Following my habit of purchasing at least one pair of headphones per year, I’ve spent a few days with the newly-released Beats Fit Pro. Here are my brief first impressions of what I think are (spoilers) Beats’ bests buds to date.

Comfort

• Pretty comfortable upon first putting them in. More comfy than I expected.
• I think I found the “right” place for the wing tip, but I keep wanting to adjust. Need to try to place and leave it.
  • There’s a surprising amount of forgiveness in where you place the wing tip in your ear. You can twist the buds forward and back to wherever is most comfortable. Personally I put the bud in, tuck the wing tip under one of the ear ridges, and then rotate the bud back slight to “lock” it into place.
• They come with standard in-ear tips. My ears are weird and I’ve never quite found the right size tips before. I’m going to have to try them all out to determine what’s most comfortable and doesn’t easily break the seal. So far the mediums are pretty good, but the larges make my ear feel too full.
• Very secure. I’m confident they won’t fall out even when eating or running.
  • They indeed do not fall out when eating or running. In fact, they were great on a run! Did not slip out, or work their way out of my ear canal. That’s more than I can say for the Powerbeats Pro, which I’ve been using for about a year. The right Powerbeats consistently slip far enough out of my ear canal while running that it affects sound quality and is super distracting. Different ear tip sizes didn’t help, so I resorted to basically only ever using the left one. With Beats Fit Pro, I can finally use both buds again!
• I’m pretty used to sleeping with AirPods in, but that’s probably not feasible with the Beats since rolling over onto them engages the button which pauses or changes noise setting. Also it pushes more uncomfortably into the ear.

Sound

• Sound is good! Bass is predictably more noticeable than in regular AirPods. I think I prefer AirPods for podcasts, but music is really enjoyable in the Beats Fit Pro.
• Noise cancelation is impressive. Doesn’t make my head feel as funny as with AirPods Pro, but also not not there.
• Transparency mode is kind of funny. You can hear the world around you as if there’s nothing in your ears, but my ears still feel full. It’s not a bad feeling, just a little weird.
• While running, transparency worked well with music playing. With the Powerbeats Pro, which do not have transparency mode (or active noise cancellation, btw), I didn’t really feel comfortable with both buds in while on a run. They blocked too much noise.

The Rest

• Having the earbud surface as physical button is best. It uses all the standard click controls from back in the wired earpods days. I’ll miss volume control from the Powerbeats (which are certainly going up for sale). It’s possible to change a setting so that a press-and-hold on the button of the left or right earbud will adjust the volume up or down, but then there’s no easy access to noise cancelation/transparency modes.
• The case is the only real drawback.
  • It uses USB-C rather than lightning (which I understand, but don’t like).
  • I could overlook USB-C if it had Qi charging. The lack of wireless charging is this product’s biggest miss.
  • It’s quite large for the size of the buds, and isn’t as pocketable as AirPods or AirPods Pro. I’d prefer smaller case at the expense of battery life.
  • The case has a cheap plastic feel compared to AirPods. Harder to open.
• The Apple marketing machine got to me. In my mind, earbuds are supposed to be white. So I opted for the white pair, also thinking they’d to be easier to spot if I dropped them. After a few days, I slightly regret that color choice as they’ll probably get dirty faster. I may exchange them for the black pair, we’ll see.

Conclusion So Far

After a few days, I’ve decided that Beats Fit Pro are, for me, like a better AirPods Pro at a lower cost. They stay in my ears, sound great, and come with all the bells and whistles like spatial sudio and noise cancelation features. I wish they were more pocketable and had wireless charging, but otherwise are wonder-buds. They’re the real deal.

Ultimately, I foresee keeping AirPods 2 in my pocket for daily drivers, and keep the Beats Fit Pro in my bag for fitness and anytime I want noise cancelation. They’re so much more travel-friendly than AirPods Max, and worked great for blocking out airplane noise on a recent trip.

Bonus: AirPods (3rd generation) Impressions

When the latest non-pro AirPods were announced, they were an insta-buy for me. I received them on launch day and was super excited for them. Unfortunately, as soon as I popped them into my ears, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep them.

The good stuff:

• Sound quality was amazing.
  • For spoken word audio (like podcasts), the sound was crisp in a way that the first two generations of AirPods never has been.
  • For music, the bass was instantly more noticeable than earlier AirPods. I’ve never been unhappy with the sound quality from AirPods, but the latest generation is a big step up.
• Spatial Audio support is a treat. I really enjoy it for both videos (with dynamic head tracking) and music (with static head tracking).
• MagSafe case is cool, but actually made it harder to grab and go. Unless your charger is heavy or stuck down, it likes to come up with the case. But it’s not a bad addition.
• The button on the stem is both more versatile for controls, and feels less silly than tapping on earbuds.

