I haven’t posted about them in a while, but I’ve got some new stuff up at the HeyDingus Store. Stuff like funphonecases, and this shirt to memorialize your lost status on the internet’s favorite fallen-from-grace social network:
🆕👕🚨 Don’t let them forget that you used to be someone on Twitter.
A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.
1️⃣ I have a thesis that everything might be a blog, but Hanki is right — context matters. I like what they have to say about the medium implicitly holding a message. [🔗 Hanki // hanki.dev]
2️⃣ This is my favorite kind of thing. This guy saw a need and filled a need. It’s easy to use and understand. And he made a shortcut for even more ease. AND it’s got a great domain. (TD;DR: This tool lets Mastodon links have the same easy-to-read rich link previews in Messages that tweets get.) [🔗 Tyler Hillsman // mstdn.link]
6️⃣ Miranda is one of my favorite creators on the internet. I’ve previously linked to her videos on the Miranda in the Wild channel that she did for REI, but now she’s independently creating for her own channel, Miranda Goes Outside. She silly yet informative, and I love the joy for the outdoors that she shares with the world. [🔗 Miranda Goes Outside // instagram.com]
7️⃣ In an effort to get comfortable with sharing more, I decided to give BeReal a try. I keep missing the notifications though, so I haven’t gotten a good sense of it yet. I’d love to hear from folks if they have opinions! [🔗 Yours Truly // now.heydingus.net]
A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.
1️⃣ I found this guide to writing image descriptions immensely helpful. I like to work within frameworks, so the Object-Action-Context idea gives me a structure to go off of. [🔗 Alex Chen // uxdesign.cc]
2️⃣ Scotty Jackson makes a great point about AI in this post. It reminds me of the Ted Lasso quote, “Be curious, not judgmental.” [🔗 HeyScottyJ // heyscottyj.com]
3️⃣The Climb on HBO Max is…interesting. It’s almost like watching a satire of rock climbing but knowing that it’s trying to be serious. I can’t fully recommend it, but I’m going to keep watching. [📺The Climb // hbmomax.com]
5️⃣ Matt Birchler had the most accurate headline about Twitter’s third-party API demise this past week. [🔗 Matt Birchler // birchtree.me]
6️⃣ The news that AmazonSmile is shutting down was a huge bummer to me, too. I’ve made a point to always use AmazonSmile because every little bit helps. The Verge had a great postmortem and an even better suggestion to Amazon on how it could have more transparently broken the news. [🔗 Barbara Kransoff // theverge.com]
You know how email is this cool thing that mostly just works. You can have an @gmail.com address and send a message to someone with an @hey.com address and vice versa.
Someone else can run the email server on your behalf, or you can run one yourself in a closet from home. You can have one email address, two or five, or how many you want.
Also, you can use whatever client you want. Gmail’s web-based client, a fancy app on your phone, or a text-based one in a terminal. They might have different features and user experiences, but they all “speak email.”
I think a lightbulb flashed on in many people’s minds from this reply. It’s hard to imagine a more cogent and accessible explanation of Mastodon/Fediverse/ActivtyPub than this. The usernames might look weird right now, but I think it’s something that will pass with time. I’m sure email addresses used to look silly when they were new, too.
I gotta say, one of my favorite features to come out of iPadOS 16 this year has been the increased screen density that comes with the ‘More Space’ option in Display Zoom. For years, I’ve longed to get the benefit of two full-sized apps side-by-side like you’ve always gotten with the 12.9-inch iPad. But I’ve never wanted to carry around that lunch tray of a tablet. So I suffered the inefficiencies of being limited to compact views when using two apps at a time and given too much jealous side-eye to those larger iPads with their gloriously unconstrained screens.
But no more! If you haven’t yet tried it out yet, fire up your iPad Air (5th gen or later) or 11-inch iPad Pro and head to Settings → Display & Brightness → Display Zoom and choose ‘More Space’. Everything will scale down a little smaller, providing just enough room that you can use two apps in their 50% mode without them converting to a compact layout.
