vladcampos.com
Workflow Consultant and Content Creator obsessed with simplifying processes, and driven by learning and passing it along.

Apple

    My cluttered workspace đŸ«Ł

    I took the pictures below to illustrate a point in a conversation I was having on Mastodon, but something unexpected ended up happening.

    I arranged my desk so that I can comfortably type on the K380 and, at the same time, easily reach the Touch ID sensor on my MacBook Air. At my right, not visible, there’s a Mac Mini and another screen where I produce my videos. I use the same keyboard and trackpad through Apple Continuity.

    It took me many trials and errors, but I love this arrangement. Not only that, I’m proud of my creation. I built several of the parts, including the sliding extension for the keyboard. Everything is easily accessible and highly efficient. Now, can you guess how the AI-generated captions of the pictures start the description of my desk?

    “A cluttered workspace”. đŸ€Ș

    A cluttered workspace features a keyboard, headphones, camera, lens, mug, notepad, and multiple computer monitors. A person is working on a blue keyboard at a cluttered desk with various tech gadgets and accessories. A person is sitting at a cluttered desk with various electronic devices, including a keyboard, headphones, and other tech accessories in view.

    The video below will give you an idea of my workspace. It’s from 2023, and I have made minor adjustments, as predicted at the end of the video. Nevertheless, the computers and most of the items remain the same.



    Apple's Greedy Grab: Will Creators Have to Pay the Price?

    Apple’s App Store fees have the potential to make things harder for creators on Patreon.

    As a shareholder, I understand that many of Apple’s decisions are driven by the need to make the company more valuable. But sometimes their policies go too far.

    If the numbers presented in the video below are accurate, Patreon, the company, is unable to assume the App Store fees. I’ll even go as far as to say that it is mathematically impossible, as Patreon fees are lower than those of Apple. Which leaves two options: either the creator or the supporter will have to bear Apple fees.

    I understand that Apple has a great system with almost zero friction, and that there are costs to operate it. What I don’t understand is the percentage. How can Patreon charge much less and even support all its operational expenses? Furthermore, does the amount charged by Apple even make sense when creators or supporters will be the ones paying for it?

    My tiers on Patreon are pretty low because I’m not trying to explore anyone. I’m looking to build a community of people who are as passionate as I am and wish to help me by supporting my work. However, when Apple’s policies come into effect in the near future, I’ll have to switch to charging the App Store fee from the new supporters paying from there.

    Apple, of course, is entitled to make its own business decisions, but forcing end users to pay more is unfair and, I dare say, unethical. Companies using the App Store should be allowed to explain that there’s a cheaper option to purchase a service. The way I see it, Apple is simply not giving users a choice.

    This situation is another reminder that I have to keep my policy of not using any of Apple’s wall-gardened services, despite their quality. It’s also a good example of why the European Commission is constantly creating regulations to prevent big companies from doing whatever they want.



    Android's Answer to AirTags is here. Time to switch!

    Wait, there’s another competitor. Who would have believed that Tile would pull such a card from its sleeve?

    If you go to the AirTag page on Apple’s website, and check the ‘System Requirements and Compatibility’ information, you’ll see this:

    • Apple ID
    • iPhone and iPod touch models with iOS 14.5 or later
    • iPad models with iPadOS 14.5 or later

    As you are already aware, I am a Pixel user, so it was the third item in the list above which convinced me to become an early adopter of AirTags. And even though Apple says the company designed the AirTag to track items, not people or pets, my plan was to do exactly that: attach it to my dog’s collar.

    When I asked Drance about parents using AirTags to track their small children (such as during an outing at an amusement park) or pets (we know you’re up to something shady, Fluffy) she was quick to stress that the company designed the AirTag to track items, not people or pets. If parents would like to safely track their young children, she suggests an Apple Watch with Family Setup might be a better choice. (source)

    My dog’s AirTag.

    When the AirTag arrived, I linked it to my iPad and immediately started testing it. Every time my wife would go on a longer walk with our dog, I would track them simultaneously on Google Maps and Apple ‘Find My’ app. To accomplish that, my wife would leave her iPhone behind and bring an Android that was sharing its GPS location with me.

    If she were to take the iPhone with her, it would be too easy for the tracker. My goal was to learn how the AirTag would perform when having to rely on other people’s iPhones to do its thing. And to my surprise, the first tests went very well. The ‘Find My’ app would show our dog about a block behind the Android GPS, which was expected and quite accurate if you ask me.

    However, on walks very early in the morning, I would completely lose track of my dog on the map. The same would happen in large and spacious parks. All of that was also expected, but sometimes it was not working, even when she had people around her. Android users, for sure. But that’s not all the problems I experienced.

