There are some things that Apple gets right and that I appreciate. I always like that scene when John Candy is introduced as Uncle Buck in the classic comedy of the same name. The clapper! (IYKYK)
Normally, I wake and get dressed in the dark because Mitzi doesn't get up as early as I do. I always put my clothes in the same place, I can find everything by knowing where to reach. The phone puts out enough light without using the flashlight to navigate, though I can walk through the bedroom in the dark with little difficulty. Sleeping separately now (Covid), I say "Hey Siri, Dave's lamp on."
I seldom have any trouble with Siri controlling any of the devices enrolled in Home. Mostly lights, but also my office fan and she can set all four speeds. (The one thing I don't like in my office, apart from size, is I probably bought too large a fan and I have all recessed ceiling lights. When the fan's on, it casts a moving shadow. Seldom a problem though. I usually only run the fan after a walk or a bike ride, and that's usually after it's light enough out to see what I'm doing.)
Anyway, I have my own little Ambient weather station, and I check it often, especially with an approaching storm. There's a bookmark for it in the Favorites bar in Safari. But that opens another tab, and their layout doesn't look great in a wide window. For whatever reason, all my Safari tabs are opened full-width. This morning I thought I'd try that thing where you can treat a page like its own app and keep it in the dock. It opens as its own window, without any Safari UI chrome, and I can narrow the width to make all the widgets look normal.
It wasn't hard to find, amazingly. (File=>Add to Dock...) I'd heard about it, and probably seen it once or twice in videos, but never used it before. I didn't have to search for instructions on how to use it, I just looked in the menu item I where I thought it most likely would be found - File. And there it was, discoverable! And it "just worked."
Refreshing.
But mostly Apple is headed in the wrong direction and is getting worse over time and I'm not optimistic about it recovering anytime soon. Saint Tim might worship at the alter of "customer sat," but he sleeps with shareholders and quarterly earnings reports.
That's the problem with being the "Number One," in anything. There's nowhere else to go but down.
Probably should have called this "Praise, Correct," but too late now.
Originally posted at Nice Marmot 05:37 Thursday, 26 September 2024