Category Archives: Apple

Stuff I Didn’t Ask Apple For, But Got Anyway and Really Like

Here’s a list of capabilities Apple added to the Appleverse that I never really asked for, or at least didn’t write a blog entry asking for, that I really like.

End to End Encryption in Notes – This was a big one. I had long wanted to be able to share notes with my wife and Apple delivered on that several of years ago. That took notes to a usability level that let me get rid of Evernote and the thrice damned OneNote. Now that the notes are encrypted my wife and I can use them together for just about every aspect of our lives from caring for our aging parents to recipes. A useful product just keeps getting better.

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Follow Up on Things I’d Like from Apple

It’s been a long time since I last wrote in this space and the blog had another name at the time. So it’s time to get back in the saddle. The world was in a much different place in April of 2021 than it finds itself in in June 2023, but some things remain constant, like the things we’d like for Apple to gift us with on iPhone, iPad, Mac and all the other Apple platforms.

Among the things I was asking St. Apple for in 2021 were the ability to use Excel formats natively in Numbers, a capability for the Apple TV make and receive FaceTime calls (with the use of an attached mic and camera), and an Apple display that did did not cost $5,000. So how did I do with my wish list? I score it 1.5 out of three.

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Three Things I’d Like From Apple This Year

My Apple wish list is really not very long. Just a very few things I believe Apple could accomplish very easily that would make my life, and that of a great many others, much easier and cause us to snuggle even more tightly into the warm, accepting embrace of the closed garden. And here they are without further ado.

First, give us the choice to work natively with Microsoft Office formats in iWork applications like Libre Office does. It’s just fine that I can import and export MS Office Formats to Numbers and Pages, but that little bit of friction is enough that I don’t bother to use the applications at all. Why? Because almost zero people in the business world even know what Numbers and Pages are much less what formats they use. If I am going to share a document with anybody it needs to be an xlsx or docx file. And if I need to share that document I need to do it now, not after exporting, figuring out where the file is and sending it along its way. And if an associate wants me to edit a file, I don’t need to import the file, work on it, export it and send it back as many times as are required.

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Kudos Apple

According to this article on Apple Insider, Facebook’s CFO is complaining that iOS 14 will hinder Facebook’s ability to track users across apps and the web and will reduce its ability to serve targeted ads and measure ad effectiveness.

Targeted ads, and ads in general, are not a problem for me because I block them all. If a web site will not let me see their content without ads (their right), I move on to other sites that will. But tracking me across the internet, even when I will never see ads or even if I will, is a problem. It’s the tracking, not the ads I want stopped.

The internet is not working correctly until Facebook and Google are broken. So kudos to Apple for anything they contribute in that regard.

About Time

Protocol is reporting on a cloud computing “hiring spree” at Apple. According to the article, the folks in Cupertino are stocking up on talent from Docker, AWS and Google.

And its about time. Apple is in the services business but its services are not the best of breed. In terms of reliability and stability, iCloud drive is not as good as Dropbox and Notes is not as good as Evernote, by way of example.

I’m not talking about features in those two examples, I’m talking about how reliable syncing and storage are as well. They also need features to be truly first class services, but they need a solid foundation before the feature set is built out.

I’m thinking that this may be a reaction to the failure to push out Notes and iCloud folder syncing in the originally announced time frames. Those were big misses.

Web Clipping With Apple Notes

Sometimes when changing the applications we use to do things, our workflows must change. Such is the case with web clipping in Evernote. To clip a webpage to Evernote all you had to do was click on the clipper extension in the web browser and follow you nose to create a new note or add to an existing note. This created a static note with the information from the web page, not just a link to the page. It also stripped out ads and other cruft you didn’t want in the note.

Using iPad OS or iOS and Notes this experience can be largely replicated and pretty much just as simply. First you must know that if you are in Safari and use the share sheet to send a web page to notes, what you will get is a note with a link to the web page. This is not generally what I want because pages can change or disappear over time.

Instead the following work flow will produce a note with a clean PDF of the web site in it.

  1. Display the reader view of the website this cleans up the ads and other cruft. This will not work on a website without a reader view, but my experience is that most have a reader view.
  2. Use the share sheet to send the website to Markup, this will create a PDF of the page.
  3. Use the share sheet to send the created PDF to Notes. Select to create a new note and which folder or add to an existing note.

That’s really it. The only difference in clipping pages this way is that the links internal to the page are note live in the new note.

Blogging With WordPress’ Browser Interface

I’ve been somewhat frustrated with the WordPress application on iPad OS. There are settings, like drop cap, that you just can’t access through the application and you really have to use a WordPress account to use the tool, which I definitely don’t like.

So, I thought I’d start writing directly in the web app to see if there were differences that would make me choose to go back to the application. As this blog is infrequently updated (I intend to do more, but seldom do), this could take some time.

One thing I had noted before that kept me on the iPad application vs the web app was the lack of autoscrolling in the writing window as I typed. I note now that this is no longer an issue as the window is scrolling as I type.

The interface is also relatively uncluttered and offers me full access to the full power of the block editor. Now that iPad OS provides the ability to have a browser window dedicated to a web app with another either in side by side mode or slide over, I can still do research as I write or open Notes with prior research to use as I write.

We’ll see how this experiment goes and I’ll post the outcome.

A Modest Proposal

If I’m using my iPad as my primary computing device, which Apple obviously intends I should, why shouldn’t the Facetime camera be on the long axis of the device, the side with the volume controls? I so seldom use the device in portrait orientation, especially since I have a keyboard/folio, that having the camera on the side is a pain.

iPad as My Primary Computing Device

As of today with the receipt of my 12.9” iPad Pro Gen 3, I am all in on taking Apple up on the proposition that, with the advent of iPadOS 13.1, it can be my primary computer.

I have been experimenting with an older 9.7” iPad Pro with a Smart Keyboard. A lot is possible, but I felt constrained by the screen size. The larger iPad, just by virtue of its size, makes things that were difficult much easier.

I was disappointed to learn that sharing iCloud Drive folders would not make it into iPadOS 13 as I had planned to migrate all my cloud storage to Apple. I will keep my Dropbox account until it expires in January and either shared folders will make it into iCloud Drive or I will move to the storage that comes along with Office 365.

The ability to share folders in Notes made the move from Evernote a no brainer and has already been accomplished. The attempt to move from Office 365 to iWork was a disaster. We have too much invested in learning how to use Office to make the switch worthwhile.

In addition to iPads and iPhones for my wife and me, we will keep a vintage Mac Mini and Thunderbolt Cinema Display running for times when we need a desktop (like de-duping files in cloud storage). When MacOS no longer supports that Mini, we’ll plunk down for an iMac (or whatever they are selling then) and I’ll convert the mini to a Linux server.

Blogging With Apple Notes

So one of my first projects was to find out how iPad could support my blogging activities, preferably without spending any money or only a little.  I needed something that would work well with my self hosted WordPress site and would or could have a low distraction environment.

Most of the dedicated iPad blogging software that works with WordPress gets horrible reviews.  That includes Blogo which I had used and liked previously on Mac, until they switched to a subscription model and I dropped them like a hot potato.  Apparently other users didn’t like the change either and their revenue dropped like the same hot potato.  The developer claims they are understaffed and are working hard to recover.  Blah.  They get two stars out of five.

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