The bad stuff:

• The shape change made it incompatible with the right ear. Yup, just one of them. It’s bigger and fit snuggly in my left, but my right ear has always had issues with earbuds (except for the previous generation AirPods, and now the Beats Fit Pro).
• It never felt secure in my right ear, and even moderate activity made it tumble out.

I wanted so badly to love the 3rd-gen AirPods. And if my ears were both shaped like my left one is, then I’d happily use them for years to come. But t’was not to be, which makes me doubly thankful that the Beats Fit Pro were introduced at almost the same time, and will work for even more use cases.

Reviews

A weekly list of things I found interesting, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.

I thought it’d be fun to look at the songs I have in the Music app with the highest number of plays. You’ll see that most of these tracks harken from my iTunes days and were songs that I loaded on an iPod where they racked up plays. These days, it’s rare for a song to get dozens of plays like these have, since all the world’s music is now just a swipe away, no matter where I am.

Note: The title links below go to https://song.link pages which redirect to all the major music streaming services for your listening convenience.

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7️⃣ “American Pie” by Don McLean: 71 plays

With “American Pie” you get a peek into how I learn lyrics. I have notoriously bad hearing, and really have to concentrate to understand most songs’ lyrics. And for songs that I want to learn by heart, they get put on repeat. About a decade ago as summer camp staff, once a week a group of my friends and I would sing this song as lunchtime entertainment for all the campers. So I had to learn it. There are a lot of words in this 8-minute song. And, yes, I can still sing it all from memory.

6️⃣ “Flathead” by The Fratellis: 72 plays

Appropriately, I discovered this song via one of those classic iPod commercials. It bops hard, and I immediately downloaded it. I still put it on if I need a pump up track.

5️⃣ “Goodnight Moon” by Go Radio: 78 plays

To be honest, I don’t know why this song is so high up on the list. Probably something…something teenage angst. I mean, it’s a good song, and I still enjoy it. But listening to it again tonight I get strong teen romance vibes. I imagine it racked up a significant number of its plays through my van stereo parked in the driveway while skirting date night curfew.

4️⃣ “Son of Man” by Phil Collins: 81 plays

The Tarzan soundtrack was one of the very first CDs that I ripped into iTunes. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and I dig a bunch of the songs off it. Years later, my college roommate and I had it on a shared playlist of songs that we called “Bat Cave Jams”. Yes, that was the name for our dorm room because we were just that cool. At times, we enforced a rule that in order to enter the room you had to do a jig to one of the songs on that playlist. Good times…

3️⃣ “Brooklyn” by Youngblood Brass Band: 85 plays

This is the only non-lyrical song on this list. I discovered it from my jazz band friends in high school and got obsessed. We wanted so badly to get the sheet music and learn to play it. The tuba (sousaphone) solo in the middle of the song is next level, while the rest is showcase for bright and loud trumpet runs. We even used the song in the intro for our group’s school morning announcements videos. (Please don’t judge that video too harshly, we were very proud of it at the time and enjoyed learning to do the practical speed effects. 😝)

2️⃣ “Trashin’ the Camp” by Phil Collins & ’N Sync: 88 plays

See #4. “Trashin’ the Camp” was also on the playlist and often played because of its fun scat singing throughout. Although I am a bit embarrassed to realize that this means ’N Sync has a spot in my Top Played list. 😳

1️⃣ “Some Nights” by Fun.: 106 plays

And finally #1. The Some Nights album came out the year I started college and I imprinted on it hard that first semester. Turns out that Fun. band member, Andrew Dost, actually graduated from my university, which is probably why their music was featured during the freshman opening events that fall. “Some Nights” the song was my favorite song for a few years, and I still turn it up loud to jam out to this day.

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I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane with me. While this list doesn’t really represent the music I gravitate toward these days, I still get a kick out of all of these tracks.

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Thanks for reading 7 Things! If you enjoyed these links, or have something else neat to share, please drop me a line on Twitter or shoot me an email!

7 Things Music

🎃👻💀 Happy Halloween! 💀👻🎃

A weekly list of things I found interesting, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.

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1️⃣ Comment: iPad mini 6 is great, but it needs software optimizations | 9to5Mac

To ensure that the same widgets will be displayed in both orientations, Apple has made some changes to the iPadOS 15 home screen. The icons are now smaller with a different grid, which results in more empty space on the sides. On the iPad mini 6, the icons are not only tiny, but the empty area looks even worse.

Maybe now we know why widgets didn’t come to the iPadOS Home Screen along with iOS last year. Turns out there’s a lot to consider for an OS that spans many screen sizes, pixel densities, screen orientations, and aspect ratios.

