Category: Digital Lifestyle

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Not Hello, But Goodbye

My 16.2-inch MacBook Pro—Apple M1 Max chip with 10-core CPU and 32-core GPU; 32GB unified memory; 1TB SSD—is gone. This morning, an associate professor and his wife purchased the laptop, which will become her go-to machine for video production. The monster machine will be missed.

On Christmas, parents bought my wife’s 13.3-inch MBP for their college student son. Same day, our daughter inherited my iPhone 13 Pro, which gift I already regret giving because of bad behavior on her part this evening (You don’t need to know, but I do need to remember). Samsung gave great trade-in amount for Annie’s smartphone. She and I now own the Galaxy S22 and S22 Ultra, respectively.

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Oh Holy Night

A few weeks ago, Dad asked about conducting a video call with the remaining (adult) children gathered. My sister Nanette, whose day job is software support, took the request and set up a Zoom meeting. Our father is 81 years old, and his computing device is an iPhone, so some testing was necessary beforehand. Of course, during last night’s final prep, his home lost electrical power (weather is stormy back home). She persevered, as did he.

Following some snafus getting him connected, sometime after 7 p.m. EST, we gathered online—some of us seeing one another for the first time in decades. We all live in different states. Nan’s husband joined and my wife. Our youngest sister is widowed. Missing and sorely missed: The eldest daughter, who passed away in 2016.

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Great Galaxy!

I don’t believe in the multiverse, but let’s pretend for the sake of narrative. In one reality, my wife and I continue to use the iPhone 13 Pro pair purchased in early autumn 2021. In another, we upgraded to the 14 models released this year. Along another path, we bought Google Pixel 7 for her and Pro for me. But in this here and now, we are unexpected owners of Samsung Galaxy S22 and its, considerably larger, Ultra sibling.

The saga starts with an insane crisis beleaguering our daughter, where, because of incompetence and mischief, she got locked out of her iPad, iPhone, and MacBook Air—and iCloud account! About a month later, and many Apple support calls or Genius Bar visits, she has regained use of the handset and notebook; iCloud is irrevocably lost, or so seems situation as I write. Someone, and she doesn’t recall being that person, activated recovery key, which my daughter does not have. Without it, Apple Support agents continually say she cannot regain access to her iCloud identity. Ah, yeah.

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iPhone Turns 15

How many people engrossed in their handhelds remember, or even know, what cellular devices were like before release of the original iPhone on June 29, 2007? Coincidentally, my daughter changed service providers today. She expressed surprise, and glee, at how easy was the process going from one iPhone model to another, including the automatic porting of her number.

When there appeared to be a glitch with that process, I called her carrier to ask about the transfer. My daughter unexpectedly rang, and with one tap I merged her incoming call with the one in progress. How amazing is that? And calling is one of the least used functions, when a plethora of apps and social media demand interaction and get it.

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Can You Say ‘Wicked’?

Kensington is one of the tonier San Diego communities, and dare I guess that privilege comes with money. Six days ago, when waiting to give my daughter a ride, I nipped boredom by pulling out iPhone 13 Pro and launching the SpeedTest app. For security reasons, my cellular carrier is removed from the paired screenshots; download left and upload right.

Wow is 5G wicked fast for the wealthy. The last home sold there, today, went for $2.025 million, according to publicly available records. The runt of the lot for all of June closed for a mere $1.1 million. Both for over asking price: $30,000 and $150,100, respectively. Hey, rising interest rates have slowed down bidding wars a bit.

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The Last Days of Apple Watch

Today I put aside the Apple Watch Series 5 (cellular) purchased in September 2019. I long considered taking such action but hesitated, knowing that if (or when) wearing stopped there would be an unrecoverable break in the activity tracked and logged in the Fitness app. Criminally egotistical as it may be, I relished the consistent achievement of my exercise, calorie, and movement goals. That’s the problem: the smartwatch provided little other meaningful benefits, and I long ago adopted a daily routine that needed no tracking to maintain.

I realized that the wrist computer had come to give me a little dopamine kick—or something like it—that obsessed Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok users get from checking their posts for comments, likes, and other reactions. A glance would reveal my pulse, which typically is in the low fifties when I’m not active; that made me feel good. Then there was Pavlovian-like preoccupation with starting (and ending) activities like walking in the Fitness app. What’s the outside air temperature? Twist the wrist. Who sent that text message? Twist again. “What are my active calories?” Twist and tap.

