Apple Ragnarøkkr

It's a new year and, following a warning from Apple on earnings, Apple's stock price has dropped significantly. In the warning, Apple blamed China's economy and consumer delays in upgrading their iPhones as key factors. Beyond problems with the economy and the monkey at the wheel flinging tariffs around, Apple's product problems have been a continuing trend, so it's hardly surprise that we're seeing that play out in their sales results. In terms of their product offering, the last time that Apple was this far off the rails, Steve Jobs came in for the turnaround rescue, reshaping not just the company, but the core product line. Something like that happening at this point seems rather unlikely, but rather than staring off into the distance looking for the rescue ship, let's drill down into some of the places where the current boat is taking on water.

In the earnings call, Tim Cook attributed part of Apple's revenue issue to people not upgrading their iPhones as quickly as they did in the past. For many in the media, this is directly related to the high price of the newest iPhones. Apparently, there has even been talk of price cuts across the iPhone line.

While I don't disagree with an assessment that the cost of the device is a big negative on the current line of iPhones, I don't think that that is the only answer. After all, I bought a new iPhone XS; however, in using it, I found the device to be so functionaly frustrating, I switched my phone back to my old iPhone SE. I carry the iPhone XS -- the camera is really good -- but I don't use it as a phone.

With the current state of the iPhone product line and the implied strategic direction, I expect that my next phone will come from eBay, since that's the only place that I can find an iPhone like the iPhone SE.

What's Wrong With Apple's Products
Apple's product mess extends far beyond iPhone X series. Over the holiday break, Macrumors published this post, "What do you want to See From Apple in 2019?" While lower prices topped the comment responses, you'll also see several top ranked comments focused on product. A couple of highlights include:

"Some new leadership, especially over in product." (the second most up-voted comment)

"Back to basic that Design is about how it works, not how it looks."

These comments echo the kinds of things being said within the professional design community where Apple products have been a staple for decades. Cast in a different light, these are things the "Pro" user community is saying.

Consider this Techcrunch post lamenting the loss of the headphone jack from over the break. Normally, I'd expect a "will the next iPhone include Bluetooth 11.7 Superband and theoretical 6G wireless?" from many of the tech blogs, but this post actually includes a look back at the history of the headphone jack on cellular phones. It's actually a nice walkthrough and a reminder of what a significant step it was for Apple to include a standard headphone jack on the iPhone and how that changed the industry. It was an important design decision that, by the time we got to 2016, Apple forgot it.

Why? The Techcrunch piece focuses on the idea of selling proprietary Airpods, but I think that is just another symptom because this disregard for the factors behind some of these design decisions, factors that were solved by Apple, then forgotten and abandoned. Good design understands history. Fashion follows the wind.

While I've written also about my complaints about the removal of the headphone jack, the removal of the MagSafe charging interface is another example of this same kind of disregard for the value and historical significance of the design. Over the years, I've has a number of Apple laptops. From Powerbooks to Macbook Pros, I've used and carried multiple versions over the years. Before MagSafe, all of my Apple laptops suffered from the same problem -- the charging connection became problematic and would only work in certain positions and my laptop became a desktop because I couldn't unplug it risking that I couldn't get it plugged in again. This issue was always caused by the same thing -- periodic accidental yanking of the cord like when the laptop was moved or when you happened to trip over the cord or such.

The MagSafe interface was a godsend. I can't tell you how many times the power cord was ripped from my laptop with the MagSafe connector on -- with no problem. Typically, these instances involved a few strong words, a sense of reassurance, and a return to work. Having spoken to product people in the PC industry, this was one of the most envied, desired features for PC laptops, but Apple's patent mojo was strong. There's a reason why Microsoft included a magnetic charging connection on it's Surface Pro devices.

And what did Apple replace it with? A USB-C charging interface that requires a special class of USB-C cables to charge the device. Gone is the magnetic connector. Gone is the LED that displays whether the device is charging -- another extremely popular, easily overlooked innovation that took multiple years and multiple product iterations to bring to market.

What's worse is that, while the old MagSafe charging port was kind of dumb, using a data-capable USB-C port for charging presents a potential threat vector. Back in September, I came across this article about hackers/security experts crafting a malicious USB cable that could be used to compromise a system in a few seconds. It's probably also worth noting that the USB-C standards body has just recently began to discuss an Authentication Program to protect against malware and firmware/hardware based attacks. So, while I haven't ever had to worry about malware and viruses through my laptop charger before, Apple's new systems have all incorporated this brilliant innovation.

Resistance to Upgrading
One of the factors cited by Apple in their recent earnings call was an observed slowdown in the rate of users upgrading from their existing devices. Some of this is similar to what we saw in the PC industry several years ago. While processor performance provided some percentage of performance improvements, when the base level of the device had reached "good enough" and perceived requirements were not growing at the same rate, people started holding onto their systems longer and longer.

Remember when the idea of "Netbooks" were all the rage? Remember how people were pushing for Apple to offer a Netbook? In a sort of response, Apple introduced the iPad and we all know how well that went. Looking back, we now know that Netbooks didn't really succeed in doing anything other than undercutting most PC hardware manufacturers' average selling price and devaluing their hardware on the whole. Meanwhile, the creeping trend for today's Apple has been increasingly trying to convince people that the iOS-driven iPad Pro is as good as a Macbook and that a lot of core iOS software framework should be used on the Mac.

If you didn't believe them initially, wait until you see how they've added an iPhone like LCD function-bar to your Macbook Pro so that you can watch your laptop battery juice ooze out. Can't believe on revolutionary and innovative it is? Wait until you see us add it to all of our other systems' keyboards (oh wait). Still concerned about how much power it might drain? Try our new "dark mode" in the Mac OS...

Remember when getting the Beatles on iTunes was a big deal? Little did everyone realize that "Helter Skelter" was going to become the soundtrack for Apple's product strategy.

To add insult to injury, you get things like this, Yes, the 2018 MacBook Air's FaceTime HD Camera is Awful. Yes, finally the venerable MacBook Air was upgraded in 2018. Finally it had a Retina display. Sadly, it was also the end of MagSafe and the end of USB-A support on Apple's portable line. Other than that, it seemed like a pretty decent upgrade -- until you started to look into the nooks and crannies and under the rug. Hidden from view, they stuck an Intel Y series processor. Of course, Apple didn't really play this up (and most consumers look at the "i5" or "i7 number), but many of the things that I read were poo-pooing this decision.

I could go on for a while with more examples. Perhaps the simplest thing to say is, many people characterize this reluctance to upgrade being driven by price or a lack of innovation driving enough need/interest in newer hardware (remember when everyone was looking for "the killer app"). I think that there may be a third contributing explanation that is being under-factored into a reluctance to upgrade -- a concern that from a quality and utility perspective, the newer product is going to be worse by many degrees of measure.

Is this Apple Ragnarøkkr -- the "twilight of the gods"?

