Category: Links

I’ve been using ProtonVPN for, I think, over a month now and it’s been really great. They just pushed out their iOS app, which makes the service far better.

Some insanely good deals on GORUCK Gear now through Sunday. Most non-black bags are lower in price than they were before the price increases. Get a GR1 or a 10L Bullet Ruck for a bargain. Oh and the Bullets are available in color combinations I’ve never seen before, and in an amount of combinations I am frankly shocked at. Some damn cool color options.

Don’t forget about the GORUCK clothing if you need rucking or outdoors clothes, every item I’ve ever tested is far better than I expected.

This is a really good post from Matt Gemmell on the new iPads. Despite my quoting below please do read the entire post. Ok, now some choice quotes from Gemmell.

Gemmell on reviewers who don’t use the iPad Pro full time:

They draw conclusions that are intellectually dishonest. Watch out for that.

And who that group is, is of the biggest annoyance to me:

This group includes the apparent majority of tech journalists, most of whom seem to have an annual ritual of spending one week with the newest iPad, and then saying it’s not a laptop replacement yet in some general sense. How would you even know? I certainly didn’t until six months or so in.

Exactly. On this next point from Gemmell, I beg to differ a bit:

There’s no point complaining about price.

I think there’s no point in complaining about value but the cost of goods is absolutely something we should never just be like “it is what it is”. The new iPads are fucking expensive, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth that price. Just that they cost a heck of a lot of money to buy and one should never hide from that fact.

And then there’s this:

I think that virtually no-one who’s serious about typing uses a software keyboard on a piece of glass, no matter how big it is.

Wanna bet?

Ross Rubin has a solid post about the differences between Surface and iPad, but this bit about value to developers is key:

That said, the long-term incentive for at least Mac developers to adapt the full power of their apps for the iPad seems clear. The level of mastery Apple has achieved in silicon–combined with the emerging ability to bring iOS apps to the Mac–points to a future where the Mac could more or less be an iOS development target that uses a trackpad instead of a touch screen.

I look at it like this, if you make a Mac app that doesn’t have a full featured iPad (and iPhone if it makes sense) app, then you are basically waiting to go out of business. You’re working in a marketing that is shrinking, even as sales of Macs grows. The same is not true for the iPad.

Lastly, I’d be remiss in not quoting this bit that made me chuckle:

Even today, someone who uses an iPad as their main computer is viewed as a kind of avant garde minimalist.

Very neat.

Shawn Blanc on the Keyboard Folio:

The new Keyboard Folio is nicer than the previous Smart Keyboard Cover, but I’m not in love with it.

Because the Keyboard Folio attaches to the entire back of the iPad, it’s not as easy to quickly connect / disconnect the iPad as it was with the predecessor. This is something that I’ll either get used to or will be annoyed by. Only time will tell.

Come, give us a kickstand already Apple.

With the price increases at GORUCK I know many have been waiting for a sale. There’s good deals to be had on the Bullet Rucks, and the clothing. I snagged a pair of midweight Simple Pants, as I love the ones I already have. I’d also get another Bullet Ruck if I needed it, but I don’t, right?

Good post from Ben Lovejoy on his experiences with the iPad Pro so far. What really stands out in his post, which I’ve seen all over with this round of iPad coverage, is that many people (rightfully) feel that software companies don’t take the iPad seriously enough.

This couldn’t be more true. Just look at Google’s apps, absurd. In the past the money wasn’t there for big companies to take the iPad even half as seriously as they do the iPhone. I wonder if these new models, and the seemingly renewed interest in wanting to use these devices full time, will drive companies to take the iPad seriously, and to innovate for it. Just like the iPhone did in the past.

The ideal of course being that new apps come out iPad first, then maybe make it to the Mac. I can dream, right?

Lots of headlines I could have used for this piece written by Dave Smith (don’t bother reading it in full):

I insist the iPad Pro is not a real work computer because even trying to perform the most basic of tasks felt underwhelming and compelled me to use a laptop instead.

Many people I’ve heard from tell me iPads can’t publish to their CMS because those CMS’ are tragically bad. Smith is no exception there. (Though that photo rotation bug he mentions is real, and annoying.) The issue with Smith’s post is that he never gave the iPad Pro a real chance. You can’t switch to an entirely new computing paradigm and give up after trying to publish one thing. The items he is frustrated about really have more to do with his stubbornness for preferring the way his Mac works than anything else. You can even see it in the first post he wrote about his new iPad.

