Category: Apple

Climate Strike, Batman Day, NYCC and more

Happy Batman Day! I’m a big Batman fan, but yesterday’s climate strike is probably a bigger deal than Batman Day. (Also bigger than Talk Like A Pirate Day, which was two days ago. Or the reopening of the Fifth Ave Apple Store, which was also yesterday. Or the reopening of my local Apple Store, which also reopened yesterday.)

Today in Somerville we have the Village Brewing Oktoberfest, not to be confused with the Tapastre-sponsored Oktoberfest, which is next Saturday.

It’s all very confusing, especially since I got no sleep last night, due to the music on Main St playing until 1 or 2 AM last night again. I have a bunch of stuff bookmarked that I’ve been meaning to write thoughtful and/or entertaining blog posts about, but I just haven’t gotten around to it, and now my brain is kind of fried, so… you get this post. Sorry.

New York Comic Con is just about two weeks away, so I’m looking forward to that. Warren Ellis is going to be there, which is kind of a big deal, since he doesn’t really do conventions anymore, and definitely not conventions in the US. He’s only coming to NYCC to promote the Castlevania Netflix show, so I probably won’t get to hear him talk about his comics work, but I will definitely go to that Castlevania panel. There’s also an Adam Savage talk that will probably be good, but costs $75 to attend. (He also has a regular panel during the con that doesn’t cost extra, so I’ll probably try to go to that one.)

There’s a lot of serious stuff going on in the world right now, and I’m trying to balance concern/involvement in the serious stuff vs. staying sane with Batman and NYCC and Castlevania and what-not.

thinking about the Apple Card

I hadn’t been seriously considering getting an Apple Card, for a number of reasons. First, because I don’t need a new credit card. And second, because the card is issued by Goldman Sachs, and I’m not a huge fan of their work, as the saying goes. (And maybe third, because I’m not entirely comfortable with Apple getting into the financial services business.)

Some of the news coverage of the card has been pretty funny, mostly related to the physical titanium card, which sounds kind of cool, but apparently has some issues. The fact that they had to write a support article to explain how to clean it is kind of ridiculous.

But I had an issue with my usual, old-fashioned, credit card this week, and now I’m thinking that it might be nice to have a virtual card on my phone that isn’t tied to a physical card and that’s easier to manage than my old-fashioned card from my old-fashioned bank. So I’m a little tempted to sign up for the Apple Card on my phone (and opt out of the physical titanium card). There’s a fairly thorough review of the card at iMore. It sounds pretty good, to be honest. I’m still not convinced though. I’ve checked, and it looks like you can’t download the card activity into Quicken, so that’s probably the deal-breaker for me.

no more iTunes and too much Main St music

Somebody thought it would be a good idea to start playing music here on Main St again, for the summer, and again it’s gone horribly wrong. Well, maybe not horribly wrong, but I woke up to bad jazz coming in through my window at 4 AM this morning, so pretty wrong. I stayed in bed until about 4:30, when the switch from bad jazz to yacht rock occurred, at which point I gave up and got out of bed. So now I’ve got an extra hour or so to kill before I have to go to work, so I might as well do some blogging.

I’ve been running across a lot of articles this week about the end of iTunes. Some of them are quite overblown and even misleading. Here’s one that isn’t. Key line: “For the most part, the end of iTunes seems to be an end in name only: key features will be retained in the Music app.” (And iTunes for Windows is sticking around for now too.) Here’s a FAQ-style article from CNET that’s also fairly useful and not misleading.

There are a lot of think pieces out there that are mostly following the same narrative. Here’s one from The Verge. The general structure of most of these goes through the rise of iPods, ripping CDs, pirating music through Napster, and buying 99ยข songs through iTunes, then the decline of that model and the rise of streaming music. I can’t argue with any of that, though I’m still not that keen on switching over to a $10/month streaming service.

Depending on how usable the new Apple Music app actually is, I may need to go back to my search for a good alternative music management system. Back in 2017, I had an issue that prompted me to look around. I tried Swinsian on my Mac and MediaMonkey on my PC, but wasn’t happy enough with either of them to stick with them. The issue I had with iTunes eventually got fixed, so I stuck with iTunes.

I’m actually getting a lot of my music these days from podcasts and streaming radio. I’m listening to Monday Graveyard and Future Astronauts regularly, and enjoying both. (And supporting both on Patreon, though for only a buck a month.) And right at this moment, I’m listening to some nice stuff on NTS. (The description of the show I’m listening to right now starts with “Exploring long-form structures and expressive micro-tuning systems…”, so yeah, it’s that kind of music! It’s these guys, apparently.)