Apple Denies "Spy Chip" Story

You may have already been following this, but Apple has now denied the Bloomberg spy chip story a couple of times. Here's my original post, Has Your Electronic Hardware Been Hacked?, and the original Bloomberg post, The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies. Techcrunch has a prior story with links to more of the denials.

While I'm in no position to know whether the story is valid or not, it can be an interesting exercise thinking about why the various respective parties might have an interest in denying the story. Similarly, it's probably worth spending a bit of time thinking about why, if it isn't true, the story was published and what might be behind it.

All of that being said, thematically, concerns about technology back doors being placed into electronic devices -- and the implications of these vectors -- will continue to be an ongoing theme.

Caveat Emptor.

------- Update:  ----------

You may find this to be pushing into the "conspiracy" end of the spectrum, but here's an interesting look into some of the nuances of the language of rebuttals from the Emptywheel blog. There's also a good breakout of the story into a timeline with links to some of the stories at the time they emerged (I found the Apple, SuperMicro firmware thread to be particularly interesting.

Rattled: China’s Hardware Hack 

There are more posts breaking down the language in some of the denials, but this one has the timeline.

Why I switched from a new iPhone Xs back to an iPhone SE

The one thing that I was hoping for in the Apple iPhone announcement back in early September was an updated iPhone SE. While I'd seen enough on the Apple rumors sites to be concerned that, if the rumored updates to the iPhone SE were true, I'd probably be unhappy with that device. As it was, the rumors sites were talking about a glass-backed iPhone SE with no audio port and no home button -- but I tried to remain optimistic. I'd even considered, in the days prior to the iPhone Xs announcement, purchasing a 128GB iPhone SE just so that I'd have a new one without 2 years of wear and tear on it.

Don't get me wrong, my iPhone SE is still a great phone that still only shows minor scrapes and scratches despite two years of life without a case.

At the same time, you couldn't help but notice the better image quality from her iPhone 8. It didn't help that there were three little spots that I kept seeing in my photos, imperfections that I came to realize was probably the result of damage to the camera lens.

With the iPhone Xs announcement, I'd hoped that Apple would, at least, continue to sell the iPhone SE - dated as it is/was. Seeing it EOLed was probably the worst aspect of that announcement.

So, grudgingly, when orders opened up for the new iPhone Xs back in September, I ordered one. It sounds like a simple decision, a simple action, but it was something more. At the time, I rationalized my decision a couple of ways.

First, I told myself that I'm adept enough with electronics that I could overcome the failures of the design in the iPhone Xs. After all, I thought, how bad could it be? I was sure that, while it might be mildly frustrating at times, I would be able to use the device and would benefit from the new camera. What was surprising was how wrong that prediction turned out to be.

From a size standpoint, I thought the iPhone Xs would end up being about the same size as the iPhone 8. Having used an iPhone 6s Plus for a year, I knew that that phone was just way too big, but I was under the impression that the iPhone X brought something close to a "Plus" size screen into the smaller non-plus sized body. While I knew that it would be larger, I wasn't prepared for how large the iPhone Xs turned out to be.

This week, after almost three weeks of using the iPhone Xs, I switched my phone back to my iPhone SE.

As I used the iPhone Xs, a number of issues because clear. First, while the whole notion of Face ID seemed like an idiotic authentication interface to me, in practice, it proved worse. While I'd initially been impressed with it's ability to recognize me and unlock the device -- almost like it authenticated without effort -- as I used it day-in-and-day-out, I began to notice that it seemed like it failed more often than it succeeded. Running the out-of-the-box software configuration, Face ID fails when you're wearing sunglasses. In other words, when you're using the device outside, you have to stop what you're doing, lift up your sunglasses and force the device to authenticate. It's worth noting that the fingerprint sensor on my iPhone SE worked equally well inside and outside, without regard to whether you were wearing sunglasses.

Face ID also often failed to work if I tried to access my iPhone while it was sitting on my desk in front of me, at a table in a restaurant or a number of other locations that I tried to casually access my iPhone from.

So, imagine yourself at lunch with a colleague and you hear your phone chime indicating that you'd received a text. With iOS 12, the default information displayed on the lock screen is that your received a message from a specified contact. In order to view that on the iPhone Xs, you have to pick up your phone and look at it, something that can be disruptive and be perceived as rude. In contrast, with the fingerprint ID, you can simply touch your iPhone, look down, and you can see whether the text is important or not.

I can't tell you how many times I repeatedly went through scenarios similar to this, particularly since, for many text messages, all you really need to do is determine whether the message is important or not. And worse, because the iPhone Xs locks quickly, you can find yourself having to repeat the whole exercise multiple times in during a single window of receiving multiple texts. It's not just bad, it's terrible.

Additionally, I thought that the lack of a headphone jack might simply be an inconvenience that I would get used to. In practice, I found that this also wasn't true. I should note that, prior to my iPhone Xs, I used my iPhone for all of my telephone communications. It's also worth noting that, while I have Apple Airpods and I use them as a Bluetooth headset when driving or some other activities, when I need to make calls where I want to ensure the audio quality of the call, I use the Apple earbuds that came with the phone. Often, sitting at my desk, I would have my iPhone SE plugged in and charging while using the earbuds for a call.

With the iPhone Xs, initially I brought the lightning based earbuds along, but I soon found myself trying to decide whether to charge the iPhone or to plug in the headset and make a call. Over nearly three weeks of use, I found myself hesitant to make phone calls. Eventually, I put my Lighting earbuds into my backpack and only took them out once or twice. Essentially, whether it was just psychological or practical, I realized that my iPhone Xs was barely functioning as a phone.

Another aspect that anticipated how much of a problem it would be was the lack of a home button. I wish I could tell you how many times I used a "Sweep Up" gesture on the device with no results. It doesn't just fail once or twice, I would estimate the failure rate at greater than 20%. You might argue that the case is a contributing factor, but I don't think that's actually the case. This failure to function has a significant impact on how well the device functions day to day. For example, if you have a problematic app and you want to "double-tap" the home button in order to bring up the multi-task screen and kill the app, you may find yourself trying for 20-30 seconds before getting the interface to change. That's just one example. It happened more frequently than I would have imagined, ane particularly frustrating if you're trying to do something like kill an app.

----

So, after a particularly frustrating round of receiving texts on my iPhone Xs and wrestling with the device functionality just to access them, I decided that I was done with it -- that I was going to switch back to my iPhone SE. I figured that I could simply carry the iPhone Xs around, using it for it's camera functionality and, since it was sometimes convenient to have the larger display, use it as a wifi-based device when I needed the larger display. If I need network access, I could simply use my iPhone SE to create a hotspot for the Xs.

I wish I could share with you the immense sense of joy that I felt once I switched back. Holding the smaller device in my hand brought me an unexpected sense of elation.