Speaking of aspect ratios, the only thing about the new iPad mini that I don’t love is that it’s aspect ratio has changed. It’s followed in the steps of the 11-inch iPad Pro and gotten taller, but less wide. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought Apple nailed the screen ratio with the original iPad at 3:4, and wish that it kept that ratio despite any actual size adjustments. 3:4 just says iPad to me, and the taller ratio makes it seem more like an Android tablet instead.

2️⃣ Wiggle Regatta | Do By Friday

Merlin and Alex had what I thought was a really great discussion on how social media and the internet at large are affecting us. Merlin also let loose on how he feels that YouTube is both a miracle and a monstrosity. Conversational gems like this are pretty common on Do By Friday, which is why I happily support the show as a Cox’s Cuck on Patreon. They unlocked this episode’s After Show because they went deeper on the social media conversation, so if you want to get a feel for what the extra content is like, I suggest you try this one out!

3️⃣ Apple Announces M1 Pro & M1 Max: Giant New Arm SoCs with All-Out Performance | Anandtech

Both the M1 Pro and M1 Max look like incredibly differentiated designs, much different than anything we’ve ever seen in the laptop space. If the M1 was any indication of Apple’s success in their silicon endeavors, then the two new chips should also have no issues in laying incredible foundations for Apple’s Mac products, going far beyond what we’ve seen from any competitor.

While much of the technical details go over my head,I always look forward to the Anandtech analysis of computer performance. They typically give it to us straight. That’s why I’m now doubly excited by the new M1 Pro and M1 Max based on Anandtech’s enthusiasm for them.

4️⃣ A Short Love Letter to the Magic Mouse | The Newsprint

Through thick and thin, the Apple Magic Mouse has been by my side. Competitors will always tempt me, but that trusty Magic Mouse may well be the best Apple money I’ve ever spent.

I, too, love the Magic Mouse. I’d still be using the original if it was fully compatible with iPadOS’s pointer features. But it isn’t, so I picked up a Space Grey Magic Mouse 2 last year, and anticipate using it for years and years to come. The ergonomics have always been good for me.

5️⃣ The New AirPods | Initial Charge

I might use AirPods more often than any other individual Apple device I own. I wear them throughout the work day for Zoom calls, listening to music, and podcasts. I also use them each night with the Apple TV to watch quietly while while Josh is heading to bed and use them to listen to podcasts before I go to sleep.

I cosign basically everything here in Mike’s first impressions of the 3rd generation AirPods.

I, too, insta-bought a pair after the keynote since my 2nd generation AirPods are having some microphone issues and the batteries are slowly dying. And while I love the sound (much improved) and the button (squeeze controls are way better than tap controls), and appreciated the improved water resistance (which I think is what damaged my 2nd-gen pair), I ultimately had to return them because the right one wouldn’t stay in my ear.

I hope Apple keeps iterating on the design, or offers multiple shapes with the updated features in the future. In the meantime, I’ll keep rocking my 2nd-gen pair (still for sale, btw).

6️⃣ Why the Dutch Wait Less at Traffic Lights | Not Just Bikes — YouTube

Hate waiting at traffic lights? Yeah, me too. Good thing the Netherlands has smarter traffic lights to make sure that happens as little as possible. It’s amazing what you can do when you design to move as many people as possible, instead of as many cars as possible.

This video was fascinating and also frustrating now that I know that North American traffic lights are so much dumber than they could be. Seems like with an impending overhaul to electric vehicles, it would be a prime time to rethink the way our roads work in order to move more people rather than more cars.

7️⃣ On the Present — and Possible Future — of the MacBook Air | 512 Pixels

I would like to see Apple replace that 13-inch MacBook Pro with a larger MacBook Air. I could see the lineup looking something like this:

• 13-inch MacBook Air from $999
• 15-inch MacBook Air from $1299
• 14-inch MacBook Pro from $1999
• 16-inch MacBook Pro from $2499

This would give people who want a larger screen but don’t need the power — or the expense — of the MacBook Pro a new option.

Stephen Hackett lays out a good argument for adding a new model to the MacBook Air lineup. I’ve imagined a similar lineup for a while, but in my ideal future the 12-inch MacBook is revived with a 14-inch bigger sibling. Apple tried and failed to retire the MacBook Air name in the past, but the Apple Silicon transition gives them another shot to simplify their notebook naming to ‘MacBook’ and ‘MacBook Pro’.

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Thanks for reading 7 Things! If you enjoyed these links, or have something else neat to share, please drop me a line on Twitter or shoot me an email!

7 Things

Here’s a quick shortcut that I put together tonight after being inspired by @RyanMorey on Twitter. This shortcut fetches individual lines of text from the webpage that’s created and curated by Merlin Mann. I’ve linked to Merlin’s bits of wisdom in the past, and I look forward to every new addition.

