Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps

New iPhone camera flatters

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When I look back at photos of my father, they tend to fall into two categories: solemn and goofy. His smiles often looked more like a grimace. The best photos of him are the the serious poses. Like pop, I’ve tended to mug for the camera for most of my adult life. I’m not one of those people who hate having their photo taken and readily concede that every one of them was “me” at that moment.

At 70, the camera shows me an old man that cannot possibly be me. The imaginary me that looks out of these eyes is a young guy. Who is that geezer in the mirror?! But maybe that will pass and the inner me will get comfortable with the guy walking around in this skin. Barb took this photo (with her iPhone X).

iPhone XS

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Broke down and bought a new iPhone yesterday. My 6SE was two years old and the battery was fading noticebly. I loved the smaller form-factor of the SE and was hoping Apple would keep it around but, alas, the smaller phone is no more. The clincher was the camera on the new models (Barb’s photos from her Yellowstone trip were breathtaking).

Took a couple of photos this morning of Terry Bledsoe, a coffee shop regular. The portrait modes is impressive.

Apple TV Screensavers

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I’ve got some issues with Apple TV but it works so well with my iPhone and MacBook so I put up with them. And the gizmo is worth the money just for the screensavers. They’re gorgeous. Last night I fired up the Apple Music app while I was ironing shirts. In a few seconds the first screensaver came up on the big screen. If you’ve never seen these it’s hard to understand what I’m gushing about. Fortunately someone has collected them but you won’t get the full effect on a small screen.

Google Calendar “Go to Date”

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One of the reasons I dragged my feet on moving to the new Google Calendar was I’d have to give up the Jump to Date feature that was part of Labs in the old calendar. I’ve been putting all my important stuff in Google Calendar since I started using it. I frequently want to jump back five or ten years. Could not find a way to do that with the new UI… until today. Somebody on a forum just casually tossed out, “Just press the G key if you want to go to a specific date.” Well, shit. I mean… thank you very much.

PS: I have yet to encounter anyone who uses Google Calendar as extensively as I do. I rely on it more than Gmail or any other online tool.

iMessage now using iCloud

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Apple recently updated macOS and iOS to enable syncing/storing of iMessages in iCloud. I don’t use some of Apple’s more popular apps (like Mail and Calendar) but I use iMessage constantly. Google has, what, seven messaging apps now?

Prior to this latest update, a user could have iMessage syncing problems between devices and the app was taking up a lot of storage on your device. Some people have conversations (with attachments) going back years. Moving all of this to iCloud solves that problem.

I never thought much about the archival feature of iMessage. I sort of knew my conversations were archived but rarely went back to look for something. Following this update I started playing with search in iMessage (I always thought of search as just a way to find someone with whom I had had a conversation). A search for “Land Rover” pulled up all of the conversations where that phrase had been used (left side of screenshot). On the right, the conversations with each. Any message containing the searched for word/phrase is grayed out just a bit.

Like a lot of folks, instant messaging (iMessage for me) has become my preferred method of communication. Voice-to-text works great and I occasionally just send a brief audio message. So having all of my conversations stored, sync’d and searchable will be handy.

AirPods and the Three Stages of Apple Criticism

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“I really wish I was exaggerating, but these seven reasons are the main ways Apple critics attempt to explain why someone would choose to buy products critics believe are both overpriced and inferior to their competition. Because if you’ve already come to the conclusion that Apple products are overpriced and inferior, but hundreds of millions of people still buy them, the only conclusion must be that there is something seriously wrong with the people who buy them.” (Jonathan Kim)

Every week I see someone new come into the coffee shop with AirPods. Rare to see any other brand of Bluetooth headphones. Same with the Apple Watch. If you happen to spot something other than an Apple Watch, look around because there’s one of those two-wheeled scooters leaning against a wall close by.