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Where Will Apple Store Go Next?

I should write a long missive about Apple Store’s 20th anniversary. But my essay from five years ago today serves up the core information. Please read that one for my reflection on the grand opening and what then CEO Steve Jobs meant the retail operation to be and what it actually became.

More significant than being a singular event, Apple Store’s opening represented one of four risks taken in 2001 by the fruit-logo company during a devastating recession. While competitors massively pulled back, such as Gateway shuttering stores, Apple made investments that culminated in release of the first iPhone six years later. Besides retail: iTunes (January); Mac OS X (March); iPod (October). From them evolved the logistics and manufacturing infrastructure, research and development, sales, services, and software that culminated in the smartphone that transformed Apple from a struggling PC company into a tech titan.

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A Purely Personal Purge

Today ends tight-integration between Google Drive and Photos, which when working on Chromebooks I earnestly depended for the fluidity of my imaging workflow. As expressed about three weeks ago, the change contributed to my decision to abandon all things Google. I have lost trust in the company’s commitment to treating users as customers; they are instead beta testers for products and commodities to be profited from. That’s the price paid for free.

I have waffled about Alphabet for more than a decade—delighting in beneficial innovation and ignoring even my own analysis about Google’s profiting from—no, exploiting—content created by others. As I have written before: “Google is a leech that feeds off the intellectual property of legitimate content producers. The search giant profits from your good work, reducing its value in the process. Stated differently, ‘You create it, we sell it, and you must give it away for free’. How convenient that Google assigns such value, free, to someone else’s good work, while producing little content of its own”.

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Sorry, Google

The laptop that led me back to the Google digital lifestyle is gone. Two days ago, a preschool teacher—who happens to be the same age as my daughter—bought the Pixelbook that I purchased in June 2018 during a Father’s Day sale. Subsequently, my wife and I swapped iPhones for Pixel phones and each a MacBook Pro for Google Chromebook. I added the Pixel Slate five months later. Funny thing: While I sold her MBP, I kept mine and iPad 10.5 for software testing. That decision was wise, although sticking to the Apple Way would have been wiser.

I love the Google lifestyle, but it doesn’t love me. Too many workarounds impede my workflow, which makes me more likely to consume content rather than to create it. Google’s Material Design visually appeals, and the UX (user experience) is more consistent than Apple user interfaces, where too many motifs compete and distract. That said, Android and Chrome OS crumple where I need them to be solid. Half-baked is the Android-integration with Chrome OS—not ready for commercial release is Chrome OS tablet. The tools I need most either aren’t available, or they don’t work well. Or worse, Google takes them away.

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Where Did My Leica M10 Go?

I never expected to part with Leica M10 six months after acquiring it. But such was the circumstance on Oct. 5, 2018. So shocking the suddenness, I waited three months to explain. The camera was my dream shooter—a magnificent manual rangefinder that fit my personality. Problem: Too often I couldn’t focus fast enough, or with appropriate precision. Perhaps another six months of use and practice would have made perfect.

But my wife and I were looking at possibly moving from San Diego to Julian, Calif. So serious our intention that we had put down an offer on a house, where we went for formal inspection that fine Fall Friday. Thinking about living in the mountains in nature, I couldn’t imagine using the M10. For the wild woods, autofocus and telephoto lens would be better. So I had posted the camera for sale, with intention of replacing it with a Fujifilm mirrorless. 

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My Personal Tech Kit 2019

I start the new year in a very different space, and with turnabout attitude, than 2018. About six months ago, I surrendered my digital lifestyle to Google, abandoning Apple as primary platform provider. Trust brought me to the Apple way. Distrust drove me away. Choosing between priorities privacy and security, in an increasingly dangerous Internet, the latter matters more. The Alphabet subsidiary truly has its ABCs ordered in ways that the bitten-fruit company doesn’t. I can trust that Google, being native to cloud computing and depending on it (mainly by way of search-related advertising), will secure my content and devices better than Apple, which is at best a cloud computing resident alien and more typically behaves like an immigrant who doesn’t speak the language well nor understands local culture.

Sure, I surrender some privacy but that would happen anyway, because privacy is a fiction. If you use the Internet or connected mobile device, you have none. Google is motivated to protect me (and you) because we are the product that generates ad revenue. Between marketers and hackers, it’s easy choice which I’d prefer to have my personal information. Granted anyone can debate which is, hehe, more criminal. But marketers aren’t likely to clean out my bank account or steal my identity. Or yours.