1️⃣ After seeing that @RyanMorey’s shortcut relied on text hardcoded into an action, I thought I could probably update it to always pull from the latest collection on the web. Getting the body text of the article is trivial (using a URL action and Get Article from Safari Reader action), but filtering out the lines of text that aren’t actually bits of wisdom took a few tries. I didn’t want the shortcut to serve up the front matter, nor the section headings or footer text.

2️⃣ At first, I thought I could use RegEx to match and keep only lines of text that contained a bullet character. But after dipping into the rabbit hole that is RegEx, I realized it was more than I was ready to learn. Instead, I split the body text by new lines with a Split Text action, and then brute force attack each line (using Repeat with Each) with an If action, which collects only lines with that bullet character in a new variable. I don’t love this implementation, but since it’s just text, the shortcut still runs very quickly, and it means I was able to use only built-in actions.

3️⃣ The next action (Get Item from List) does one more filter to remove the introductory thoughts, which are also bulleted at the beginning of the document. From that final list of actual lines of wisdom, I get one random item (another Get Item from List action) and then reformat it slightly with a Match Text action to remove the bulleted list characters.

4️⃣ The final action is Show Result, which presents the final wisdom. When run from Siri, it will either display the text on screen or speak it aloud to you, depending on your Siri settings and how you initiated the shortcut.

Get the Get Wisdom shortcut → Original Version | Latest Version

Note: This shortcut, unfortunately, does not run on the Mac at the time of writing. While the Mac did recently get the Shortcuts app in macOS Monterey, some actions are not yet supported, including the Get Article from Safari Reader action on which this shortcut hinges.

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This was a fun experiment to figure out how to scrape a bit of data from a webpage that wasn’t designed for serving it up in that way. I’m sure it could be adapted for similar uses on other pages.

Thanks to @RyanMorey for the initial idea and foundational shortcut, and of course, to Merlin Mann for creating the document and continuing to add to it.

Shortcuts

A weekly list of things I found interesting, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.

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iOS and iPadOS 15 dropped a few weeks back, and I think they’ve been terrific releases with lots of quality-of-life features. Here’s a quick roundup of things that I find useful almost every day:

1️⃣ Turn off dynamic head tracking for audio-only sources with Spatial Audio

Spatial Audio debuted for music earlier this year, and I thought it was great! The only downside was that at some point, Apple turned on the dynamic head tracking feature — the one that makes it sound like audio is being projected from your device when you turn your head — for music as well as video. For videos, it works well as a convincing recreation of watching in a theater-like environment with sound projected from a fixed point in space. For music, it’s super distracting and disorienting. I like my music to come across as if from all around me, and not to change as I move about the house.

Luckily, in iOS 15 you can delve into the Accessibility settings for AirPods and change the preference for Spatial Audio Head Tracking to “Off”, “Video Content”, or “Audio & Video Content”. I changed all my devices to “Video Content” and then breathed a sigh of relief.

UPDATE: One day after publishing this story, Apple released iOS 15.1, which moved where to change this setting. It’s even better now that it’s available in Control Center:

2️⃣ Drag and drop is available system-wide on the iPhone

Ever since full inter-app drag and drop was introduced for the iPad, the iPhone has been left out of the party. Sure, you could drag content within one app, but holding onto it while switching to the Home Screen or another app was a no-go. With iOS 15, you can now drag everything around just like on the iPad.

As an example, the most reliable way that I have found to add a bunch of photos into a Shared Album is with drag and drop from the Files app or the library view of the Photos app into the preferred Shared Album. This was a task that I usually saved up to do on the iPad. Now it’s just as easy to accomplish on the iPhone.

3️⃣ Spotlight gains new superpowers

Spotlight, the system-wide search field and launcher, is probably the most underutilized feature of iOS and iPadOS, likely because it’s mostly hidden from users. The easiest way to use Spotlight has historically been with an external keyboard (⌘-Space). While I wouldn’t say that Spotlight has been highlighted to users in this newest release (contrary to many other apps and features that get a splash screen on first launch), I am hopeful that more users will stumble across it because it’s now available in more places. With the same swipe-down-from-the-center-of-the-screen gesture that has worked on the Home Screen for years, it can now be accessed from the Lock Screen and Notification Center. Since Notification Center can be activated from within apps, that means you no longer have to go back to the Home Screen to pop up the search field.

Furthermore, the things you can do with an app found with Spotlight just got better too! It’s now possible to drag that icon from Spotlight to a new position on the Home Screen (way better than getting it from the App Library), and use any of its Quick Actions. That means, yes, you can now delete an app from your phone just by searching for it, pressing and holding on its icon in Spotlight, and then tapping the “Delete App” button. That ability joins deleting apps from the Updates page in the App Store as a hidden but useful way to get rid of crufty apps.

