Random thoughts.... [Tech Edition]

I find USB to be a mess. However, I have yet to experience a USB-C connector that physically doesn't fit or connect, it's usually compatibility issues, as the type-c is just the connector.

Hopefully this will be cleaned up when USB-4.0 is implemented across the board.

In other news, I just downgraded myself to my old iPhone 7, gave the X to my dad.
 
I've been given a iPhone XR to use for work during the pandemic. It's uh...interesting.

Things I like:

Swiping along the bottom to multitask...it's killer. Ditto swiping up from the bottom to close apps.
Better camera for sure.
Overall look and feel - it gives off strong matte black iPhone 7 vibes which I've always loved, coming 2nd to the slate iPad and iPhone hues ages ago.
Speakers = loud AF
Tap to wake

Things I don't like:

Reachability is harder to use without a home button - it doesn't trigger as reliably for me.
It's dumb but I like the aspect ratio on the legacy iPhones more
Face ID is annoying - when it works it's brilliant but having to look over the phone while it's on a table kinda sucks? Also it straight up doesn't work with a facemask which is kinda a thing right now. I tried adding a alternative look in settings but that doesn't work because the mask covers too much of your face.
Battery percentage isn't available in the status bar - sure one could possibly get this by jailbreaking but I've never felt the need to jailbreak before because the iPhone just did everything i needed.
 
Battery percentage in the status bar disappeared when the notch became a thing. There’s no space for it anymore.

iOS 10.5 is supposed to help those of you that need to wear masks - not that it’ll recognize the user through the mask or anything, but it will fail and and switch to the PIN keypad a lot quicker than it does now to make unlocking with a code easier.

I never used reachability to begin with. I tried it a couple times back when I got my 6+, didn’t find it useful and turned it off because I kept triggering it by mistake. I don’t even know where they put it on the Face ID phones.
 
Battery percentage in the status bar disappeared when the notch became a thing. There’s no space for it anymore.

iOS 10.5 is supposed to help those of you that need to wear masks - not that it’ll recognize the user through the mask or anything, but it will fail and and switch to the PIN keypad a lot quicker than it does now to make unlocking with a code easier.

I never used reachability to begin with. I tried it a couple times back when I got my 6+, didn’t find it useful and turned it off because I kept triggering it by mistake. I don’t even know where they put it on the Face ID phones.

Speaking of the notch - i don't really notice it in daily use, but I'm only in 3 apps max on this phone.

Reachability is a quick swipe down from the bottom middle edge of the phone where the "home line" for lack of a immediate better term is. At the home screen you can swipe from the middle of the dock - it's hard to do this one handed though and I feel like I might drop the phone each time - we didn't get cases because it was so last minute.

Oh I remembered another annoying aspect - on phones with 3D touch, you can invoke the cursor trackpad thing by pushing hard enough on any key - on phones without it like the XR, it only works on the spacebar.
 
on phones with 3D touch
There is no more 3d touch, it's now long press on all phones and newer ones aren't even getting the hardware. This is pretty fucking annoying for those of us who do have 3D touch phones as it was a more intuitive way to do things.
Face ID is annoying
Which is why there are rumors of Apple switching to an ultrasonic fingerprint reader. Personally I prefer the finger over Face ID, I never wear gloves but I do wear aviators. It's also much easier to share devices, for iPads wife and I have each other's fingerprints set up so we don't have to remember the passcodes.
 
There is no more 3d touch, it's now long press on all phones and newer ones aren't even getting the hardware. This is pretty fucking annoying for those of us who do have 3D touch phones as it was a more intuitive way to do things.

Which is why there are rumors of Apple switching to an ultrasonic fingerprint reader. Personally I prefer the finger over Face ID, I never wear gloves but I do wear aviators. It's also much easier to share devices, for iPads wife and I have each other's fingerprints set up so we don't have to remember the passcodes.

IDK if it's because I'm a release or two behind on point releases of iOS 13 but my 3d touch still works on my 6S+ *shrugs* Sure i can tap and hold on a icon on the home screen to get the menu, but if i tap firmly it opens a lot faster, there's no pause like the tap and hold.

I'd be down for a ultrasonic reader any day.
 
Face ID was a huuuge improvement over fingerprint for me. I don’t ever want to go back to a fingerprint reader on the phone.

On my iPad Pro Face ID is a bit hit and miss because the sensor can be in any of four positions and sometimes covered by your hand or whatever. You can’t even tell which way you’re holding the iPad unless you feel for the camera bump.
There’s a helpful arrow that points to the sensor whenever it detects being covered but it’s not 100% transparent like on an iphone.
 
IDK if it's because I'm a release or two behind on point releases of iOS 13 but my 3d touch still works on my 6S+ *shrugs* Sure i can tap and hold on a icon on the home screen to get the menu, but if i tap firmly it opens a lot faster, there's no pause like the tap and hold.
I suspect it's more perception because IIRC they turned that off in iOS 13 proper, I see no difference on my phone between harder press and "long" press.
Face ID was a huuuge improvement over fingerprint for me. I don’t ever want to go back to a fingerprint reader on the phone.
Wait till we all have to wear masks in public for all eternity lol.

Biggest problem with FID IMO is that your face is much more likely to be obscured than your finger, and it's generally less off a hassle to pull off a glove than undo say a scarf or take off sunglasses. There is also as you mentioned positioning issues, like if you are using a phone mount in your car it might not actually be in the right place for easy FID unlock and/or you might be wearing sunglasses that wont work with FID in the first place and then you are down to entering your pin and such. Some of that can be remedied via Siri but not everything, for example while I can tell Siri to play Spotify I can't tell it to play specific playlist or song, etc... (or at least it doesn't work for me).
 
