A Matter of Trust

A screenshot of my iPhone's iOS home screen

Apple, in all their presumptuousness, has now pushed iOS 7.0.3 to both my iPhone and my iPad. I have not yet installed iOS 7 at all, nor do I want to. It’s ugly, it breaks with my muscle-memory conventions, and frankly I have no need for it. But there it sits anyway, consuming precious storage and trying to goad me into installation with the big red circle sitting atop the “Settings” icon.

Another red badge on my home screen is the number of apps on my phone with available updates. Currently, it reads 105. iOS 7 brings the promise of auto-updating my apps, so I never have to see this badge again. But for now it sits, like the world’s slowest odometer showing me exactly how obsolete I am becoming.

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BBEdit 10

I guess I’m going to be in the minority for not heaping praise upon BBEdit’s new update, version 10.[1. See also: MacWorld’s review and IT Inquirer’s review, among others.] However, as a long-time user (I think I started using it somewhere around version 4, IIRC), there have been enough changes in this version to throw my whole workflow out of whack, including one key feature (for me at least) that’s now gone altogether.

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Quick Fix for Network Issues

Occasionally, when I’m on the client’s site, the Internet connection on my MacBook Pro completely dies even though I’m connected to the Wi-Fi network and have a valid (that is, not self-assigned) IP address.  Usually this is caused when the VPN I’m connected to (yes, even though I’m on the client site I still sometimes need to connect to their VPN) crashes my machine, and I’m talking gray-screen-of-death calibre of crashing.

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The High Price of Gigabytes

AT&T and Verizon have formally announced their iPad 2 pricing plans, and it’s clear that they expect us to live in the stone age when it comes to internet usage on the go.

Here are the numbers, broken down:

Verizon AT&T
Gigabytes Monthly Cost Per GB Gigabytes Monthly Cost Per GB
1 GB $20 $20 250MB $14.99 $59.96
3 GB $35 $11.67 2 GB $25 $12.50
5 GB $50 $10
10 GB $80 $8

And of course, this doesn’t even include the cost if your data runneth over, which is a whole other absurd list of charges.  Because of this mass confusion and chaos, I’m pretty much decided on wi-fi only.

Remember when AT&T offered unlimited data for iPad for $30? For one month? Then killed that?

Good times.

Which iPad 2 Will You Get?

In an extremely un-Apple like move, the Cupertino, California company will release eighteen different variants of its new iPad 2 in the United States on Friday. Which model do you have your eye on?

Which iPad 2 Are You Getting?

  • 32GB Wi-Fi Only, Black (100%, 4 Votes)
  • 64GB Wi-Fi & 3G (Verizon), White (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 16GB Wi-Fi Only, Black (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 32GB Wi-Fi & 3G (Verizon), White (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 16GB Wi-Fi & 3G (Verizon), White (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 64GB Wi-Fi & 3G (AT&T), White (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 32GB Wi-Fi & 3G (AT&T), White (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 16GB Wi-Fi & 3G (AT&T), White (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 64GB Wi-Fi Only, White (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 32GB Wi-Fi Only, White (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 16GB Wi-Fi Only, White (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 64GB Wi-Fi & 3G (Verizon), Black (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 32GB Wi-Fi & 3G (Verizon), Black (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 16GB Wi-Fi & 3G (Verizon), Black (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 64GB Wi-Fi & 3G (AT&T), Black (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 32GB Wi-Fi & 3G (AT&T), Black (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 16GB Wi-Fi & 3G (AT&T), Black (0%, 0 Votes)
  • 64GB Wi-Fi Only, Black (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 7

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When you list out the options in this way, it seems a little ridiculous.

How’d I Do?

To much fanfare and Twitter-wide praise, Apple launched the iPad 2 today in San Francisco.  (And much to my chagrin, they are not available immediately. I have to wait a whole week and a half. I’m so bummed.)

But now it’s time for rumor-mill roundups. How did I do? Okay, but not great.

  1. Front facing and rear facing cameras. I mean, come on. Everybody saw that coming.
  2. Increase in storage capacity. Sadly, this was not too be. Same storage options as before, but at the same price. Kind of a bummer here. Apple, lately, has been offering upgraded specs at previous model prices, but not this time.
  3. 3G Everywhere. Not even close on this one. Not only are the wi-fi only models still an option, but you have to pick either AT&T or Verizon. Given that there are three storage options, this makes a whopping 9 18 (nine models times two colors) different models to choose from. That’s very un-Apple like.
  4. SD card slot. No on that one. No ThunderBolt either (I didn’t think there would be), but there is HDMI mirroring. I don’t think anyone saw that coming.

So overall, my predictions were crap. Why did you even listen to me?

My iPad 2 Predictions

Apple iPad 2 InvitationWell, everyone else has gotten into the act, so with a little more than twenty-four hours left in which to speculate, here are my official predictions as to what the new iPads to be announced tomorrow will have:

  1. Front facing and rear facing cameras. Well, duh. This has been a mainstay of the rumor mill since the first iPad was released last spring. Lack of a camera for FaceTime was a partial (not the major) reason for me not purchasing the iPad 1, and I’m looking forward to easy video conferencing capabilities in the new version.
  2. Increase in storage capacity. Bye-bye, 16GB. Your new low-end iPad will be the 32GB, with 64GB and 128GB being the middle and high-end options, at the same prices as the current low/middle/high ends.
  3. 3G everywhere. I think the wi-fi only option will also go by the wayside. Starting tomorrow, every iPad will contain the required circuitry for handling GSM and CDMA 3G networks.
  4. SD card slot. Okay, even I don’t believe this one, but I’m throwing out there for a lark. If you believe all the case leaks, there’s a mystery port at the top of the new device. USB? Perish the thought. ThunderBolt? Well, maybe. But I think an SD card makes the most sense of the possible options.

So how did I do? We’ll find out tomorrow afternoon.

Review: Twitter for Mac

Update: URL shortening appears to happen in the background, without you choosing which shortener to use, and the shortened URL length is reflected in the character count.

Original post:

It’s been waaay too long coming, but Twitter finally released version 2.0 of the Mac Twitter client formerly known as Tweetie.  Finally we can see native twitter retweets (an implementation I still don’t like, but it’s a fact of life in Twitter now, so clients need to be on board with it) and a slicker, more modern interface.

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