4️⃣ Return of the Loupe

The magnification loupe left us some time ago, but has now returned. When you long press in a text field, a new elongated magnification loupe once more pops in to aid you in getting the cursor right where you want it. We missed you, Loupe! 🧡

That was quick, so here’s a bonus: This has worked ever since the days of 3D Touch, but I’ve found that many folks don’t know they can long press on the keyboard spacebar and then drag their finger around the keyboard like a virtual trackpad to move the cursor around. It’s super convenient, and, yet, to this day it makes me grieve for 3D Touch and its intuitive text selection method using harder or softer presses into the keyboard. Text selection is still possible without 3D Touch, but with far more difficulty.

5️⃣ Live Text bridges the divide between the physical and digital worlds.

Arguably the star of iOS 15, Live Text makes printed and handwritten text in the physical world actionable from your device. Pointing your camera at text on a page or sign makes it selectable to be copied or otherwise used in the digital world. Things like addresses and phone numbers are automatically identified by the system, and then become tappable just like digital text so that you can navigate or call with just one touch.

My favorite use of Live Text so far, tough, is mundane but helpful. I use it to get long promo codes, tracking numbers, receipt numbers, and more into their appropriate fields on websites without needing to double-check my typing. It just works!

students are starting to steal each other’s notes with iOS 15 and it’s… kind of genius pic.twitter.com/klE992DuBn

— juan (@juanbuis) October 14, 2021

6️⃣ Focus modes bring context to my digital life

I’m a heavy user of Do Not Disturb, and have been for years. With Focus, I can now fine tune which apps and people can alert (read: distract) me in the various contexts of my life. At work, I see my work apps and they’re allowed to show notifications. When I’m driving, only close family and friends are able to ring through, along with my gig work apps. In Sleep mode, nothing is allowed (except my wife, who I always want to be able to contact me, no matter the mode).

I’ve got more for modes like writing, and another more general Do Not Disturb. One of the killer features is firing off actions when entering a focus mode. For example, starting my work one shows my work Home Screen and changes my Apple Watch face.

Setting up Focus modes is fairly straightforward, and I encourage everyone to check it out.

7️⃣ Share any iCloud+ plan with Family Sharing

And finally, an iOS feature that can actually save you money rather than spend it. It used to be that in order to share a bucket of iCloud storage data, you had subscribed to at least a 200 GB plan, which comes in at $2.99 per month at the time of writing. However, with the advent of iCloud+ and iOS 15, I’m thrilled to see that Apple has removed that restriction, and now any iCloud+ plan can be shared using Family Sharing, which includes the $0.99 per month plan for 50 GB. I see many small families that don’t need more than 50 GB yet, so I’m really happy that I can point them toward using Family Sharing and canceling the additional or excessive plans they no longer need.

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Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed these links, or have something else neat to share, please drop me a line on Twitter or shoot me an email!

7 Things

Mike Rockwell on his blog, Initial Charge:

I buy just about all the music I listen to and store them in a Plex library. On my iPhone and iPad, I use Prism and on Apple TV and Mac I use the Plex app. But on my HomePod’s, I have to rely on AirPlay. It works, but there’s no way to start a specific song or album by voice unless I purchased it on iTunes.

At first I thought the Voice Plan for Apple Music was a laugh (and to friends I likened it to the buttonless 3rd-gen iPod Shuffle). But the more I’ve considered it, and come across use cases like Mike’s, the more I think it was a clever move on Apple’s part. Imagine you’ve been gifted a HomePod mini. What do you do with it if you’re not already an Apple Music subscriber? The barrier to entry has been halved to just $5 a month to vastly expand how that gift can be used.

Go to the linked site →

Linked

Welcome to the first installment of Challenge! This is a series in which I regularly push myself to try something new. It’s loosely based on the (excellent) Do By Friday podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann, which I’ve followed and loved for years.

I haven’t always been proactive about expanding my comfort zone, so this is an attempt to make a change by using you, dear reader, as my form of accountability. First, I’ll tell you about how the challenge went, what I enjoyed (and didn’t), and if I think it’ll fit into my life long-term. Then, at the end of each post, I’ll let you know what the next challenge will be if you want to join me.

Let’s get started!

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A Brief Review of My History with Fitness 🏃

For most of my life, I haven’t had to think much about staying fit. The activities I gravitated toward were intrinsically active, and I’ve enjoyed running for fun ever since my year of cross country in middle school. But my metabolism has naturally declined as I’ve gotten older, and my job took more and more time away from the hours I used to spend hiking, backpacking, and rock climbing. This meant over the last couple of years, I’ve had to start watching my diet and exercise more regularly to stay in shape.

I should stay; I’ve had to try to exercise more regularly. The thing is, fitness kicks have always come in fits and spurts for me. I’ll get really into it for a few weeks or months and then stop cold turkey without really meaning to. That means I’m always looking for new workout options that I can drop into when I get bored or burned out. Here are a few things that I switch in and out of throughout the year: road and trail running, indoor biking, Apple Fitness+, the 7-minute workout, and rep-based bodyweight workout plans. You’ll notice that all of these have something important in common: they require minimal equipment and can be done from the comfort of my home. Actual gym equipment is intimidating, overwhelming, and just generally a non-starter for me.