I occasionally consider signing up for a streaming music service, though I still can’t talk myself into it. Amazon Music Unlimited would probably be the cheapest, at $8/month for Prime members. (I’m wondering about that price now though, since the page linked above currently shows two “Try It” buttons, one of which says $7.99/month under it, while the other says $9.99/month. And I saw an even higher price in a popup in the iOS app yesterday. So I don’t know what’s going on there.) Anyway, my taste is weird enough right now that I’m probably better off sticking with oddball podcasts, streaming radio stations, and an occasional Bandcamp purchase.

Well, it’s around 6:45 AM now, so it’s still a bit too early to go to work. Maybe I should go for a walk.

 

new iPad first impressions

I got my new iPad Air yesterday, so I thought I’d post some initial impressions.

The main issue with my old iPad was just that it was getting too slow. This new one definitely fixes that problem. Some of the apps on the old iPad had gotten ludicrously slow, including Twitterrific, which was taking several minutes to refresh my Twitter feed. That’s now back to normal, taking only a second or two. So the new iPad fixes the one big thing I needed fixed; everything else is gravy.

The old iPad was old enough that it didn’t have Touch ID, so having that on my iPad is new for me. There’s nothing unexpected there. I had Touch ID on my last iPhone (the SE), and, now that I think about it, the one before that (the 5s), so I’ve had it for a long time. (My new iPhone, of course, has Face ID instead.) I guess it’s nice having Touch ID on the iPad, so I don’t have to type in my passcode every time I use it.

The screen is 10.5″, so it’s a little bigger than the old one, which was 9.7″. Honestly, I can’t tell the difference unless I hold them up next to each other. The slightly larger screen doesn’t seem to make a noticeable difference in everyday use. I’m also assuming that the screen/display is technically better than the one on the old iPad. I haven’t really checked to see what’s changed on that, but I assume a bunch of stuff has. Nevertheless, I don’t really notice a difference in everyday use. I haven’t tried reading any comics on it yet though. I’m wondering if either the larger size or the “better” display results in a noticeably nicer comic reading experience.

This iPad supports the Pencil and the Smart Keyboard, but I didn’t pick up either of those. I don’t really have a good use case for the Pencil, though I’m curious about it. And I’d like to switch from my old Logitech Bluetooth keyboard to the Smart Keyboard, but I don’t really think it’s worth the money. (I only use a keyboard with my iPad occasionally.)

So, overall… meh. It does what I need it to do, lots faster than my old iPad. There aren’t really any mind-blowing new features or amazing improvements.

That’s probably the last big Apple purchase I’ll make this year (and hopefully there won’t be any next year). I replaced my MacBook about a year ago; I’m hoping that lasts another two years. (At minimum, I’d like to see it outlast Apple’s stubborn insistence on sticking with their butterfly keyboards. If it doesn’t, I may have to give up on macOS, at least as a laptop OS.) I replaced my iPhone and Apple Watch in December 2018. I’d like to see them both last at least until January 2021, and maybe well into 2021. I may pick up a pair of AirPods at some point, but I’m still on the fence about those.

new iPad Air

After dithering back and forth over the last few months about whether or not to get a new iPad, and which one to get, I finally broke down and ordered a new 10.5″ iPad Air yesterday. I got the basic 64 GB model, which is twice the storage of my old iPad Air, and should be enough for me, for now.

Ars Technica recently posted a fairly lengthy review of the new Air and Mini, and it’s largely positive. Most of the negative stuff either applies only to the Mini or isn’t something that I care about.

I bought my first iPad in 2010, my second in 2012, and my third (and most recent) in 2014. So I’ve waited a lot longer than usual to replace it this time. (And, heck, I bought that last one used, off eBay, so it’s really from 2013, I think.) The old iPad has held together for quite a while, but it’s really showing its age now. The battery life is pretty bad, and a lot of stuff on it is pretty slow. (I’m actually kind of surprised at how much stuff isn’t slow. But the stuff that is slow is getting to be a real pain.)

I’m using Apple’s trade-in program to get rid of the old iPad. They’re giving me $70 for it, which is just enough to pay for the AppleCare on the new iPad.

I’ll probably post some thoughts on it after I’ve received it and had a chance to use it for a few days.

more Apple stuff

Since this post in December, I’ve replaced my iPhone and Watch, but I’m still limping along with my five-year-old iPad Air. I had been considering buying a 6th gen 9.7″ 128 GB iPad, since Amazon has been selling them new at a $100 discount. (Still on sale at $329, as of this morning.) But I knew that new ones were coming, so I waited.