At this point, I've been back on my iPhone SE for a couple of days and I'm much happier. The iPhone Xs is sort of like having a pocket-sized iPad. At this point, give me old, obsolete Apple over the new Apple. Whether you want to blame it on Tim Cook, elements in the org further down, or something else, the company is just not doing design and functionality the way that they used to.

Apple Airport Network Configuration Problems Caused by Vocabulary

Let me start by saying once again that Apple's decision to abandon their Airport product line isn't just a stupid product choice, it's another exclamation point on the company saying, "we don't care about the Mac or any other part of our computing business, we're a phone company now!"

Like many, I have a long history of using Apple's Airport devices for my wireless networking. In my old apartment, I used to use multiple Airport Express devices to enable music streaming on separate audio systems that I had throughout the place (with optical digital audio connections to my receiver - nice). At the time, I had ethernet cables run to to each room and I also used the Airport Express devices to extend my wireless network throughout the apartment.

Over the years, Apple made some significant changes to the Airport Utility that ships with Mac OS X. It went from a utility where you had the option of configuring the system manually or going through a configuration wizard to one that features a cool graphic representation of your network, but directs you through the configuration wizard -- and, by default, sets the network up incorrectly. After searching through tons of "Airport Network Problems Extend a Network" on Google (and trying many solutions), I finally solved the problem and I wanted to share my solution with you.

First, a little more back story. When I moved into our current house, we set the Airport Extreme base station in a room on one side of the house. Unfortunately, with walls and such, by the time you got to the entertainment center in the living room, devices would complain about problems with wireless network strength. Several years ago, I used an Airport Express to extend the network as a wireless bridge that then provided an ethernet network for devices in the entertainment center. It sort of worked, but it had issues. Later, I tried using an Airport device to wirelessly extend the network from the entertainment center and hopefully boost the wifi to the other side of the house, This configuration really sucked and eventually, I just disconnected the airport devices at the entertainment center.

Last week, we finally wired the house with ethernet, so I decided to use older Airport Extreme device to extend my network -- especially since it now had an ethernet connection back to the main Airport Extreme. Unfortunately, not only did that configuration not work, it made the entire network slow and, essentially crash. Nothing worked. The only solution seemed to be disconnecting the second Airport Extreme.

Initially, my best guess at why it wasn't working was a difference in generations between the two Airport Extreme devices, one being the tower style and one being the older, flat, pizza-box style. As a solution to this, we decided to head over to the Apple store and pick up one of the remaining Time Capsules that they still had in stock. I brought it home, went through the basic configuration wizard in the Airport utility, and my extended network problems were back again.

In reading through potential solutions on line, I tried a number of different ones -- from IPv6 link sharing to assigning the remote Airport a static IP address, noting seemed to work. Eventually, the "DHCP Reservations" setting in "Network" helped by identify the issue. Here's what I did first: identify the MAC address of the ethernet connection on the Airport Extreme. The Airport Extreme actually has three MAC addresses, one for ethernet and two for wireless. By reserving a specific IP address for the ethernet, I was able to determine that every time I ran through the Airport Utility setup wizard, the Airport Extreme was being set up to connect to the network through it's wireless interface. Each time I restarted it and set it up, it would have a different DHCP address, not the one that I'd set up for the Airport Extreme ethernet port.

After more research, I finally discovered the solution in an online post about the difference between an extended network and a roaming network. What's important to understand here is that Apple's "Extended Network" terminology is not the Extended Network that you're looking for. When they say "Extend a Network," what they mean is "add another wireless client and have that also work to try and stretch the range of the your wireless network."

The problem with this is that it doesn't work well. It adds overhead to your wifi network and, for some reason, seems to cause some other issues that can slow your network to a crawl. In short, it doesn't really work. The difference between this configuration and modern "Mesh" wireless networks is that the Mesh networks add a second wireless connection that's just used by the wireless access points to talk to one another. It probably wouldn't have been much trouble for Apple to add something like this to Airport -- if they weren't so busy being a phone company. If you don't have the option of connecting an ethernet cable between your wireless access points, your best bet is to get one of these modern mesh wireless networks. From my research, the challenge is that, many of these don't have great support for Macs (pretty much the same reason that, way back when, Apple introduced the Airport line), so be sure to do your research before you buy.

How to Extend Your Wireless Network Using Airport Extreme and Ethernet
So, in some ways, this page is helpful for understanding your wireless network using Apple's Airport devices. It has a lot of clear diagrams, but the interface descriptions from the Airport Utility are outdated, and in the current version of the software, you won't see these options. I read this multiple times and, while the diagrams for what I wanted to do were clear, what happened in the software was not clear.

1. When setting up your wireless network with multiple Airport devices and connecting them through ethernet (a wired connection), you want to set up your wireless network up as "a Roaming Network". Here's what's important to remember about this: even though this set up will extend your wireless network, it doesn't use Apple's "Extend your Network" settings in Airport Utility.
2. Set up (or make sure you have set up) your main router or Airport base station. This device will be act as a router and distribute IP addresses. This is the device that, in terms of your network, is talking to your broadband modem. Note that it's also helpful for your computer to be plugged into ethernet while you're doing your set-up.
3. To set up the base station to extend your network with ethernet (set up a roaming network), you can start by plugging the new Airport base station into an ethernet cable (into the WAN port), then plugging in the power. If you launch Airport Utility (or have it running), within a minute or so, you should see the new device appear under the "Other WIFI devices" button.
4. If you go through the initial wizard to set up the Airport device, you may be lucky and it may offer to extend your network through the wired connection, but it may not. If you see a screen after you enter the name of the device that says extending your network over ethernet, congratulations, you won the set-up wizard lottery. The script may be setting your network up correctly. If not, don't worry, I'm going to explain how to fix it.
5. If it set up incorrectly, you can just make the configuration changes in the interface or, if you feel the need, you can use the reset the Airport to default settings then click into the "options" button on the first screen in the set-up wizard.
   
   What you want to do is "Create A Wireless Network".
   
   
   
   
   This may seem counter-intuitive, but this is the critical step in setting up a "Roaming Network" to extend your wireless network. This option is in the options portion of the set-up wizard, but if you're working with an Airport that the wizard set up wrong, you can find it in the "Wireless" screen of the base station configuration piece. If you're there, it probably says "Extend a wireless network". This is the wrong setting that's causing you problems.
6. When you "Create a wireless network", you need everything to match your existing network, so use the same network name, wireless password and wireless security setting.
7. Next, you in the "Network" screen, you need to make sure that connection sharing is off (bridge mode). If it says "DHCP and Nat", you have the wrong setting enabled.
   
   
   
   
   
8. With these to key settings made, you can save and update the Airport device and, once it reboots, it should be connected, creating a wireless network, and using it's ethernet connection to bridge the network. In your Airport Utility, you should see the second Airport unit connected by a solid line (if you see a dotted line connecting the devices, that means that it's a wireless connection). In my earlier example, I could also tell because once the Airport base station rebooted with these settings, it had the IP address that I had previously reserved for it (based on the ethernet MAC address) in the other base station set up.