I find the full-size layouts most helpful when taking notes whiles browsing in apps like Safari. I can switch between notes and tabs all the extra clicks. ⌘
While text and UI elements are a bit smaller, I still find them completely usable. Certainly no smaller than on the iPad mini. Your mileage may vary based on your eyesight, but I think it’s the best way to use the roughly 11-inch iPads.
In fact, it’s almost like getting a new 12.9-inch iPad Pro, but without the added bulk and weight. So, thanks, I guess, goes to Stage Manager, which brought about the necessity of this feature. The apps themselves needed to be able to scale down to show the rest of the Stage’s UI. So even though I’m not rocking Stage Manager day-to-day, I’m pleased it’s given me this treat.
I thought the Mac mini and MacBooks Pro announcement would be the only new products we saw from Apple for a while, but they’ve gone and done a double-hitter! Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll get a longer run of press release announcements like that week back in March 2019, which was like a clearing of the decks before a full-on keynote later that month.
As it is, I got a shock of excitement when a buddy texted this morning, “NEWHOMEPODS!!!!!” Like in the days of old, I rushed to apple.com to check out the newest goodies with all the thrill of Christmas morning. It was fun to be surprised by Apple once again.
As for the second-generation HomePod itself, there seem to be relatively few new whizz-bang features since the original (temperature and humidity sensor, S7 chip, Thread radio, and Ultra Wideband chip) — and a few regressions (fewer tweeters, fewer microphones). That being said, I’m still delighted that it exists. I haven’t had any of the failures that have plagued other first-generation HomePod owners, but if I did, I wouldn’t hesitate to replace it with the new one. The impeccable room-filling sound quality and convenience of Siri as a hands-free kitchen assistant have been firmly planted in our home. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to slot something else in its place if and when the original dies.
However, I did do a double-take at the new HomePod’s price: $299. That’s the same price that the original sold at when it departed for the big orchard in the sky. I would have bet that Apple would shy away from that high of a price, considering that they struggled to sell even the first batch they manufactured.
On the other hand, Adders, writing on their microblog, makes a good point about the price compared to another Apple audio product:
I just don’t understand why people think £250 for Airpods Pro - single user devices, with a lifespan of a few years - is fine, but £299 for a HomePod, a whole household device that will last half a decade or more, is not.
It remains to be seen — well, heard — if the new HomePod’s quality can stand confidently next to the original’s. But I remain hopeful! I do wish, though, that Apple had bitten the bullet and added a physical audio input. That way, if the software ever does crap out, its high-quality hardware could live on. So it goes.
Although for a while there, Apple seemed like the only company rallying against “speeds and feeds”, they’ve really dived back into them. And even though we’re only a few chips into the Apple silicon translation, already my eyes glaze over and ears muffle up when they’re blazing through the stats of these, admittedly, incredibly chips.
Day-to-day, the only M2 chip improvement I’d be excited to have is more and faster unified memory. I see the “This Website Is Using Significant Memory” message from Safari far too often on my RAM-maxed M1 Max mini.
I had also hoped that when the next Mac mini update materialized, it would bring with it the silver and black “mini” version of the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID. But I haven’t heard anything about that particular white (well, black, in this case) whale. And — checks apple.com/store — well, well, well…the plot thickens:
So it looks like the Magic Keyboard (not that Magic Keyboard, this one) did get updated today. It’s got the “New” badge and a mouthful of a name I don’t think it had before. The go-to keyboard that Apple wants you to buy is now officially known as the “Magic Keyboard with Touch ID for Mac models with Apple silicon”. There is another version known simply as the “Magic Keyboard” which lacks the Touch ID button and is compatible with all Macs — including Intel ones like the lone Mac Pro. Both still charge via Lightning rather than USB-C. And neither comes in that glorious silver frame with black keys. 🙁
I’ll just leave this here:
Release the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID in black/silver without the numeric pad, you cowards!
And finally, I was glad to see some new faces presenting the products today. And, as much as I like Johny Srouji in his lab, Tim Millet, as heard on Upgrade, did a great job introducing the new chips. I could see Tom moving up the chain into Johny’s position down the road.
All-in-all, we got some very welcome — if unsurprising — upgrades today.