The new 10.5″ iPad Air is tempting, and I’ll probably buy one, but I’m not sure. The 64 GB version is $500, and the 256 GB version is $650, so that’s a lot more than the discounted 9.7″ one. (And there’s no 128 GB option.)

I’m also starting to think about buying a pair of AirPods. I’ve resisted the urge to get these, or any Bluetooth headphones, so far, but I’m tempted now. The two things that are still stopping me are the (probably non-existent) cancer risk and the short battery life (along with the impracticality of replacing the batteries). So I’m still a bit reticent about buying a pair of these expensive little things if they’re only going to last for two years before the battery dies.

Either way, I’m going to wait on any new purchases until after I get back from WonderCon. It would have been nice to have a new iPad for the six-hour flights to/from California, so I could spend that time reading comics. I can probably use the old iPad for a couple of hours, but I’m pretty sure the battery wouldn’t last through the whole flight. (Which is fine, since I have more than enough stuff to read on my Kindle, which will have no problem lasting through a six-hour flight, assuming I remember to put it in airplane mode.)

a few more iPhone XR notes

I’ve had my new iPhone XR for a few weeks now, so I thought I’d post some follow-up notes on it. My last post on it was on New Year’s Day.

First, while it has been generally reliable, it did crash once. And it required a “force restart” to get it back up, via the procedure described here: volume up, volume down, then hold the side button. It came back up with no data loss, and it’s been fine since, but I hope that doesn’t happen regularly.

Headphones

On the headphone jack front, I’ve settled on using the Belkin Rockstar adapter in the car, using the $9 headphone jack adapter with my old Sony earbuds at work, and using the Lightning Earpods at home. The whole headphone jack thing got me thinking about headphones vs earbuds vs earphones and stuff like that.

I came to realize that the Sony MDR-J10 earbuds that I’ve been using at work for so long are almost perfect. I bought them many years ago, in a Staples Express in Penn Station NY, for maybe $20. They’re not made anymore, but it seems that they were popular enough that a used pair goes for $50-$100 now. They’re regular earbuds that don’t go all the way into the ear, and they have clips that fit behind the ear to hold them in place. So they’re comfortable and they don’t fall out.

Sony makes a similar pair now, the MDR-AS210/B, but it’s not quite the same design as the MDR-J10. I also haven’t found anyone that makes a similar design that includes a Lightning connector instead of a regular headphone plug.

I’ve been using the Apple “EarPods” at home, for listening to podcasts and audiobooks, and they’re not horrible. They’re not nearly as good a fit as the Sony MDR-J10’s though. (Specifically, the left ear is a good fit, but the right ear isn’t. I guess my ears aren’t both quite the same size.) I’m thinking about buying a pair of the newer Sony MDR-AS210/B earbuds for use at home, with the $9 headphone jack adapter.

I’m also curious about these Urbanears earbuds that I saw in the MoMA gift shop recently. The design is interesting and might be a good fit. (Or not. If I buy them, I should make sure they’re returnable.)

I’m still trying to avoid Bluetooth headphones and/or in-ear designs. I may eventually give up and try Bluetooth, but I’m resisting. I don’t want to add yet one more device with a battery that needs to be charged to my already-impressive list of devices with batteries in them. And the in-ear ones just don’t seem like they’d work well for me.

Cases

I’ve bought two cases for the phone, one a sleeve, and the other a silicone case. I ordered the sleeve first, but it only showed up yesterday, since it was shipped ground from Germany. (I didn’t notice that when I ordered it.) I initially tried using the phone with no case at all, but I found that the back was a little too slippery, hence the silicone case. That case does a good job of making it harder for the phone to slip out of my hands or fall off a table.

I’ve noticed that the screen on this phone seems to pick up a lot of dust (or lint or whatever) when I have it in my pocket, hence the sleeve. I like the idea of a sleeve, for a couple of reasons. First, for the screen protection. The second reason is a little subtle, but I like having the phone in the sleeve when I’m not using it; it makes it a little harder for me to pick it up and start fiddling with it when I should be doing something else. It adds just enough friction that it’s a little easier to ignore the phone.

Of course, the sleeve is too tight for the phone to fit when the silicone case is on it, so I’m going to have to work that out. I’ll probably go back and forth between the two for awhile.

