishlist – I gather episodes I want to watch and just try to make the best of it.

Social

This one was hard. I’ve been feeling that social networks take up a lot of time and after all those Facebook scandals I’ve removed the app from my phone and almost don’t check it. I don’t miss much.

After iOS 12 came out and thanks to Screen Time I saw how much time I was spending on Twitter – I was shocked to say the least. I’ve immediately removed Twitter and Tweetbot from my phone and didn’t use Twitter for almost two months. I didn’t miss anything. I’ve recently installed Tweetbot back and am trying to make my feed a bit more useful and not so hateful. It’s hard. 

Instagram – that’s a mixed bag. I’ve tried to make sense of my follow list. Fortunately there is mute for posts and stories now, so I use it a lot. I’m trying to keep Instagram as my happy place and not make it a Facebook replacement.

I’m also posting one photo every day for almost a year now. This helps with practicing photography, which I’ve recently picked up as a hobby.

Blogs and News

Some time ago, when Google Reader still was a thing, I subscribed to tens of websites. I’ve had more then 500 unread items at any point in time. And, as with Twitter, I was a completionist. I used RSS reader to look through the titles and save everything that seemed interesting to Pocket. Which means the list of unread items also grew there. So I’ve unsubscribed from all the tech news sites (except of MacStories) and now I’m subscribed only to a couple of blogs, where the amount of articles is low (some of them save new items straight to the Pocket, so I don’t have to manage it in two places. I use IFTTT for that). 

The goal here is to read less, but of higher quality. I realized that in order to improve my own writing skills I need to practice and also read a lot. That’s why I’m looking for blogs that are enjoyable to read.

Podcasts

The one thing I think I got a lot better at are podcasts. I’ve had more than 200 unlistened episodes in Overcast and this number didn’t get any lower over time. So I unsubscribed from a couple of shows, started to triangulate more. Fast forwarded the parts that didn’t interest me. Skipped interviews with people I wasn’t interested in. And started to listen at 2x speed. As a not native English speaker, I’m pretty proud of myself. Although as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve went back to the normal listening speed, now that I’m pretty happy with the amount of shows I’m listening to.

I’m also trying to diversify my listening. There are podcasts in three languages in my list – English, Russian and Polish. I’m also trying to find shows other then tech related.

Photography

I’ve been interested in photography for a long time, but I’ve never had a camera. My parents had simple point and shoot that I’ve used sometimes. The first thing that was close to being my camera was iPhone 4. In combination with Instagram it was my first experience of sharing photos to the world (or probably 10 followers who saw them).

That is why starting with iPhone 6S Plus I’ve always bought the latest iPhones as soon as they came out – this was my main and only camera (or at least that’s how I’ve justified it to my budget).

A couple of months ago I’ve bought myself a real camera – Olympus OM-D Mark 3 and now I try to find every moment to use it and improve my skills. As a novice I take a lot of photos and I’m trying to leave only the best ones. At first I was hesitant to delete a lot of photos, but later I’ve realized – it’s much better if you have just a couple of great photos you can open and look at, than thousands of mediocre ones that you never see.

Games

The biggest time sink for me is FIFA and not even the latest one, but the 18. I’m just playing online World Cup over and over again. I’ve started to limit it (the correct move would be to delete it, but sometimes it’s nice to have such a mindless game to distract myself). Lately I’ve been playing more interesting games, like Read Dead Redemption 2, Spider-Man and Horizon: Zero Dawn. Games you can enjoy like a great TV show or a movie. Games with the story and with the ending. I’ve finished Spider-Man and got every trophy and I’ve enjoyed it more than a lot of the movies I’ve watched.

Stress

I’m trying to remove stress from my life in a couple of different ways. I’m using to-do and calendar apps more, so I don’t forget something and don’t stress out about remembering all of the time. 

I’m also more mindful, I’m trying to notice when I’m mad or irritated and analyze – what is the reason and what can I do in the future to avoid that. This is very slow process, but it’s enjoyable. Through such thoughts I feel like I’m learning more about myself and already making a change in my temper.

Overall, looking at the year I’m having so far, I’m satisfied how it’s going. I’m reducing the noise all over the place and I’m adding only those things I really care about. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but I have another half a year to work with.

WWDC 2019 Keynote Impressions

June 11, 2019
2 min read

Most people jot down some notes about keynote overall and then write or talk about each release in more detail. I’ve went my own way, first going through impressions for each OS – tvOS, watchOS, iOS, macOS, iPadOS and also for Mac Pro.

Now I want give my overall impressions about presentation. I mostly agree with Marco – Apple started listening again. And the reason is pretty simple on it’s surface – iPhone sales. Although thanks to increasing prices for a couple of years revenue from the iPhone didn’t fall, but unit sales plateaued. So now Apple has to sell iPhones more aggressively and give more attention to all other products in the lineup.

This was noticeable in every announcement, it wasn’t apologizing per se, but it felt like Apple was overcompensating. There were ver big changes that got at most one sentence mention during the Keynote and a lot of them were just a text on the slide with “everything else that’s new”. 