It's possible that all of this is spelled out clearly somewhere in the Apple documentation, but I struggled to find it. If you're wrestling with Network issues, good luck.

How the Mac has become Apple's Red-headed Stepchild

I came across this blog post, On The Sad State of Macintosh Hardware, highlighted in this post on Macrumors. While the Macrumors post is built on the other, the original post is far more powerful. Coming from a Mac OS software developer -- they struggle to purchase hardware to develop for the platform. Also noteworthy, is the comment that they can't even run the newest version of the Mac OS, Mojave, introduced at the most recent WWDC.

Here's a quote from the original post that I found particular pointed:

Rather than attempting to wow the world with “innovative” new designs like the failed Mac Pro, Apple could and should simply provide updates and speed bumps to the entire lineup on a much more frequent basis. The much smaller Apple of the mid-2000s managed this with ease. Their current failure to keep the Mac lineup fresh, even as they approach a trillion dollar market cap, is both baffling and frightening to anyone who depends on the platform for their livelihood.

Why can't Apple keep the current Mac lineup fresh like the much smaller version of Apple did over 10 years ago? The answer is pretty simple for those of us long-term Mac users.

Apple has become a phone company.

Apple doesn't care about the Mac product line. If you're a loyal Mac user, you're Mac is gone. 

Macworld on the end of the Apple Airport

I've been thinking a lot about Apple's decision to kill the Airport Wireless router line. Yesterday I went searching for this post that I remember someone writing after Steve Jobs passed away. The post relayed a story from one of the people in a meeting with Jobs at a time when they were talking about adopting wireless networking -- and the vision that Jobs had to look beyond the cost of the technology at the time and drive the vision of WiFi on all of their systems. It was such a great story that it still sticks with me today.

In the search for that story, I came across this article from Macworld, Requiem for the AirPort base station: A testament to everything Apple was and isn’t anymore. The subhead for the post is, "Apple just doesn't think this way anymore." While it wasn't the story that I was originally looking for, it does capture a great deal of what's been going through my mind following the EOL decision on the Apple Airport. These days, we're supposed to believe that thinking differently means a different color enclosure on iPhone design or an edge-to-edge display where unusable active screen space is, well, useful.

Over the years, AirPort evolved into a full wireless solution that worked with any and all devices, but the ease-of-use Apple revolutionized with the original AirPort never went away. From the remarkable Airport Express to the ingenious Time Capsule, Apple’s wireless products were always designed with the consumer in mind. It took a complicated system and made it easy, a mantra that Apple has gotten further and further away from as it has grown.

In many ways, Apple's Airport was just a router, but like so many other Apple innovations, it was filled with potential that the current Apple business has simply abandoned. Take the whole wireless "mesh" devices. Long before you had these systems, you had Apple Airport Express wireless devices that could either extend your existing network or function as a compact wireless router for up to 10 devices. From the wifi extension perspective, these devices also included a USB connector so that you could connect a printer and an audio port so that you could connect music devices for a multi-room, wireless audio system. While it had a few issues here and there, it was an incredible system on the whole.

And that whole piece was built around Airplay, another awesome Apple feature -- until it wasn't. Eventually, Airplay got so bad, we just quit trying to use it. Theoretically, there are rumors of Airplay2, but I expect that to go the way of Apple TV and Siri, interesting ideas that the current Apple has transformed into technology flops.

But, back to the Apple Airport -- here's another reason why I loved the Airport Express, it was great for traveling. While WiFi network availability has grown, in some places (like Japan), not all hotels have WiFi access. Additionally, some places that you travel to might impose limits on the number of devices you could use. In these environments, the Airport Express was great. You could simply plug it in, and you'd suddenly have your trusted WiFi network available throughout your hotel room. Plus, any of those handy needs-to-be-on-the-same-wifi-network features also worked.

But modern Apple isn't about this kind of functionality any longer. Sure, the cost to run the WiFi router group is probably a fraction of a percent of the hardware revenue of the iPhone business. Sure, there are more Apple buildings and more Apple employees around than there ever were. But today's Apple wants to repeat one aspect of Steve Jobs' approach -- eliminate and focus -- they just want to focus the money. Baby. Out. Baby. Out. Baby. Out. And now we have a nice tub full of dirty water than we can focus on.

As I've written before. I didn't abandon Apple so much as they abandoned me.

What I Learned About Apple from My Twitter Customer Support Experience

In late March, I found myself in the grips of terrible frustration with my iPhone SE. As I've noted many times in the past, there are so many issues and bugs with iOS 11, it's really unbelievable. Here are the two tweets that triggered Apple Support to reach out to me.

Each day, I am constantly reminded how @apple iOS 11 has transformed the iPhone SE that I was once quite happy with into one of the worst devices that I've ever used. Crappy lagging UI animations, touch-screen locations that don't work. It's the worst.

— yaMarketingGoomer (@MarketingToMe) March 23, 2018

Beyond the whole #batteryReplacement scandal, iOS 11 doesn't make me want to upgrade my iPhone. Rather, it makes me want to throw my iPhone at the new Apple #spaceship building. Some other once loved devices that they no longer support I'd chuck at them too...

— yaMarketingGoomer (@MarketingToMe) March 23, 2018

I'm not sure whether it was the mention of "lagging UI animations" or the "#batteryReplacement" hashtag that prompted them to reach out, but shortly thereafter, I was working with Apple Support through Twitter's Direct Message in an effort to diagnose and fix my iPhone.

The first thing that we started to address was the lagging iPhone behavior. After running their basic diagnostic tool and getting results back that seemed to indicate that the iPhone was running properly, they had me restore the iPhone as though it were a new device. When this seemed to eliminate the issue, they had me restore my device from iTunes. Sure enough, a number of the lagging animation behaviors returned. Over the course of that exercise, one of the things that I realized is that when I restored as new, the font sizes were much smaller, so I tried reducing the font size (I had been running at something like the +2 font size setting, making it easier to read emails and texts on the device). Reducing the font size seemed to solve some of the lagging animation behavior.

At this point, Apple Support wanted to see if they could improve performance further and suggested that I turn on the General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion setting, something I said that I'd had turned on since they introduced the stupid motion feature. And that was the last time I heard from Apple Support.

A couple of days later, I tried to pose another question to them about how, when I touch the top left corner of the screen on the iPhone in something like the Messages app, instead of taking me back to the list of messages from other people, it scrolls to the top of the current message list, like clicking the home key. That query was also met with crickets.

My Apple Support Takeaway
Looking back, it seems clear that my tweets that related to Apple's very public trouble surrounding the battery issue were the driver for Apple to engage with me. Over the past year or several, I've been vocal in my frustration with many aspects of Apple's products, but this is the first time that Apple Support has reached out to me over Twitter. Clearly this has become an extremely sensitive topic for them and they seem to be focusing their efforts at making sure that more battery-related PR issues don't blow up on them.

