Tony's Stuff

  Do You Really Want More Repairability? Be careful what you wish for I have never had a pair of Airpods Pro last more than a few years. I’ve had cases and earbuds replaced under warranty and under AppleCare+, but driving to the store or shipping them off is an inconvenience in itself, and it costs me time and money. Sooner or later, I snarl silently and order a new pair. I’m lucky to be able to afford this self-spoiling excess; not everyone can. The fact that iFixit gave the OG AirPods Pro a 0 out if 10 repairability score is sad, but that the iPods Pro 2 still get the same zilch score is a bit outrageous. Enter a man named Ken Pillonel who has designed an open source, take-apart case for the OG version that he says Apple could have done itself. Man open-sources the self-repairable AirPods Pro case that Apple won't make The AirPods Pro "could have been easily made repairable with minimal effort." Yeah, not so pretty is it? It’s just the case, not the buds, and you’d need...

  Why Should I Care About User Profiles In IOS 17? I’m retired, I don’t need no stinking profiles!  Apple introduced us to the Safari Profiles feature of IOS 17 by describing it like this: Keep your browsing separate for topics like Work and Personal with different profiles in Safari. Profiles help you separate your history, extensions, Tab Groups, cookies, and favorites. You can quickly switch between profiles as you browse. ( Apple IOS 17 Preview ) I bet millions of us looked at that and thought, “So what?” Sure, if you are big shot executive working at home while your minions slave away in their four foot square cubicles, maybe you need a feature like that. Or if you are one of the lucky ones still allowed to work at home, maybe that could be useful? For a lot of us, there is no Work and Personal. We might be retired, or our fat cat boss is so worried about leaking information that we have to go see a guard in a cage every morning to check out our pencils and our work ...

  NNT and NNH are Two Medical Terms I Never Heard Why don’t doctors share these stats? Anthony Lawrence (Pcunix) Has your doctor ever suggested a pill to you and reassured you with something like “There are some possible side effects, but most people tolerate it well?” I’d be surprised if you said no. My doctor said something like that to me recently. I was seeing him to complain about getting up too often at night to pee, something that had became more annoying when I reached my seventies. After testing, prodding, and interrogation, my doctor decided that there was nothing wrong with me other than getting older, but offered a pill called “Mirabegron” to cut the urination frequency. This article is not about Mirabegron and is not offering medical advice. I have no medical training and I did not take this pill. This is about finding more information about any pills your doctor may suggest. In other words, Mirabegron is treating the symptom, not any particular problem. I shrugged, ac...

  Yes, Safari Used To Not Be Your Best Choice I don’t think that’s true today Back in the dark ages of Microsoft, a lot of people switched to Firefox because, well, because you were probably a fool not to. Later on, Firefox became sluggish and Chrome was the new favorite. This carried over to Macs. Safari wasn’t that great, Chrome was better, all hail Chrome. The prejudice is still here today. I broke ranks several years ago when Safari started getting features I liked that Chrome didn’t offer. I think the most attractive bit of dessert was Reader Mode, probably because it stripped out ads without the need of an ad blocker and it neatened up printed output. Those two features of Reader Mode made Safari my daily pal. Well, except for the damn extensions. I don’t remember if Safari had any extensions back then; if there were any, they weren’t many, and I had no use for whatever was available. Funny enough, that’s still true today, though today I have relegated Chrome to the dust bin ...

  Everything I’ve read about the new IOS 17 Siri that will respond to both “Siri” and “Hey Siri” seems to be positive and welcoming. Apparently prefacing with “Hey” was quite onerous for the people now praising its demotion to being optional. You’d think that before this you had to say  “Begging your pardon, Siri, but would you please”  before every request. Well, now you will have to be more careful when you talk about Siri. That is, when you invoke her name without wanting any response. This was easy in the olden days because you’d have to accidentally say “Hey Siri” and that’s pretty easy to avoid. Apple did apparently think about this. I’ve found that Siri won’t light up when her name is buried betwixt words. Saying “I want to ask Siri something about turning on a light” is safe. Putting her name last — “Apple really needs to improve Siri” — also won’t get her attention. Siri at the beginning of a sentence will always get her attention — the “I’m listening icon” ...

  Who Might FedNow Hurt in Tech or Consumers? Did you just say, “Fed Who?” If you did ask “Fed Who?”, don’t feel badly; so did I when I came across this announcement. About the FedNow Service What is the FedNow Service and how will it help enable financial institutions to deliver end-to-end faster payment… At first I thought, “Oh, that’s nice.” Heck, were I still working, I’d like getting paid instantly, which is what FedNow does: instant bank to bank (or credit union) transfers for businesses. And yes, even now I’d like my Social Security money and my retirement fund withdrawals to settle instantly. Yay! But then I thought, sure, but if I’m on the sending side of this, wouldn’t I rather keep my money compounding interest for a few more days? I’m never in a rush to see money leave my bank, are you? Well, maybe sometimes. If I were buying something I want right now and the seller wants my payment before handing it over, sure, I’d like this. I might be annoyed, but if that’s the only...

  Applaud Apple and Others for Standing Firm on Privacy With them at the forefront, I can’t think that anyone else will acquiesce The United Kingdom wants to protect children. That’s a laudable goal, but unfortunately they feel that the way to do that is to be able to secretly disable message encryption. Yes, all sorts of crime makes use of encryption to shroud criminal activity. Yet encryption is also important in both business and personal communication. It’s important for political dissidents in oppressive regimes, important for medical records, important for any communication where the content is nobody else’s damn business. Fortunately, Apple, Google, Meta and other companies oppose the bill that would allow this. Apple has gone so far as to say that they will remove FaceTime and iMessage from UK devices rather than comply and others have implied as much. With all this opposition, I would think the UK will have to back down. I can’t imagine UK iPhone users suddenly switching t...

  Why I Stay Away From the Apple App Store And why perhaps you should too In a recent post at Medium about Apple Notes, Will Murphy said,  “I would rather not make that investment unless I can be certain the note-taking system will be there for the long haul.”  He was referring to his preference for Notes over third party note taking apps. That’s exactly how I feel about all the “mission critical” apps I use every day. While third party apps sometimes promise entrancing features, I stick with Apple’s built in apps for almost everything I do, and the “almost” disappears when the work is important. Like Will, Apple Notes is my filing system and I have written a number of posts here explaining why: No More Shall I Wonder and Wander the House Store User Manuals in the Books App? Now I Have Yet Another Reason to Bring My iPhone When Grocery Shopping Why You Might Really Like the New Note to Note Linking in IOS 17 I have sometimes been tempted by third party apps, but I’ve alwa...

  Fitness+ in IOS 17 Disappoints Me No kewpie doll for Apple I feel disappointed. When I first got Fitness+ through my Premier Apple One subscription, I tried it out for a bit, but soon found it was too much for my stiff scaffolding and muscles. The trainers were too fit, I’m too old, I just hurt myself and couldn’t keep up. I tried, and often drove my heart rate into the mid 180’s, which might not be a good idea for someone in their mid seventies. So I quit for a bit, but then they added Workouts for Older Adults, so I tried that. It was better, though I’m just not that flexible, and then those workouts either disappeared or at least I couldn’t find them. I went back to my own walking, pushups, pullups, and whatever else I wanted to do at home. That does keep me fit, but I wished Apple would do more with Fitness+ IOS 17 Apple did do some things in *OS 17, so I decided to take a fresh look. There are some improvements, but my internal grumpy old man (GOM from here on) is thumping h...