Enter the Nintendo Ring Fit Adventure 😅

My insightful wife gave me the Ring Fit Adventure for Nintendo Switch as an anniversary gift a few weeks ago, and I was psyched to give it a try. But what is it? Just a resistance ring (called the Ring-Con) with a Joy-Con connector, a leg strap that holds the second Joy-Con, and the game itself. That’s it! Upon starting the game on the Switch, I was guided through attaching my Joy-Cons to the ring and strap (Pro-tip: cinch the leg strap on tightly against your skin, even if it’s under your workout shorts. Otherwise, it slides down.) and was off to the races.

If you’re thinking, “Hey, wasn’t there some other Nintendo fitness thing that tried to gamify exercise,” then you’d be right! When I was growing up, my family had the Wii Fit, which used a balance board and other accessories. I can tell you straight up that the Ring Fit is much better and more straightforward with just the ring and a leg strap. But I find it interesting to think about how technology has served as a good motivator. If I’ve got a gadget to try out, whether it’s a system like the Ring Fit Adventure, new headphones, or even apps, social challenges, or a built-up streak, I’m way more likely to jump into a workout.

Playing? Exercising? Can’t It Be Both? 🤷‍♂️

So far, the experience of “playing” the Ring Fit Adventure game leaves a little to be desired as a 27-year-old man. Partly because I’m barely into the storyline, but also because the game is clearly designed for kids. I don’t say that as a knock against it; I knew that going in, but it’s worth mentioning. A brief synopsis: you, the main character, team up with ‘Ring,’ your exercise mentor/magic ring, in order to beat (and reform?) a muscular monster who had been Ring’s protégé and is now terrorizing the land. You run (jog in place) through each level while blasting away obstacles, vacuuming up coins, and flying through the air by turning, squeezing, and pulling on the ring in your hands. At several points, you encounter monsters that need to be defeated by correctly performing a (surprising) number of reps of various exercises like squats, leg lifts, overhead presses, and more. Each of the early levels ends up being about a 1/4 mile jog, with 10-20 minutes of exercise in total.

A few other observations:

• It’s accurate! I was surprised as to how consistently it matched my actual movements on screen. The IR heart rate sensor also consistently detects a rate that’s in line with my Apple Watch. (By the way, I start a Mixed Cardio workout on my watch to get credit there. It seems like the most relevant workout type available.)
• The ring offers more resistance than I expected, especially for a game that is supposedly designed for kids.
• I appreciate that the game always offers warm-up and cool-down stretches. You can skip them, but I don’t.

Enough description, here’s the brass tax:

The Good 👍

• It works. Every time I play, I feel like I’m getting a proper, full workout. I’m sweating, sore, and out of breath.
• It’s engaging. I rarely look at the clock during the workout, probably because I’d miss a coin or run into a barrier.
• The interaction method adds to the workout. All the interactions like making menu selections or moving forward through dialog require a squeeze or press of the ring, which adds up!
• It’s perfect for morning workouts. Since getting started is as quick and quiet as plugging in the Joy-Cons and turning on the TV, I can exercise without disturbing my wife, even if she’s sleeping in the adjacent room.
• I can multitask while working out. And by that, I mean I can listen to other music or podcasts while playing since everything is demonstrated or written out onscreen, unlike Fitness+, where I have to listen to the instructors to get the full effect.

Room for Improvement 👎

• It’s got a pretty simple storyline. There’s not a lot of nuance to the story, which means it can feel receptive from level to level. Not a dealbreaker by any means, but I do hope that things will get a little more complex as I progress through the game.
• Exercises are also repetitive, even in Shuffle mode. When battling monsters, you can either choose the exercise or have the system select randomly for you. But it feels like the shuffled selections are anything but random. This, again, is probably a byproduct of not having gotten too far into the game yet, and I’m confident that more variety will be added throughout the journey. If not, I’ll just have jacked triceps from all the overhead presses I’m doing.
• In the same vein, I’m hoping there will be more creative ways to use the ring in addition to all pulling and squeezing. I don’t know what it could be, but my hopes are nevertheless high.

Going Forward ➡️

As you can probably gather, I’m planning on sticking with the Ring Fit. I want to see how the story plays out, and I’ve enjoyed each of the 30-40 minute workouts I’ve done with it so far. As the months turn colder and the days get shorter, I’m expecting the Ring Fit to be a great option to stay active while indoors this winter. And when I’ve worked my way through all the levels, there are still mini-games to come back to time after time. This last bit is significant because, as I mentioned above, when I inevitably fall off the Ring Fit game, it will be nice to have a way to ease back in.