There was something for everyone, be it developers, users, professionals. We’ve got new OS, new hardware and new frameworks. We’ve even got the trailer for TV show. All of this in just 2 hours. The pace was unbelievable. Presenters were very proud of the product, just look at the display demonstration. 

I like how passionate, knowledgeable and funny Craig Federighi is. I’ve seen some of the first of his presentations and it’s not even close. It’s a very big growth in presentation skills. This year the biggest joke was about iTunes and with Craig delivering it – it landed perfectly. 

Overall, this was very strong keynote, one of the best in recent years actually. And this gives hope that Apple is able to make products and also improvements to those products afterwards, even if those aren’t iPhone.

WWDC 2019 Keynote Impressions – iPadOS

June 10, 2019
5 min read

Earlier in my impressions of the iOS, I’ve mentioned how when presenting it there was almost nothing said about the iPad, all of the features were mentioned in the context of the iPhone and it was very pronounced. You could definitely see, that it’s intentional, that’s because this year iPad got itself a new, dedicated OS. 

Is this marketing? Yes, of course, iPadOS is still the same iOS just with some feature specifically designed for the iPad, but that always was the case you don’t have always present dock on the iPhone and multitasking is limited to the iPad. Why change the name? For a couple of years we’ve started to realize that Apple improved iPad software only every other version of iOS. Versions 9 and 11 were just such versions. Heavily focused on the improvements for the tablet. But wouldn’t it be great, if iPad got improved every year, like all the other systems? That is the hope of this marketing move. 

With iPad getting it’s own OS it will be much harder to ignore it during the next WWDC. As someone who is more and more leaning toward this future of computing, I like the change and hope that our collective desires will come true. 

With all of this introductions, there was actually a lot of news this year for the iPad.

Let’s start with the improvements from iOS – PS4 and Xbox One controllers support. On my recent trip, I’ve got just iPad Pro with me to watch movies, import photos from the camera, read and play. I can see how I would throw in my DualShock to the bag to play games. With Apple Arcade and some good games for the iPad that would be very interesting. 

Some time ago Apple decided that you don’t need split keyboard on the iPad Pro. I could see with heavy marketing of iPad Pro coupled with Smart Keyboard Folio you would think that it’s not necessary. But sometimes you just use iPad naked and in those moments new small iPhone keyboard underneath the finger is an amazing addition.

Another feature that I love is importing directly into the Lightroom. USB drive and flash support is also nice, but direct import of photos to the Adobe software is amazing. Right now it’s clunky as hell. You have to import photos from camera, then import them to Lightroom and delete photos from the Camera Roll. There is a Shortcut for that, but it never works for me – photos are imported as JPG and not RAW.

Desktop class browser and download manager in Safari – this one grants finally. Although, as I understand, it’s mostly limited to Apple sending information to the website that it’s Mac Safari and by hand improving how the most popular websites work. Time will tell how well it will work and how scalable it will be.

Another feature that only can be judged in use – new gestures. There are now three finger gestures for cut, copy, paste and undo and redo. Also moving the pointer is similar to drag and drop. That on the very first try the presenter couldn’t do it, doesn’t give much confidence. Those gestures could be great and get into your muscle memory or totally forgettable and you will only see them in “Top 5 iPad features you’ve never known” articles.

Some great additions to the Apple Pencil. First, the latency was reduced from 20ms to 9ms. Right now it feels pretty instantaneous, I don’t know how much better will this feel, but it must be good. Second, PencilKit API – now apps that don’t rely on Pencil input as a business model (drawing or note taking apps), can implement similar features as Apple has in Apple Notes.

You can also, with a Apple Pencil gesture, capture and entire web page and annotate it. This is something you’ve had to download utilities on the Mac to do, and it’s built in.

Probably for the first time since the introduction, Apple made some changes to the Springboard. Now there are more icons on the screen and when you rotate the iPad they stay at the same place, finally. Second – you can pin widgets to the main screen, which makes home screen much more dense and rich with information.

Some welcome improvements to the multitasking. You can now have multiple windows of the same app opened, either side-by-side or in split view with some other apps. You can easily find all the windows of the same app with App Expose, which looked easy to use and nice. 

Also, making slide-over, eventually a little iPhone, where you can go through the couple of iPhone sized apps sounds as a big improvement to me. I often though about this idea when using slide-over.

This is the first year of the new iPadOS and it feels like pretty strong one. A lot of new features and improvements make for a release I’m probably most waiting for. All of this could even make me install beta on my iPad this summer, that’s how excited I am.

WWDC 2019 Keynote Impressions – macOS

June 8, 2019
5 min read

This was a surprisingly powerful part of the keynote. All the talk before the WWDC was about iPad improvements and Mac Pro, so I wasn’t expecting such a strong showing from macOS. First, the name – Catalina, sounds beautiful and I don’t even know where to start, there was so much. 