I was amused to see that Apple is now selling a battery case for the XR and XS. The XR’s battery life is good enough that I shouldn’t need an external battery any time soon. Apple’s battery case is ridiculously expensive, at $129. But that’s Apple. There are third-party battery cases that only cost $35.

iPhone XR day four

I didn’t talk about my new iPhone XR in my New Year’s Day post, since I knew it would set me off on a tangent and add another 2000 words to the post, so here’s a separate follow up to my previous iPhone XR post.

I’m still struggling with the headphone jack thing. I bought these urBeats3 Earphones at the Apple Store the day after I bought my iPhone, then returned them today. They plug into the Lightning port, just like the Apple earbuds, so I thought that would simplify things. My thought was to use them as my main headphones at work. These were the first in-ear earphones I ever tried though, and it turns out they don’t work well for me. They include tips in four different sizes, but none of them fit my ears well. And microphonics turned out to be a big problem for me. I tried the trick of looping the cord behind my ear, and that helped, but also made the tips even more likely to fall out. I also thought about trying some Comply tips, but I don’t know if those would actually help, and I didn’t want to spend another $20 just to make a pair of already-overpriced $60 earphones work better. So, in a nutshell, I think I need to avoid in-ear earphones.

I picked up a second $9 Lightning headphone jack adapter when I returned the Beats. So my plan for now is:

  • Keep the Belkin Rockstar adapter in the car, so I can charge and connect to the car stereo at the same time.
  • Keep one headphone jack adapter at work, and keep using my good old comfortable Sony earbuds. (I won’t be able to charge and listen at the same time, but that’s probably fine.)
  • Keep the other headphone jack adapter at home, and use it with my Sennheiser headphones, when I want to listen to something at home, and don’t want to pipe it through my Sonos speaker.
  • Try to remember to toss that second adapter in my backpack when I travel, so i can use it with the Urbanears headphones that I keep in my backpack.
  • Consider giving AirPods a try at some point in 2019.

So that’s more complicated than it needs to be, but is probably workable.

I do still have a couple of minor annoyances with Face ID. Sleep Cycle works a bit differently with this phone than it did on the old phone, and I’m finding that I need to unlock the phone to stop the alarm every morning. And Face ID isn’t working for me first thing in the morning, so I have to type in my passcode. So that’s a bit irksome. In theory, Face ID should work in the dark, but, well, it’s not working for me. It’s probably that I’m not picking up the phone at the right angle for it to work. But it’s 6am, and I just want to shut the alarm off, and I’m not thinking about lining up my phone with my face properly. Maybe I’ll get that figured out over the next week or so. Overall, Face ID is working fine for me, but honestly it’s at least slightly less convenient than Touch ID.

I’m still finding the phone to be a bit unwieldy. I might pick up a silicone case at some point to make it a bit harder to fumble.

That’s about all for now. I briefly thought about returning the phone, and getting an iPhone 8 instead, so I could at least go back to Touch ID and a slightly smaller form factor. But that would be a lot of hassle, and probably a bad decision long-term. I think I’ll get used to the XR, and will probably start liking it more over time, as I get used to it.

iPhone XR day two

Today is day two with my new iPhone XR and Apple Watch Series 3, so I thought I’d post a few more thoughts on the phone. I’ve got all the basic setup done now, and things are working smoothly.

First, let me talk about the size of the phone. For some apps, it’s really nice to have the larger screen. For others, it doesn’t make much difference. For general usability, I’m still finding it a bit unwieldy. It’s harder to hold in one hand than the SE, and I’m finding that the back is a little more slippery. I’ve dropped it a couple of times already. I could make it a lot easier to hold if I stuck a PopSocket on the back, but I’m not sure I want to do that. I don’t really like the idea of sticking something directly to the phone. So I could buy a case and stick the PopSocket to the case, but that adds even more bulk to a phone that’s already too big. So I’m not sure if I’m going to keep using the phone as-is, or do something with it. I did order a sleeve for the phone, so at least I’ll have something to put it in to keep it from getting scratched up while it’s in my pocket, but that only solves one (potential) problem, and doesn’t make it any easier to use.

I’m still at loose ends with the headphone jack thing. My general attitude about it is still pretty similar to this guy’s (I want it back). But I’m trying to work my way over to this guy’s attitude (it’s time to move on). I tried the Lightning earbuds that came with the phone, and they’re not great. I might decide to bring them into work and use them as my “work headphones”, but I’m not sure they’re good enough or comfortable enough. I have a pair of low-end Sony earbuds at my desk that are a good fit and sound (I think) better than Apple’s earbuds, so I’ll probably stick with them for now, using the $9 adapter. If I keep the adapter at work, though, then I don’t have one for home or travel.