All in all, I’m super pleased to have the Ring Fit Adventure as a new tool in my fitness toolbox, and I am impressed with the quality of workouts it facilitates. It gets my full recommendation. And if the Wii Fit’s history provides any roadmap on what to expect from the Ring Fit, there will (or could already) be other games that utilize its clever hardware. But based on even my brief time with it, I expect the Ring Fit to fit (hehe) in my life much longer and more effectively.

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Thanks for reading this installment of Challenge!. I’d love to hear about how you motivate yourself to stay active. You can hit me up on Twitter or shoot me an email. Those are also great places to connect if you’re participating in the challenges or have a future challenge idea to share.

The next challenge: Track Calories With an App

Challenge!

You’ve seen the notch in the display of Apple’s amazing new MacBook Pro. Undoubtedly you’ve already formed your opinion about it — how it looks, and whether it is worth the trade-off of a sleeker design. The Verge’s Chaim Gartenberg wrote a critical piece about its addition sans Face ID, and while I can’t fault him on his opinions, there was a section that ground my gears:

And there have been rumors for years that Apple has been planning to bring back Touch ID to its iPhones in the form of an in-display sensor. But if Apple really is worried about losing some of the convenience of Touch ID, it could simply offer both security options, taking the bold step of actually letting its customers decide which biometric method they’d like to use.

Statements like these frustrate me. I’m not a technical engineer, but I’m positive that there’s nothing “simple” about implementing a second biometric authentication system to the Mac. Not to mention that Face ID requires several bits of hardware that have not been put in any device thinner than an iPad Pro so far. As much as I’d love to see Face ID on a Mac, I would have been astounded if Apple had been able to cram it into the MacBook Pro’s remarkably thin display. And, no, I don’t think we’d be applauding a Surface Book-like thickness lid.

I think it does a disservice to readers and sets unreasonable expectations, to downplay the complexity of these systems.

Personally, I’m glad that Apple has made the notch as large as it has because, to me, it suggests they’re giving themselves enough width to add it later (after shrinking the existing tech packed into it, of course) without a significant redesign needed for their hardware or first and third-party software. Regarding the necessary depth, I’d be okay with a camera bump that pushed out the thickness of the lid just behind the notch, but that, again, adds complexity.

Go to the linked site →

Linked

A weekly list of things I found interesting, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.

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1️⃣ Surface Adaptive Kit Makes Microsoft’s Laptops More Accessible | The Verge

The keycap and bump labels make it easier to identify important keys, or find ports and cables. The opener support includes a pull tab and ring to provide more flexibility for opening a laptop lid or maneuvering a Surface kickstand. Microsoft has created the kit in collaboration with people with disabilities to make sure it covers a wide spectrum of needs.

Go check out the photos of the adaptive kit from Microsoft. It brings a smile to my face that they’re working on problems like these with, and for, people with disabilities. They look so tactile and fun to touch that I wouldn’t mind having them around to fidget with either.

2️⃣ Students Who Grew Up With Search Engines Might Change STEM Education Forever | The Verge

More broadly, directory structure connotes physical placement — the idea that a file stored on a computer is located somewhere on that computer, in a specific and discrete location. That’s a concept that’s always felt obvious to Garland but seems completely alien to her students. “I tend to think an item lives in a particular folder. It lives in one place, and I have to go to that folder to find it,” Garland says. “They see it like one bucket, and everything’s in the bucket.”

It seems like this story swept through the internet a few weeks ago, but I’m just getting to it now. It boggles my mind and makes complete sense that today’s college students don’t have a mental model for files and folders on their devices. They’ve likely been raised largely paperless and using the Google Docs method where every new document gets created in one big bucket and shared only via links. That’s a byproduct of schools turning to Google for their technology infrastructure needs, I guess. I suppose I’m just surprised that they got so far into their education without it becoming a barrier before.

3️⃣ Spotify for Readers: How Tech Is Inventing Better Ways to Read the Internet | Protocol

That idea, that a reading app could feel like a personalized haven outside the chaos of feeds and streams and recommendations, is a compelling one for some users. “It’s not something you look at with a compulsion,” said Joe Hootman, an early Matter beta-tester who switched over after years as a power user of Pocket. “It’s something I look forward to as a welcome, interesting pleasure.” Hootman compared other feeds and services to roller coasters, and Matter to “a walk around the neighborhood — if you had a really interesting neighborhood.”

I’ve given Matter a try, and while it gets a lot right, there are still some bits that keep me from loving it. David Pierce does well in this piece explaining its origin and its mission to become a personalized front page for the internet. (Sound familiar?) I’ve written a bit about my internet reading flow, RSS, and the likes, and Matter could be a great contender. I struggle to see why they would need so much startup money and fear how much users will have to pay to make it up in monthly subscription fees — but then again, what do I know about the business side? It feels like we’re on the cusp of big changes, and hopefully advancements, in the internet reading space, and I’m here for it!