That being said, it's also another example of how iOS 11 seems like a product that only functions correctly within a certain narrow set of parameters. While I'm sure that iOS 11 probably works more like it's supposed to on an iPhone 8 or iPhone X, it makes you wonder whether you'd see the same issues with font sizes on those larger-screen devices.

When you consider how much the company has grown since the iPhone took off, it's kind of funny that they can produce software that seems inferior to the earlier versions of the software and the iPhone. For me, I'd much prefer an iPhone that worked correctly than an "animoji" feature that I'll never use.

It's Not Just You: Apple's Siri is a Dissappointment within the Company

Here's an interesting post from Macrumors about Apples' Siri product and the history of it's lack of development. It's definitely worth a read. The article goes into the history of Siri, including things like how earlier versions of the Homepod didn't even include Siri. The post is drawn from a longer article here, but the article is behind a paywall, so you may not be able to see the longer version.

The Grand Irony of the iMac Pro

Apple closed out the end of the year with the launch of the iMac Pro. This system is being pitched as an example of Apple's commitment to the interests of the "Pro" user -- a system that meets the needs of creative and graphics professionals that have been a core Mac user base for so long. The iMac Pro is being rolled out in advance of a redesigned Mac Pro that's supposed to be unveiled sometime in the future.

The current Mac Pro design is something like four years old. You know the one -- it looks sort of like a Dyson fan turned on it's side -- there are racks and racks of them in use... nowhere, because it doesn't really do racks. Err, my bad. I just Googled "Mac Pro Rack" and found a bunch of aftermarket chassis designs. Anyway, it's probably noteworthy is that there is a market for Mac Pro rackmount accessories -- and how disconnected the design is from the application.

After releasing a bunch of very un-Pro systems with Pro name tags and sparking a bonfire of outrage from professional Mac users (more from me about this in my previous post, Is Apple "Designing" Their Way Out of Customers?), Apple suddenly started making noise about how the Pro market was important to them and how they'd release a new, modular Mac Pro in, maybe a couple of years.

What I think that they really wanted to do was to cool the outrage and get some positive media while their Touchbar USB-C Macbook Pros racked up sales -- since those systems were the only real option available to most pro Mac laptop users, significant sales numbers inevitable.

The other thing that Apple did, while the world waited on the two-year development of the Mac Pro,  was plan and announce an iMac Pro. What I think they were trying to do with this was two-fold: first, fast-track a pro-spec system around an existing design; second, if the sales for the iMac Pro underperformed, they could use that to amplify the idea that "there really isn't much of a pro market after all -- more noise than substance".

As I noted in my headline, what makes this so ironic is that the iMac was never the system you allocated to your Pro users. The iMac was the home system, the one with colors or flowers, the inexpensive all-in-one you used for your admin and support staff so that they'd be on the same platform and could use the software -- if needed. But as Apple has gotten out of the business of doing pro monitors and systems, the iMac is their last option for control over the total package.

It's sort of like if Apple had gotten rid of all of it's iPhone models, then realized they really needed a phone, then saying, "we've made this great iPhone from our Apple Watch. In order to get the battery life and performance you'd expect from an actual iPhone, we've added these dongle attachments for battery, processor and display." Okay, maybe it's not that bad. But if there's anything that makes the case that Apple -- at least for a time -- quit caring about the pro market, it's the iMac Pro.

Also noteworthy on the iMac Pro are what you see in the actual technical specs.

• USB-3 ports. Why? Because the world still uses them. 
• A traditional audio port. Why? Because the world still uses it.
• An SD card reader. Again, another hated drop from the Macbook Pro line.
• USB-C ports used for Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, etc. If they had done this with the Macbook Pro, there probably would have been fewer complaints.
• No Touchbar. If this was a must-have feature, it would make sense to migrate it to these desktop systems. It would probably make even more sense for desktop since it wouldn't be a power draw. But the reality is that, if this feature were on a stand-alone keyboard, the additional cost would probably limit it's sales.

iMac Pro -- the missing link between evolution and devolution. Now, if they can only get this thing into a laptop-sized package, they might have something worthy of a Macbook Pro title.

New Year, New Mac

So in the back and forth over what to get for Christmas, my wife decided she would like to have an Mac of her own to use as her system (she's been using PCs regularly for many years). My initial inclination was just to buy her the latest Macbook Air, fully decked out. Essentially, that would be the same as my personal system, albeit a couple of years later with a somewhat faster processor. However, before I decided to pull the trigger on that, I decided to check the Apple site and see what options might be available in the refurb and clearance section. In the clearance section, I came across a couple of listings for the previous generation 13" Macbook Pro (pre-USB-C, Touchpad, and no Magsafe connector version).

If I could identify faults with my 13" Macbook Air, I would say that it only has two real shortcomings. First, the lack of a Retina display. As my eyes have aged, they can challenged by the lack of sharpness on the older technology LCD panel. It's also not great for image editing -- if you happen to be doing that work on a laptop screen. Prior to my wife and I getting married, when I was at home, I would do my image editing on a big screen monitor sitting on my desk in my dedicated home-office workspace. Since getting married, I no longer have the space for the desk or the monitor, so I've found myself editing images directly on the Air. Of course, Apple could update this, but they've had years to make the update and haven't done it -- I don't expect a Retina Macbook Air any time soon.

The second issue relates to the first -- when I had my Macbook Air sitting at my desk, I used to hate the fact that it only had one Thunderbolt port. I like to use one port for Ethernet and one port for display. Since the reviews weren't great for most of the Thunderbolt docks that I saw, I never invested in one. That being said, a second Thunderbolt port on the Macbook Air would make it a perfect system for me.

But, as I said, Apple isn't moving this way with their new products. Instead, the last generation Macbook Pro is really the last thing we've seen out of Cupertino resembling a Pro class laptop.

So I was looking at this clearance 13" Macbook Pro -- Retina display, two Thunderbolt ports, and even an integrated HDMI port, something that I often wind up carrying a dongle for when I travel -- and I began to see a plan take shape. After discussing it with my wife, we decided that we'd order the clearance13" Macbook Pro for me and give my wife my older Macbook Air. Merry Christmas to all. Overall, the ordering process was pretty straightforward -- other than the free shipping experience that UPS provided, essentially stealing one of our vacation days (you can read all about it on my Twitter feed). And I spent the New Years weekend migrating my old system to the new Macbook Pro.

So a couple of hick-ups that I experienced that I should probably warn you in case you find yourself in a similar position. I had a Time Machine backup of my Air, but when I tried to use the migration assistant, it told me that it couldn't use the back-up because there was a difference in versions between the two systems. Initially, I thought it was probably because my Air was running on Sierra and I expected my new Pro system to be running High Sierra. That turned out to not be true, but not before essentially forcing me to migrate my Air to High Sierra. When it still wouldn't work, I dug deeper and discovered that the new Pro clearance system shipped with El Capitan, and that was the OS difference issue. The new Pro is now running High Sierra too. Perhaps if I'd felt like jumping through some hoops, I could have restored my Air from an older backup, then went looking for a signed copy of Sierra, but it seemed like a lot of extra effort just to avoid the upgrade.

