3 months ago I cancelled Spotify, following yet another price increase. I went to Tidal for the 2 month trial, and another month full price.

This month I cancelled Tidal, following their deprecation of Plex integration, my finding a couple tracks with bad meta data, and some other here-and-there’s where the service was lackluster.

I’m current on Apple Music.

I like that Apple Music has lossless, like Tidal did. The Apple Music algo seems a bit better so far, even comparing to Spotify or the last time I tried Apple Music (~3-4 years ago). And, one of the things I didn’t know I wanted, music videos for my morning jam time, are better with Apple Music.

I imagine I’ll be staying here for a while.

Apple urges developers to not use DeviceCheck for anything beyond basic device verification, and if you’re a developer that’s also misusing it, then you should definitely cease that—there are probably more reliable ways to check whether it’s the same user trying to access an account from a device or not.

I don’t think I care about not being able to erase the device ID. It seems useful to have this, actually, for back-tracing if need be.

Snapchat probs shouldn’t use the DeviceCheck services improperly. But hey, that’s just like my opinion, man.

More, not very interesting, info on DeviceCheck services here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicecheck

My thoughts exactly. I gain almost nothing with this design change, as compared to keeping the current or similar-to “bar” form and folding out from there.

I’m starting to have visions of Zoolander and his ridiculously small cell phone…

They might miss out on the convenience of AirPlay, though. AFAIK you cant do DLNA streaming to the Apple TV.

AirPlay really bridges the gaps for me, wrt having any app available on my tv at any time.

Combined with steam connect, it’s a decent multi use box with solid, non-intrusive updates. Just wish the garden wasn’t so unnecessarily walled.

Same reason a remote control is handy for a TV — convenience.

Motion or presence sensing. Timers. Virtual buttons. Physical buttons in places I wouldn’t normally have them. Garage door opening automagically when I pull in the driveway with a specific vehicle. Etc.

Plus I get to check in on my kitty from far away.

This echo chamber gets LOUD, too!

Imagine it? Living it.

It’s these types of moves that get me workin’ my way out of an ecosystem. I’ve already been strongly considering not-a-Mac as my next laptop.

I can’t find my source for this memory, but I recall several years ago reading about Apple introducing automatic device resprings / restarts overnight. I think I still had my iPhone X at the time.

In my experience, it only happens while charging. I might have to cruise the old jailbreak subreddits to find whatever I think I’m remembering here.

I’m a single-pager when it comes to home screens, so screen real estate is exclusive for me.

I found one interactive widget worth putting into a 2x2 stack: CardPointers. I can quickly update and review the best credit card to use at wherever I am, from my Home Screen. Nice.

If I wasn’t such a stickler on keeping a single Home Screen, I’d probably use a larger Reminders widget. (I like checking stuff off lists. :-)

Microsoft tried “name” branding instead of numerical-based names, too. On the home side, e.g: XP, Vista, ME (but ME flows east from 98).

I really liked Mela and really want to switch from Paprika, but I found it really hard to flip back and forth in Mela between the ingredients and the steps.

It can be a little chaotic when I cook. :-)

I do.

It’s not just wireless charging causing excessive heat on this gen.

I had to stop using wireless charging in my car (and subsequently everywhere) because the phone overheated. Then it started throwing overheating errors while charging plugged in.

Maybe these batteries are taking a thermal beating.

Checking in with an iPhone 14 Pro at 96% since release, which doesn’t sound bad but is markedly worse than the last several iPhones I’ve had.

Arc is good. There’s plenty to like, and has lasting potential.

That being said, here’s some recent copy pasta from another comment I wrote. It highlights reasons I’ve started looking back at FF (or Safari).

—— I’ve been using Arc for a couple of months now. But lately I’ve been toying with the idea of going back. Why?

• Extensions. I really, really, really wish I could see my password manager in plain view. Arc has a problem of limited screen real estate; instead of showing extensions, they choose to show buttons for spaces (and big buttons for “Favorites”).
• Tab sync. It’s not super confusing, but it’s a little confusing, having pinned tabs sync but other tabs not sync. Especially when Arc is going to auto-archive tabs for me. It creates a chaotic experience.

Things I’ll miss if I go back!

• Little Arc. I love it. It’s quick and what I need often times, for both in-page links and .webloc files I have in various places. The only problem Little Arc has is it is single-instanced; that makes it hard to use as my solution for PWA shortcuts on the desktop.
• Mobile Arc. It’s a neat way to implement mobile. I dig it.

Things that didn’t matter too much, but I’ll call out:

• I miss having a downloads button easily view- and click-able. Why? I like to see progress % and speed at a glance.
• The window borders are thicc. I used to change Windows registry settings to have thin window borders.
• The “add split” buttons at the top right are too easy to click on, and accidentally splitting a window can kill your progress in a web form.
• Settings don’t sync between instances. This sucks for me because I manually remap Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab to sequential switching rather than “last used”, and I have to manually remap that on all my Arc installs. [Same with Bitwarden’s field-fill shortcut.]

Currently Spotify. Would like to change to stop supporting them (they don’t prioritize development in Apple ecosystem, e.g. HomePod support, audio quality could improve, supporting of podcasters I wish to not support, etc.), BUT my other half enjoys Dax Shepard’s podcast too much.

Fuck you, Dax, for going exclusive on the same platform as Joe Rogan.

It has definitely improved. For one, I don’t think about my PST files for my personal use, which is nice. I’m torn on the new UI, sometimes, but usually only when I’m trying to go old school outlook power user on things.

But the add-ins have been pretty nice. I use one that does local header analysis and full header viewing SxS with the email. It’s handy.

You made a good point on the Mac version with multiple inboxes, too. My primary email machines are my phone and Mac, so it’s gravy all the way.

It’s Outlook for me. Trialed a bunch, disliked the data/privacy deets on many, and MS already worked it’s way into my heart via corporate America.

It does a nice job of pinning, snoozing, combining inboxes, and working cross-platform. FO FREE ;-)