4️⃣ iPhone 13 Pro Camera Review: Tanzania — Austin Mann

We’ve spent the last week in southern Tanzania, exploring this vast natural habitat and capturing all its beauty with the iPhone 13 Pro’s camera. As I watched Apple’s keynote about this year’s iPhone release, I was most excited about the new macro capability, increased telephoto zoom, and Cinematic mode.

The photography and videography left me speechless. Both the quality of these tiny cameras, but also the content are awe-inspiring. It looks like a breathtaking place to explore. I love these kinds of reviews that take iPhone to exotic places to test the cameras. It seems like an excellent excuse to go somewhere cool each year. Austin Mann knocks it out of the park again this time around.

5️⃣ How Apple built the iPhone 13’s Cinematic Mode | TechCrunch

And that’s the power of the language of cinema: transportation. Though it’s far from perfect in this initial iteration, Cinematic Mode gives “normal people” a toolkit to build a doorway into that world in a way that’s far easier and far more accessible than it has been in the past.

It feels like many reviews concluded that Cinematic Mode ‘wasn’t quite there’ and that it would get better over time. All of the examples I’ve seen (and experienced) say otherwise. Cinematic Mode looks like a ton of fun and puts way more video power in my hands than I’ve ever had before.

6️⃣ iPhone 13 Diary: Putting Macro Photography Capabilities to the Test | 9to5Mac

Photographers aren’t going to be putting down their DSLRs and proper macro lenses in favor of this. For example, I once used a high-end macro lens on a pro DLSR to shoot a series of photos I called London Eyes.

and

The iPhone macro capability doesn’t offer either the precision or quality required for images like these. (It does, however, let you get every bit as close as a real macro lens.)

But for most macro-style photography, when viewing on iPhones and iPads, the results look fine, and the same is true of viewing at normal web resolutions.

While Ben Lovejoy argues in this piece that macro photography on the new iPhones isn’t ready for professional use, I personally think that the example shots he used beg to differ. They’re incredible. He does say that they’ll pass for their intended purpose, viewing on mobile screens and posting to the internet, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some award-winning shots that you’d never know were #ShotOniPhone.

7️⃣ I Got Hunted By The FBI | MrBeast

I was in awe of the lengths to which MrBeast will go to make his videos entertaining. Seriously, watch this video and consider the logistics (and money) necessary to pull off a 17-minute video like this. Kudos to him and his team.

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Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed these links, or have something else exciting to share, please drop me a line on Twitter!

7 Things

Protocol’s David Pierce recently wrote a piece about Flipboard that got me thinking back to the early days of the App Store. Back then, I was a heavy Flipboard user, but eventually left it for my current RSS and read later flow. When reading this article about Flipboard’s ambitions, three points jumped out at me in particular:

So Flipboard’s new aim is to turn those creators into curators as well, to give them the tools to bring all their content, recommendations and audiences into a single place. Flipboard, in that world, becomes a way to both follow and discover new content, across platforms and without all the added complexity and risk of social news feeds. And with a human touch rather than an algorithmic one.

and

McCue said he hopes to see YouTubers make Flipboard storyboards with all the gear recommendations they’d normally put in the description of a YouTube video, or to see Instagram stars put all their favorite podcasts, learning materials and go-to photography spots into a magazine. “In one fell swoop,” he said, “it’s a set of recommendations that are incredibly helpful for people to know where to go, what to bring and how to think about it.”

and

Curating its sources has long been a core tenet of how Flipboard manages the content flowing through its systems. “It’s garbage in, garbage out, right?” McCue said. Flipboard is committed to not being an engagement-driven engine like YouTube or Facebook, and is in some cases happy to act more like a publisher than a neutral platform. “We’ve made an editorial decision that these are people worth trusting,” he said. “That’s part of why Flipboard is Flipboard: Our algorithms only magnify domains that editorially, we’ve reviewed and made a determination that those domains can be trusted.”

I think it was precisely because of a need for more curation that I had moved on from Flipboard. These days, I personally curate from whom I want to see content. And it is indeed the trust I have in those sources/creators/authors that keeps me going back. Only with a positive experience or glowing recommendation do new sources get added to my feeds.

However, the direction that Flipboard explains it’s headed down has me reconsidering. If Flipboard can do the heavy lifting to pull together the secondary content that my curated creators recommend, I could see a lot of value in — slowly, cautiously — broadening my circles.

While an unfiltered stream from the open internet has generally turned into a cesspool, a deliberate expansion from trusted sources seems like a good thing. I’ll be keeping my eye on Flipboard.

Go to the linked site →

Linked