Reflections on the 13-inch Macbook Pro (early 2015 model)
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the upgrade to my system. This Macbook Pro is noticeably snappier than my Air. This system is running an Intel i5 at 2.6 GHz while my older Air was running an i7 at 1.7 GHz (or something like that).

The Retina display is much easier on my eyes.  The display color seems much richer and type is so much sharper that I don't find myself reaching for my glasses -- something that had practically become a necessity with the Air.

Another reason why I thought it might be better for me to get the Pro is the differences in the laptop body. One of the things that my wife and I can sometimes struggle with is being able to identify which device belongs to whom. With iPhones, we use different models, so it's pretty easy. With iPads, we use different color cases. The Apple product that sucks the most for multiple users in a household is the Airpods, since there's no really easy way to differentiate one pair from another, even though they're uniquely paired to a specific user's devices. Anyway, with one Pro and one Air, it's much easier to identify which system belongs to whom.

There are some issues that I have noticed with the Macbook Pro though. Probably the one that I'm most aware of is the battery life. While the early 2015 era Macbook Pros are supposed to be pretty good on battery life -- or at least supposedly much better than the current generation (I've heard several stories of crap battery life on the USB-C / Touchbar models), the battery life on the Pro is no match for the Air. Even with my couple of years old Air, I could easily expect four to six hours of active system operation before I saw my battery falling into a "really need to charge this" zone. With the Pro, I'm getting below 50% in two-three hours of use. It's sort of like turning over the keys to my high mileage compact and jumping into an SUV. It's a workable battery life, but at this point, I'm thinking I don't want to get too far away from an outlet.

The touchpad on the Pro seems a bit more sensitive than the one on the Air. While I've been using the system, I've found myself accidentally triggering clicks and inadvertent mouse movements. I'm still playing with the settings, so hopefully I can make that work a bit better.

In conclusion, I think that the ideal system would be a Macbook Air with a Retina display. If that system was available, I'd buy one today. Having spent a couple of years getting accustomed to the battery life of the Macbook Air, that feels like a bit more of a critical requirement than the Touchbar designing product team seem to recognize. That being said, I am really appreciative of the Retina display and the extra ports on my Pro, but YMMV.

iOS11 Continues It's Buggy Reign of Terror

One morning last week, I received an unusual call from my wife. She was in Japan and, back at the hotel after a day of meetings and a work dinner, she'd tried to set an alarm for an early morning meeting the next day. Suddenly, her iPhone 8 began restarting. Repeatedly. She tried a number of different things to fix it, but when they didn't work, she called me.

After some online searching, I was able to find a path that temporarily fixed it. As you may have guessed by now, it looks like what she was experiencing was the "Calendar bug" in iOS 11.1.2. Later, I was able to text her an alert her to the 11.2 update that patched the bug.

Yet Another iOS 11 bug -- who could have imagined?

And then there's Apple Pay
And so, that same day, I updated my phone to iOS 11.2. It turns out that beyond the patch the highlight feature that's been added with iOS 11.2 is the, "you should really turn on Apple Pay" feature.

After you install iOS 11.2, the phone says that you need to "Complete the Installation Process". It then takes you into an Apple Pay configuration wizard. Don't want to enable Apple Pay? Then iOS 11.2 drops a big red notification bullet on your iOS settings app icon. The only way to turn this off is to either enable Apple Pay or dive into the settings in Wallet and turn off Apple Pay Cash.

About a day after I did this, I was suddenly greeting with a pop-up screen that basically said, "Don't you really want to enable Apple Pay?" I'm not sure what triggered this -- or whether it will recur -- but it occurs to me that when you're having to advertise "an upgrade" in your operating system software in order to gain adoption, you've got some underlying issues with the feature.

Put a different way. I've gone several years without enabling Apple Pay. What could possibly drive the product team to think that if I hadn't activated it, that this feature was the trigger that would make me choose to enable it?

Instead, what this is another example of is Apple's software team starting with the conclusion that this whole Apple Pay Cash system would work more like their imagined model if it was enabled universally. In other words, this design, this feature set, is entirely centered on Apple's imagined needs for themselves and completely disregards my needs as a user. Fundamentally, this is what's wrong with today's Apple on a broader scale.

Apple's new slogan should be "Think marginally different than Android".

And One Patch Follows the Next
Of course, about a day after installing the 11.2 update, there was iOS 11.2.1, another patch to address a camera auto-focus issue introduced with the 11.2 update. It goes without saying that they still haven't fixed a whole host of animation or screen presentation bugs that affect operation.

• The calculator will still miscalculate 1+2+3 if you type it too fast.
• My email client often shows emails in my VIP mailbox, even though I have not received any emails from VIPs. For whatever reason, it errors in it's calculation and display of these mailbox roll-up folders. Additionally, these numbers will linger for a length of time.

As I've noted, it really makes you question the products coming out of Apple these days. These days, when I look at my iPhone, I never think, "this is the best phone I've ever owned." Instead, virtually every time I look at my iPhone, I'm struck by how much of the damn thing has been broken.

Apple Releases Bug Fix Overnight

So it looks like Apple jumped through a few hoops last night to patch and release a fix for the Root Access bug that came out yesterday. If nothing else, it's proof that if they prioritize and issue and apply resources, they can still be agile company. Or at least, an agile support organization.

Given that, it's kind of funny that the iOS calculator bug is still there.

I Am Root - Apple Introduces Amazing New Bug with High Sierra Mac OS

When I came across news of this new, critical bug that was discovered in the new High Sierra version of Mac OS, I'd like to say that I was surprised. I might have been in the past. These days, not so much. Truth be told, I'd be surprised if we don't see several more critical bugs discovered in High Sierra.

This is exactly why I've been hesitant to upgrade. Perhaps you're like me. High Sierra is one of those "upgrades" that, I don't think I've seen any really useful "features" that they've added (other than this new "universal access feature"). Apple is engaged in a full-on path of Devolution.

So what next Apple? A glass-bottom Macbook Pro so can wirelessly charge the new extra-rapid-draining batteries fueling a new "Super-sized" Touchbar? Imagine the joys of "the thinnest Macbook Pro ever" that requires you use a thick rubber case lest you crack the bottom and wind up with glass fragments in your laptop. Sounds like exactly what every "Pro" user needs.

In the short term, a great fix would be to stop triggering the pop-ups telling me that I should upgrade to High Sierra. Thanks.

Why Apple Products are a Dark Cloud Over the Tech Industry

You would never know it from the stock price, but Apple, the company who's products we once loved, is falling apart. Design, once a cornerstone of every Apple product, is eroding under the weight of copy-cat features and an arbitrary bend through the iPhone looking glass. And quality?