Maybe I’ll keep the Lightning earbuds at home; if I really want high-quality sound at home, I use my stereo and not my phone anyway. I can just use them for podcast listening at home. And maybe I’ll throw them in my backpack when I’m taking the train to NYC, rather than using the Urbanears headphones that I keep in there now, though I don’t really like that idea. Or maybe I just need to buy a few more $9 adapters (sigh).

For the car, I have the Belkin Rockstar thing to let me plug into my aux jack and charge at the same time, so that’s taken care of, though it’s going to be a little messy. And I think I’ll just keep that in the car.

I’m curious about AirPods. If not for the rumors of a new version coming early in 2019, I probably would have ordered a pair with the new phone. (Of course, if I did, I wouldn’t have them yet anyway, since they’re still not keeping up with orders on those.) Meanwhile, I’m thinking about buying a different set of Bluetooth headphones, but I don’t want to spend too much on them, if I’m just going to switch to AirPods next year anyway. But I don’t want to get really cheap ones either. So, in summary… yeah, I’m still at loose ends.

Aside from the size and the headphone jack stuff, it’s a fine phone. (I haven’t made a phone call on it yet, actually, but I assume it can do that.) It works fine for most of the usual stuff I do, but not noticeably better than the old SE. I haven’t checked out the camera much yet, so that’s another thing to play around with. It should, theoretically, be better than the SE camera (but not as good as the XS camera).

Given how much it cost, I’m hoping I can get three years of use out of it, but I know that’s a stretch. (The SE was about 2 years and 9 months old when I retired it yesterday.)

new Apple gear

I’ve been thinking about buying some new Apple gear lately. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about replacing my iPhone, iPad, and Watch.

My old iPhone SE is almost (but not quite) three years old. The battery life on it has been pretty bad lately. If I go through a whole day without getting a chance to recharge, it’s usually at about 20% by the end of the day. And if I use anything that drains the battery, like Uber, Lyft, or Apple Maps, it can drain down enough that it shuts itself down. (I had this problem one day during NYCC this year, where the phone was dead by early afternoon, largely because I’d used Uber to get to the con.) And it’s been getting noticeably slow lately too, in some apps.

The iPad I’m using now is an iPad Air that I bought via eBay in 2014. The battery life isn’t good, and it’s acting a little funny sometimes, but overall it’s still OK. I’d like to replace it, but it’s not top priority.

And my Apple Watch is a “Series 0” that I bought not long after I bought the iPhone SE. There’s really nothing wrong with it, but it won’t run watchOS 5.

I’ve been looking at the iPhone XR, but I haven’t been really enthusiastic about any of the current crop of iPhones. They’re all too expensive, too big, and none of them have headphone jacks. But, well, I decided to give in and buy an iPhone XR today. I ordered it via the Apple Store app on my old phone, for pickup at my local Apple Store. I got the “(Product)Red” 128GB version. We’ll see if I can get used to the size and the lack of a headphone jack. The total price, including AppleCare, the $9 headphone adapter, and a Belkin Rockstar adapter (so I can use headphones and charge it at the same time), came to just under $1000. Which seems like a crazy amount of money to pay for a phone. But oh well. I’m too old and set in my ways to switch from iOS to Android, so I have to pay that Apple premium.

And a friend dropped by today with a Christmas present for me: a new Series 3 Apple Watch! So now I have that taken care of too. The Series 3, physically, is pretty much identical to the Series 0. I haven’t done enough with it yet to tell whether or not it’s any better than the Series 0, in any noticeable ways, but I’m happy to have it, and to now be running watchOS 5.

Setup on the iPhone XR was a little painful, but could have been worse. It took several tries to activate it with Verizon. And, since it was running a slightly older version of iOS than my SE, I had to set it up as new, update iOS, then restore from backup. Setup for the Watch was comparatively easy. It paired with the new iPhone easily, and restored from the previous Apple Watch backup pretty quickly.

Over the next few days, I’ll have to see if I can get used to carrying and using a larger phone. The XR is significantly bigger than the SE. While the larger screen is nice, it’s a bit harder to hold than the SE, and it’s noticeably heavier. I haven’t put it in a case yet, and I’m not sure if I’m going to; it looks nice as-is, and I don’t know if I want to add to the weight. (I’ll probably write a cranky follow-up post about the phone in a few days…)