    I don’t know why, but the AirTag alarm would go off every other day even when my dog and the iPad were close to each other. Extremely close to each other. I would be sitting on the couch reading something on the iPad, with my dog lying down by my side.

    That I could never fix, even after unpairing, resetting and parring again several times. It was so frustrating that I ended up destroying the AirTag. Relax, it’s not what you are thinking.

    Auto-generated description: An AirTag device has been opened to reveal its internal circuitry and battery.

    We had a trip coming up, and our dog would stay with a pet sitter, which meant she would inevitably face the ‘away from owner’ alarm. As for the ‘AirTag traveling with you’ alert, that’s okay, as I definitely would tell her about the tracker.

    Long story short, I decided to disable the speaker altogether. This would also solve the issue of the alarm going off when it wasn’t supposed to. Taking great care, as always, I went about the delicate process. Unfortunately, after the surgery, the AirTag refused to pair.

    That was the perfect timing to try the Chipolo Spot, which is compatible with Apple’s network. I bought a 4-pack, and guess what? One of them also had the alarm going off almost every day. Maybe it’s an issue with the iPad parring, since it never happened to the ones paired with my wife’s iPhone.

    Google’s Answer to AirTags

    A few days ago, I received an email from Google with the news I was expecting for a while and decided to buy new takers.

    Find My Device network is coming soon. 
    You’ll get a notification on your Android devices when this feature is turned on in 3 days. Until then, you can opt out of the network through Find My Device on the web. After the feature is on, you can manage device participation anytime through Find My Device settings on the device.

    How it works.
    Devices in the network use Bluetooth to scan for nearby items. If other devices detect your items, they’ll securely send the locations where the items were detected to Find My Device. Your Android devices will do the same to help others find their offline items when detected nearby.

    Of course, there are plenty of people using iPhones here in Europe, but Apple’s phone is only more popular than Androids in the United States. Android has a much larger market share worldwide, which translates to a potentially wider network for Google’s ‘Find My Device’ service when compared to Apple’s ‘Find My’. And that’s something I’m excited to test.

    I purchased another 4-pack, but this time it was a Chipolo Point. Point? What about the Spot? Okay, time to decode Chipolo product line.

    Be careful

    Similar to Tile, Chipolo already had its own network and was selling distinct tracker models, namely ONE, which resembles a circle, and Card, which resembles, well, a card.

    When Apple introduced the AirTags, Chipolo released compatible trackers, which they branded as Chipolo Spot. And now there’s the Chipolo Point, compatible with Google’s ‘Find My Device’ service. The appearance and form factor of the models are the same, no matter the network. So, always pay attention to what you are buying.

    The Future

    Life360, the parent company of Tile, which has never mentioned trackers compatible with Apple’s or Google’s networks, recently announced a GPS-Bluetooth network in partnership with Hubble Network. What“

    I’ve never heard of this network or the technology before, and am interested to see how a satellite can pick up a Bluetooth signal from Earth. But besides the brief post and hyperbolic video published on Life360 website, there is not much said about anything else. And I have so many questions. For example, will there be a subscription? Will current Tiles work on this network? Does the satellite constellation currently exist?

    In any case, I’ll be taking good care of the Tile trackers I still have in my drawer. Except for that one. Yes, the one you might remember, mysteriously disappeared.



    Modern travel is weird.

    Half of my backpack has clothes. The other half has filming gear and dongles. A bunch of them. Thank you, Apple.

    A laptop, a camera on a tripod, and other tech accessories are placed on a windowsill with Lisbon cityscape visible outside.

    At least, everything I travel with is USB-C compatible, which means there is always a cable available to plug and charge anything. But not exactly everything. Guess what? All of those cables are useless for one device. I’ve been wirelessly charging my wife’s iPhone with my Pixel because she forgot to bring the Lightning cable. Thank you, Apple. Again.

    An iPhone is wirelessly charging on top of an Android Pixel, both placed on a reflective surface.


    đŸ€” In summary, the new iPads are even more powerful than my MacBook Air M1, but the iPadOS is still the same, making them lag behind.



    How the Vision Pro caught my attention despite my skepticism

    It looks like Apple did it again!

    No, I haven’t purchased one and do not intend to do so anytime soon, but this is the first device of this type I would ever buy. Confused? Go with me for a moment. It will make sense, I promise.

    Even though the Vision Pro isn’t the only Augmented Reality device out there, I always felt like all the others were made for gamers. It might be because of how they are promoted. I don’t know. But since I’m not a gamer, buying a virtual or augmented reality headset simply never crossed my mind.