Consider iOS 11. As of this post, we're on iOS 11.1.2, the seventh release of the 11th version of their iPhone software. Take a look at this MacRumors iOS 11 round-up. This update to Apple's iOS, while described as a "major design change", doesn't bundle huge new feature sets. In fact, the second paragraph of the round-up talks about "subtle design changes to interface elements throughout the operating system". And yet, iOS 11 introduced a broad range of bugs into the OS. Seven releases and they still haven't fixed their calculator animation bug.

Now, some companies might offer the excuse that they don't have enough resources build a perfect product. And yet, Apple, with multiple campuses throughout Silicon Valley, hardly seems to be the resource strapped company that it once was. What's more, Apple is sitting on over $261 Billion in cash, so it's not like they can't afford to hire a few good software developers, if that was what was needed to fix iOS.

Contrast iOS with Salesforce.com. In the past, I've often complained about issues with Salesforce.com, but Salesforce releases an update to it's platform three times a year without breaking it's core feature sets or functionality. In iOS 11, I've had issues where the Mail client indicates that I have unread emails from one of my VIPs, even though none of my recent VIPs have even emailed me. I would call that a bug in the core functionality of the device. And this is simply one more issue -- I wish that I had a way to characterize some of the issues that I've had with the touch screen since iOS 11. These days, my iPhone just does stupid stuff -- like randomly playing audio when I put my Airpods away after a phone call.

The Broader Problem with Apple
At it's core, I think that Apple is struggling with a vision problem. While Apple has long been considered a visionary company, I think the current iteration of the company has lost it's way. Consider the new iPhone X and it's facial recognition capabilities. Have they really done anything beyond adding Microsoft Kinect to a phone? Or the Touchbar that was added to the Macbook Pro line -- do you see that anywhere else in their Mac platform? Essentially, the seem to be grabbing at feature straws, wildly swiping through the air trying to capture another brass ring that might equate to iPhone or iMac gold.

But these are not the moves of a mad genius. Instead, they feel more like the flailing efforts of a committee that seems to reach for a consensus view of what they imagine somebody in a black turtleneck might dream of.

Say what you will about skeuomorphic design, I think that when Apple leaned more skeuomorphic, there was a clearer framework to shape the thinking of the people inside the company.

And while today's Apple may consider designers and "pro-users" to be just "some small segment" of their much broader cash cow, I think that they truly underestimate why Apple products became so beloved within that segment -- and it wasn't simply because Apple offered different color options or a rose gold (pink) version. Fundamentally, the core aspect that made Apple product so much better was good design.

These days, Apple just bolts on products and features to build some arbitrary unity around an ecosystem of unnecessary accessories. If Apple were the Marvel Universe, it would be like having Howard the Duck show up in all of their content because, hey, Howard the Duck. And so, we have the Amazon Echo copy, Apple Homepod, so that you can say "Hey Siri" at home. And you also have Siri making a random, Howard the Duck appearance on the Mac. Hey Siri, can you turn my wifi off for real this time?

I'm sure that over in the halls of whichever Apple campus, that they still have product management meetings. They still make product roadmaps. They track their bugs and they schedule their releases. I'm sure that, when it comes to the formal dance of a product, they go through the steps. And yet, iOS 11.

So what does it mean for other companies more broadly, when a company can have more money than most of us can imagine, all of the resources that they could possibly need, and yet to still struggle so fundamentally in something like this "update" to their iPhone OS? What does it mean when innovation for "the most successful technology company" simply means thinner, or slapping a "Touchbar" on it?

So this is what happens with tech companies grow up.

YA Apple FAIL: iOS 11 Worse at Math that Intel Pentium

TL:DR: iOS 11 speeds the iPhone down the path from best phone ever to complete laughing-stock embarrassment.  

In case you were wondering, iOS 11 sucks, big time. Sucks. Sucks. Sucks. I've been intending to write a more comprehensive breakdown of the suckage, but other things have been keeping me too busy to devote the time to fully detail the flaws that I've found. It goes without saying that, if it were possible to go back a version -- other than any security flaws that they've theoretically patched, downgrading would be one hell of an upgrade.

I've posted previously about how for Apple iOS 11 and "No doesn't really mean no." because all of those services you think you shut off in the Notification Center don't actually turn off.

Additionally, if you've tried to use the notification center to select an audio source (like say, select you Apple Airpods), selection is now two clicks away under a tiny thumbnail of a control panel.

Should you want to change the brightness of your iPad while watching a video on Netflix, you're looking at two clicks or more to be able to make a simple change to screen brightness.

And now, I just came across this bug on MacRumors. iOS 11 Bug: Typing 1+2+3 Quickly in the Calculator App Won't Get You 6. That's right, if you type 1+2+3 quickly in the calculator app on your iPhone in iOS 11, the calculator will show you 24 instead of 6. In short, it's a worse math error than the infamous Pentium math error. The article goes on to detail an animation bug that blocks screen inputs while the animation resolves. And while it's probably a simple correction for Apple to fix their Calculator app, I think it's symptomatic of broader touch screen interface issues that have been introduced with iOS 11.

While using iOS 11, I've had numerous issues (somewhat randomly) with inputs to the touchscreen. Often, inputs near the edge of the display on my iPhone 5se fail. I've also had issues where the Messages app won't enable you to get to the bottom the display / see the most recent messages.

Perhaps the funniest thing about all of this was when I saw some pundit writing about facial recognition on the upcoming iPhone X, saying something to the effect that they were confident that it would be good because "Apple wouldn't let another Apple Maps - like fiasco take place." Yeah right. All I could think at the time was look at the joke that is iOS 11.

iOS 11 is so bad, it makes a compelling case for not updating your Mac OS to High Sierra.

Apple iOS 11: "No" doesn't really mean "No"

Recently, Apple acknowledged that when you use the control center to turn off Bluetooth or Wifi in iOS 11, it doesn't actually turn those services "off". Instead it just disconnects from the things you were connected to -- except Apple devices and some Apple services. That's right. Apple's iOS 11 now features "No" doesn't mean "No" technology.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation warns about this in an article, iOS 11’s Misleading “Off-ish” Setting for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is Bad for User Security, regarding this issue. They note that

When a phone is designed to behave in a way other than what the UI suggests, it results in both security and privacy problems. A user has no visual or textual clues to understand the device's behavior, which can result in a loss of trust in operating system designers to faithfully communicate what’s going on.

In gets worse.

The Wi-Fi will turn back full-on if you drive or walk to a new location. And both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will turn back on at 5:00 AM. This is not clearly explained to users, nor left to them to choose, which makes security-aware users vulnerable as well.

Wifi and Bluetooth also reactivate when you reboot your phone.

Why did Apple build iOS 11 this way? Because Apple decided that it would be better for them -- make their device interworkings seem better -- than it would be to honor the "no" implied by the controls in the Notification Center.

This isn't the only thing that sucks about iOS 11, but it may be one of the more troubling ones.