? for my use case, Face ID is far superior. Grab phone and swipe up, done. The unlocking is so seamless you don't even pay attention to it. It fails a LOT less than Touch ID ever did for me.

Not so much on the iPad, because half the time you'll get a polite arrow that says to look down (If I'm holding the ipad portrait the wrong way up), or that the camera is obscured, or whatever.
 
I was bored so I asked in MacAdmins slack - iOS 13 indeed retains 3D Touch on iPhones equipped with the pressure sensitive screen (but also has haptic touch enabled for that extra layer of confusion).

EDIT: aside, my brother's looking for a laptop that's good for writing. He had his eyes on the Pixelbook Go but after I explained that it was a Chromebook, wants Windows.

His budget's like 650 bucks, wants something similar in size to the Go. Any suggestions? I was even thinking used MBA but my family tends to be skittish about buying used tech.
 
Spent the afternoon building a little LED visualiser thing that flashes a single LED for each audio channel with a couple of transistors. Tested it and was all happy with when I realised that it introduced a buzz on the audio going to the speakers. Must be a grounding issue, maybe I'll fix it but the process of building the widget was nice anyway.

I bought one of these to power it, using one of the AC outlets on on my amplifier:

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Which fits the 2-pin Euro/Italy style plugs very nicely and allows me to add my 3W turntable to the switched power on the amp along with USB for the LED thing:

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Then found a 2-pin Euro USB charger of exactly the type I need sitting behind some stuff. Oh well, that wouldn't have allowed me to plug the turntable in and cut power to it. I can at least stop myself accidentally setting the thing running when I take the lid off and knock the arm.
 
I just noticed that my iPad warns me that “Using this device might affect Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections” when I pair my Logitech M720 mouse to it. Whatever it is that this mouse does differently than other BT mice I don’t know, but it seems iOS knows.

My M720 lives on my desk together with an Apple BT keyboard for when I’m using my MBP docked to a monitor, which is most of the time. Maybe the M720 is to blame for the weird behavior I’ve been getting using Bluetooth headphones with this setup?

I just ordered a cheap Logitech M350 Pebble to use whenever I need a mouse on the go. Maybe I should look at replacing my desktop mouse too.
 
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So, I dropped my phone for the 23098th time and the screen finally cracked. It was not just cracked, it wasn't working.
Called around, and found out COVID-19 and it being an older phone makes finding the screen a bit difficult but luckily a store promised me to fix it in 3 hours, with a courier coming here to pick up the phone and bring it back for a fair price.
Send the phone in....3 hours later I get a message telling me it's to late for delivery. :rolleyes:
Fine, next day comes....noon...afternoon...Finally I have my phone back.
And the screen has an area where the colors look wrong.:mad:
Leave it to charge and think if I can live with this, since there are no more screens for this model. Magically, it fixes itself during the night ?

3 days later, my father calls me and I notice he can barely hear me. *sigh*
I considered leaving it like this, because I never call anyone. Then I noticed the microfone pinhole is blocked with some kind of glue. Insert needle, remove goop and VOILA it works perfectly.
Well done, shop. I'll never hire you again.
 
So, I dropped my phone for the 23098th time and the screen finally cracked. It was not just cracked, it wasn't working.
Called around, and found out COVID-19 and it being an older phone makes finding the screen a bit difficult but luckily a store promised me to fix it in 3 hours, with a courier coming here to pick up the phone and bring it back for a fair price.
Send the phone in....3 hours later I get a message telling me it's to late for delivery. :rolleyes:
Fine, next day comes....noon...afternoon...Finally I have my phone back.
And the screen has an area where the colors look wrong.:mad:
Leave it to charge and think if I can live with this, since there are no more screens for this model. Magically, it fixes itself during the night ?

3 days later, my father calls me and I notice he can barely hear me. *sigh*
I considered leaving it like this, because I never call anyone. Then I noticed the microfone pinhole is blocked with some kind of glue. Insert needle, remove goop and VOILA it works perfectly.
Well done, shop. I'll never hire you again.

At least the issues were fixable but yeah that sucks man
 
So, I dropped my phone for the 23098th time and the screen finally cracked.

You need to stop dropping your phone. I found a case for you:

1588696248105.png


It's inflatable, will protect it from rain or falling in a lake too. Google's sponsored suggestions for 'inflatable phone case' are a bit odd.

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Glad to hear you got it working again, almost dropped mine the other day and wondered what I would've done if it broke.
 
Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior, the Otterbox Defender Pro?
 
Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior, the Otterbox Defender Pro?

Yeah, I would like to introduce you to Lifeproof.
 
I put a little clear bumper case on my phone to protect the corners from drops on concrete, but otherwise it's fine. Having a good IP rated phone is so nice. Mines been in my pocket while I floated a river and forgot I had it in there. I've tossed it in a pool to cool it down after the sun crept over and heated it up. I've taken it into the ocean to take photos under water. And I don't have a bulky case with a slightly hazy screen protector :mrgreen:
 
I enjoy building my own computer. I really do. I really, really, REALLY hate when I have to fix it though!

This time it won't even post. At first I thought it might be the monitor, but I quickly disproved that.

Next time I build a PC, I will buy a motherboard with an LED readout.
 
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