    It’s a computer

    From the very beginning, Apple was clearly positioning the Vision Pro as a consumer device, but because of my gaming perspective and the price tag, it was never an item on my radar. Then I watched Casey’s video about it, and something clicked for me. This is definitely not for gamers. It’s not a gimmick for geeks, either. It’s for everyday people who prefer or have to use computers to do their work.

    I’m still putting off buying a US$4,000 (after taxes and some accessories) first-gen gadget, but that video sent me on an endless journey on YouTube. Many people are showing it being used as a computer with several giant screens. In other words, one can use it to “work on a computer” with practically no desk space. All that real-world usage really spoke to me. Well, “real-world” might not be the best choice to describe it, but I think you got it.

    I could never use the iPad as a Mac replacement. Despite Apple spending a fortune trying to promote it as a computer, it is note a computer. The restrictions imposed by iPadOS make my work much more challenging. The Vision Pro, on the other hand, can be connected to a real computer, and that makes all the difference.

    So many Apps

    However, a computer is only as good as the software library available for it. And as far as I could understand, everything that works on macOS will work when a Mac is connected. Which kind of brings us back to the old debate about touchscreen Macs, but I digress.

    Then there’s visionOS, which has the potential to unleash a wave of new ideas, much like iOS did a long time ago.

    And, of course, the younger generation that prefers mobile devices was not left out. Thanks to Scott Forstall’s advocating for the App Store on the iPhone, there’s now an abundance of Apps already available for Vision Pro.

    Why not buy it?

    Well, first there’s that price tag. Then there is the fact that it is a first-generation device. I waited until the 3GS to buy my first iPhone, and in hindsight, I should probably have waited until the 4S.

    There is one thing for sure: Apple won again. I can clearly see myself purchasing a smaller, lighter, and much, much cheaper version of the Vision Pro in the future. And if it makes the Apple stock go up enough, I might be able to score one for free by selling some of what I own to buy its “4S” generation.



    Will I be able to automatically save my Android photos to Apple Photos?

    Even though I adore Google Photos and the endless slideshows on the Google displays I have at home and work, I wouldn’t entrust my memories to any one company. That’s why, for a long time, I’ve been using Google Takeout to download a copy of the photos from the previous year to add them to Apple Photos as a backup. The system works, but it’s too manual and prone to mistakes.

    Maybe you don’t know this, but even when you use Google Photos to manage the pictures you take, Android will keep a copy of them in the DCIM folder on your phone. And as far as I know, they will not be automatically deleted. To free up space, you must use the cleanup option or manually delete them. But what if I told you that this inconvenience could work in your favor?

    The other day, I had one of those click moments that helped me see this issue as a blessing in disguise. Here’s what I’m currently trying to do as I write this post.

    Remember Syncthing? I set it up to synchronize the DCIM folder on the Pixel with a folder I created on my Mac. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please watch the video below explaining how to do it. On it I’m demonstrating how to sync Obsidian, but don’t worry about that. The steps are the same for the DCIM folder.

    I am optimistic that this plan will address two issues. The first one is having an easier way to back up my photos, but it will also help me with cleaning up the images that are constantly piling up on my phone. To give you an example, early today, when setting the system up, I discovered 23 GB of old photos and short clips stored on my Android.

    It will take a while for all that to be copied to the computer, but the beauty is that Syncthing works both ways. Once the files that have been synchronized with my computer are transferred to Apple Photos and deleted from the folder, they will be automatically deleted on the phone.

    This is the very first test I’m doing to make sure Syncthing is correctly transferring everything to the Mac and then deleting the files on the phone when I delete them on the computer. If everything goes well, the next step will be to create an automation to replace the manual process on the Mac side.

    This is all for now. When I have further updates about this idea, I’ll publish part two of this article.



    This is the story of how I fixed a Disk II drive

    It may sound crazy, but there was a time when Apple computers and accessories could be repaired by the user. This is a story about how I fixed a Disk II drive without any electronics training.

    Software and resources used



    I cleaned the green phosphor monitor and repaired the crack

    Cleaning and repairing a frame crack took a lot of time, but I’m happy with the result. I also closely inspected the capacitors and couldn’t find anything unusual. The board looks like it just came out of the factory, but there is a strange smell coming from the monitor when it is on. I suppose I will have to wait until the mysterious capacitor begins to leak.







    Cleaning the Apple IIe

    This Apple IIe arrived pretty dead, and even though I don’t have any training in electronics, soldering, or any of the many other skills, I decided I would fix it. The list of problems is endless, and I’ll do what I always do in situations like this. Break it up into smaller problems and solve them one at a time.

    First step: cleaning.



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