Ultimately this feels like a post written by someone planning on hating the iPad Pro and returning it no matter what to make a quick buck off of the article. It’s not at all representative, and the only good arguments against the iPad Pros are:

• they cost way too much
• if you already have an iPad Pro you don’t need a new one

Complaining that this device is not pro because you can’t publish to your CMS is not valid. Go ask a photographer how to use an iPad Pro like a Pro.

Francisco Mejia Uribe:

However, reality has caught up with Clifford. His once seemingly exaggerated claim that ‘it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence’ is no longer hyperbole but a technical reality.

Erin and I were talking the other night, where she made the comment about how she wondered if later generations would look back at this period of time and laugh, wondering what the fuck we were all thinking. My take is that they would look back seeing the pattern we can’t see ourselves. That we had given ourselves the immense power of instant global communication and instant information at our fingertips, all without the forethought of some way of knowing what is actually truth and what is a lie.

But where does that burden lay, perhaps it is on all of us. Perhaps not. What’s clear is that what we have now is not working.

Craig Mod has an excellent essay about the pitfalls and hopes of the iPad. This sentence is spot on:

The problems begin when you need multiple contexts. For example, you can’t open two documents in the same program side-by-side, allowing you to reference one set of edits, while applying them to a new document.

I hear that. But what people miss (beyond how amazing the hardware truly is) is the hope this OS has, Mod again:

But it’s also kind of fun. When’s the last time we’ve been able to watch a company really figure out a new OS in public?

That’s the thing with the iPad. The iPhone is figured out, so is the Mac. The iPad isn’t and if you want to know the most realistic take on using an iPad (like a normal person no less) full time and also dealing with the annoyances and seeing the hope, then Mod’s essay is a must read.

My take away from John Gruber’s review of the new iPads is that iPads are going to become the go to tool for photographers going forward. Gruber ends his review noting:

These are serious iPads for serious iPad users.

I initially chuckled and thought “too bad no one knows who those people are”. Then I realized that Gruber stated it earlier in his review, it’s photographers, and I really suspect that will be readily apparent come this time next year. Category to watch for sure.

From the Pixelmator blog in the upcoming release:

Pixelmator Photo is a powerful, beautiful, and easy to use photo editor for iPad. It features a collection of nondestructive, desktop-class photo editing tools, a set of stunning, machine learning-enhanced film emulation presets, a magical Repair tool to remove unwanted objects from your photos, support for editing RAW images, and more. Simply put, it’s best way to edit your photos on iPad.

Add that to what Affinity is doing and Adobe is about to do, and it’s pretty clear that in a pretty short order the iPad will be the best photo editing device you can buy. Especially when you factor in a like system with a Pencil like device. Amazing.

I’ve really played with the camera on the new iPhone so little it is embarrassing, but my wife has really been going nuts with it. She’s getting some insane shots as always too. She wrote her thoughts up for The Sweet Setup, check it out.

Taylor Lorenz reporting:

She said that the company’s focus on growth has crippled its ability to understand the deep problems within the communities the platform has created. “When you work in growth products for so long, you just kind of don’t learn to understand community concerns,” she said.

Terrible. Perhaps it’s also that people making these decisions are, like me, white men who don’t get harassed in this way.

Fantastic post and analysis by Halide on what really is going on with the iPhone XS camera system. This post also explains how to override, and work with this new method. If you have an iPhone XS, you should probably at least skim through this post.

Matthew Green has this excellent bit in his article about Chrome’s auto-login bullshit:

This pattern of behavior by tech companies is so routine that we take it for granted. Let’s call it “pulling a Facebook” in honor of the many times that Facebook has “accidentally” relaxed the privacy settings for user profile data, and then—following a bout of bad press coverage—apologized and quietly reversed course. A key feature of these episodes is that management rarely takes the blame: It’s usually laid at the feet of some anonymous engineer moving fast and breaking things. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that these changes consistently err in the direction of increasing “user engagement” and never make your experience more private.

Henry Cowles:

Unfettered access to our inner lives begins as a choice, a decision to sign up for a product because we ‘feel the need of it’. When acting on our desires in the marketplace means signing over our data to corporate entities, the erosion of choice is revealed to be the consequence of choice – or at least, the consequence of celebrating choice.

Good article.

I’ve got three watches I am looking to sell, click through to see the details. I’m selling my Gravitymaster, Tissot, and Series 0.

My pal Shawn has a new course out all about mobile photography. I’ve taken a look at it and it is stellar. My wife contributed to the course as well and has some awesome videos on there. If you ever wonder “how do people take great photos with their phone?” start here.