Screen Time for macOS – logical addition. It helped me to realize how much time I’ve spent on social media, but after that didn’t use it almost at all, hope with some improvements and macOS version will use it more.

The break-up of iTunes, the end of the era. It was arguably the iTunes and the Music Store which helped Apple to reach the position it has right now. Instead there are three new apps and iPhone synchronization moved to the finder. The two apps I probably won’t use – TV and Podcasts. One of them, Podcasts, is made using the new developers tools I’ll mention later, but I will wait for Marco Arment to port Overcast app to the Mac, as his sound engine is superior and synchronization between devices is a key feature.

The one app I intend on using more is Apple Music. Right now, even when I’m working on my MacBook and with ease that you can switch AirPods to the Mac I listen to the music from my iPhone. iTunes for using Apple Music just sucks. It’s so big an clunky. 

The one feature I liked the idea of during the presentation – Sidecar. I’ve also heard only good things about the app after the keynote, but then I’ve found out I won’t be able to run it on my Mac, because it’s too old. So maybe I’ll have to buy Luna Display after all. This actually is very representative of something that everyone calls Sherlocking – Apple copying something that 3rd parties do already. They do some part of it, but not all, so developers can still sell their devices or software to those who need something more powerful or, like in this case, to those who have older computers.

I loved the presentation of Voice Control, fortunately I don’t need it, but the video looked very lovely. It’s nice that Apple tries to provide the way for everyone to use their devices.

Again, one of those things that has been tried before, but probably can only be delivered by the company of Apple scale – MacBook private Bluetooth beacon. When someone steels your laptop it sends Bluetooth signal (very low power, so battery won’t drain) to the nearest Apple devices and this creates mesh network which in the end provides you with the location of the stolen device. Amazing, with the amount of Apple devices in the world, this solution is the one that can definitely work.

As I’ve mentioned before I have an older Mac, which doesn’t have Touch ID, I love how my MacBook unlocks itself when my Apple Watch is near, now it will be possible to do even more, that is the promise of Approve with Apple Watch. Hopefully it will work on my MacBook and Apple Watch and will help me everyday, so I won’t have to type my passwords all the time.

One of the biggest additions this year – Project Catalyst, that is continuation of last year mentioned Sneak Peak, which everyone called Project Marzipan. Let’s not dwell on the name Catalyst in macOS Catalina. I’m sure it will be a bit of a struggle to remember which is which, but the macOS name will change in a year, so the problem won’t stay for long.

The idea behind it is helping iOS developers to port their apps to the macOS. From what Apple showed us it looks good and right at home on the Mac. Again, Podcasts app was written using Project Catalyst and from the looks it’s hard to tell it apart from Apple Music. I love that at least some of my favorite iOS apps will come to the Mac, like Overcast for example. 

The apps Apple decided to show off on stage were a bit odd. Calling Asphalt 9 Legends and Amazing Mac App, was a bit much. Although it’s a developers conference, but Jira is not the most beloved software in the world, but it proved the point, now you could move your iOS app to the Mac.

The last big thing that got mentioned and I will discuss it here was SwiftUI. It’s a new framework which makes making an app so much easier. It will work on Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV. And looking at the demo, I wanted to again try to learn coding. 

So as you can see, pretty strong keynote for macOS. I think it shows that Apple is still serious about Mac and there is hope that this OS will have bright future.

WWDC 2019 Keynote Impressions – Mac Pro

June 7, 2019
2 min read

Between the trash can Mac Pro going for a couple of years without an upgrade and problems with MacBook Pro keyboards, you could see how Apple was not very serious about the professional market (excluding iPad Pro, of course). But then Apple assured everyone they are working on the new modular Mac Pro and also release iMac Pro. 

It was hard to imagine how Apple can release a more powerful machine and boy did they deliver. Speaking in car market terms this is super car. It is even close to the concept car. The amount of power this cheese grater looking machine has is unimaginable to me. 

I still can’t believe there is a computer in the world, which you can just put on your desk with 1.5TB of memory. I don’t even hame so much storage between all my computing devices. 

I hope pros are really happy with this announcement and will be able to use it. I can’t even imagine how much the top of the line configuration will cost, $40,000?

Pro Display XDR

This is probably the most controversial announcement from the keynote. This is the most amazing display I’ve ever seen. Basically Apple presented the $40,000 reference display for under $10k, now it sounds better? 

Regarding the stand – I will sound like a fanboy, but this looks like the most precise and engineered stand for the monitor. Also, this display is for professionals, who have mounts already on their desk, the display part is swappable, so when they buy a new display they just put it in place of the old one. They don’t need a stand and it’s actually better that this one is sold separately. 

The one thing I wish Apple would do and I think a lot of people agree – also make a prosumer display. Take iMac 5k display and sell it separately. Right now if I want to buy Mac Mini or even an external display for my laptop or iPad I have nothing from Apple, I sure won’t spend $7000 on a display. 

Overall, even as someone who doesn’t need all this power, it was amazing to watch what is possible and it sure shows that Apple is still serious about pro Mac market.