Airpods: Apple's Imperfect Audio Port Solution

With the introduction of the iPhone 7, Apple decided to remove the classic audio port from the phone. They claimed to address the elimination of the audio port with a brand new product, Airpods, wireless Bluetooth headphones that would be so awesome, you'd never miss your old headphones. Skip the part about how Airpods weren't even available for the first three months or so of the iPhone 7. Oh, and the part about the limited availability of Airpods even today. Airpods were promised to be be so great, we'd never want to go back to wired headphones.

I have a set of Airpods, had them for several months, and I can only say, "Airpods, you are no wired headphones."

Don't get me wrong, Apple has accomplished something impressive with Airpods. They are, hands down, the best wireless iPhone headset that I've used to date. But that comes with a large number of caveats. But what's important to understand is that, while they're a nice iPhone accessory, they don't come close to replacing my earbuds.

Bluetooth < Wires
Fundamentally, Airpods suffer from the Bluetooth wireless connection. Using them in my office where there are numerous other Bluetooth devices, I experience a lot of drop-outs from both the speakers and the microphone. I blame this on Bluetooth interference. It's so bad that if I have a call, I use my wired earbuds.

But the drop-out problems aren't limited to "Bluetooth noisy" environments. Using the Airpods while listening to music walking around at night, I found the sound dropped several times also. Potentially, this could be related to software that has each ear piece to check in with the other one and verify that it's there -- the auto-detect ear software. Apparently, you can turn this off, but I think I saw where disabling this disables stereo -- which makes sense if you consider that it needs to know whether there is a second headphone in order to send a stereo signal. However, it should be noted that my wired headphones don't experience similar drops.

This brings me to the sensors in the Airpods. With most Bluetooth headsets, there is some functionality that enables you to answer calls with a tap -- similar to hitting the start-stop button on the wired headphones. Unfortunately, with several months of use, all I've succeeded in doing with my Airpods is opening the voice interface at various times. I'm sure that if I were running battery-wasting, time-wasting Siri, I could have asked Siri to answer the phone, but mostly I've had to default to scrambling around, trying to find my phone in order to answer calls on the iPhone instead of the Airpods.

On a related note, I can't count how many times I've accidentally fumbled with one of the Airpod earpieces, only to accidentally bring up the voice interface -- enough to make me cautious about handling the earpieces.

The Good
Let me say that I understand the interest in having a wireless headset. How many times have I found myself listening to music while doing something like cooking when the wire on my headphones gets caught on a knob or the corner of a cabinet? Having my ear yanked or sending my iPhone flying sends me cursing the wire and everything it stands for. With the Airpods in a quiet Bluetooth environment like my home, I can wander around with audio, safe from worrying about whether the cable is about to get caught on something. Do I still experience drop-outs? Yup. But the trade-off of no wires is usually worth it for kitchen tasks.

Airpods also work reasonably well when driving in my non-Bluetooth-enabled vehicles. The wire doesn't usually get in the way while driving, but it's still potentially a concern. Meanwhile, the variability of cell coverage when you're on the road means that the wireless connection is only one of multiple connectivity issues that you deal with.

Finally, another nice thing about the Airpods is that you can use one or both. If you use just one, you can get some pretty serious battery life out of the set by periodically switching earpieces and letting the other one charge.

Summary
All trade-offs aside, Apple's Airpods provide a nice Bluetooth headset experience. At the same time,  one of the reasons that I chose the iPhone 5se was the inclusion of the headset port. Having experienced both the "antique" and what Apple promises us to be the "future" of audio on a phone, I must say that the removal of the audio port still ranks as one of the worst design choices Apple has made.

The iPhone 7 gets a Headphone Jack!

Here's a story I came across on MacRumors this morning. Essentially, this guy modded an iPhone 7 and added a fully functional headphone jack. However, it's an interesting underscore to the BS that they had to eliminate it to make room for the camera.

3 Design Aspects I Already Hate on the iPhone 8

With Apple announcing it's September 19th event and the expectation that they will roll out the new iPhone 8, Right now, everything we know about it is really based on rumors and info extracted from Apple's Homepod firmware. That being said, among the media that track Apple's upcoming products, confidence about many aspects of the iPhone 8 is high.

Based on the current rumors, I thought I would share a few aspects of the iPhone 8 design that I hate and consider deal-breakers for purchasing an iPhone 8.

• No Audio Port. I know that they'll probably never go back on this, but the idiocy of this decision is unparalleled. The lightning-based headset sucks. It doesn't work on anything other than an iPhone 7 (7s, 8, perhaps, but no iPad, Macbook, Mac, or other device). Apple would probably counter with, "what about AirPods?" I have a set of AirPods that I use with my 5se. They work okay, but there are times -- like when I'm in the office with lots of Bluetooth devices -- that the cable just works much better. Better audio, more reliable.
  
• Facial recognition-based unlock. This rumored feature seems like its designed to appeal to the technology pundit class. Technology companies love this idea. Customers, not so much. See XBox One Kinnect original implementation for a reminder.
  
• The stupid lens protrusion on the back of the phone. This design flaw was introduced in the iPhone 6 and we've been living with it since. It's essentially a "must use case" feature. Wanna make the iPhone 8 better? Use that difference in space between the current design and a flat back design and fill it with more battery. Yet another reason why the iPhone 5se design is better.

Anyway, maybe you're excited.

Another Apple Design Faux Pas - Magic Mouse 2

I came across this tidbit about Apple design yesterday in a story with leaked details about the iPhone8. While providing comments about the potential new iPhone design, the article mentioned other recent poor Apple designs and referenced the Magic Mouse 2. Specifically, it noted that when Apple redesigned the Magic Mouse 2 to include a rechargeable battery, they put the charging port on the bottom of the mouse. In other words, when the mouse needs to be recharged, you can't use it while it's charging.

This is the part of the story that really caught my attention. Sure, Magic Mouse 2 is old news, but the fact that this product was actually released by Apple seems telling. This is another example of where form outweighed function, where the needs of actual users came second.

If you've ever had the battery die when you were using a wireless mouse, I'm sure you're familiar with the panic of running around, trying to find a battery to replace it and restart whatever you were in the middle of when the mouse died. Now imagine having to stop what you're doing, put your mouse aside, and wait for the mouse to charge.

Sure, with a quick charge, there might not be much of a wait. But the obvious solution -- following a 30+ year long legacy of mouse designs -- would be to put the connector on the top of the mouse so that you could keep working while charging. That would have been a design that considered functionality. The bottom of the mouse? That's more "let's just sweep the ugly parts underneath the rug" design.

Now admittedly, to date, I've bought one magic mouse (v.1) and returned it shortly after I bought it. It wasn't even for my day-to-day system. In short, this aspect of the Magic Mouse 2 design probably would never have come to my attention had I not seen mention of it in the article. Still, I find it yet another indication that Apple's design group has lost touch with the usage requirements of their customer base. Go fashion, f--- function.