Technology
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Hence I’ve been thinking of them often over the past few days. I never did get to tell you how grateful I was for all your help when I was a stupid young thing. Rest in peace Brett. ↩︎
- Whitewater Wipeout - The surfing game from California Games
- Casual Birder - A Zelda like collect ‘em up minus the combat
- Crankin presents time travel adventures - From Keita Takahashi!
- Boogie Loops - A Music Sequencer ala fruity loops etc.
- The new screen is fantastic for HDR content and is ridiculously crisp. Bladerunner 2049 is stunningly good.
- I do notice shadowing around the edge of the screen as the screen does appear to be deeper set due to the Micro LED in the screen. it doesn’t bother me particularly. On my particular unit, the ‘bloom’ problem of Micro LED people have brought up isn’t really noticeable to me.
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Improved Front Camera with “Centre Stage” is great. I couldn’t care less about the rear cameras. I’ve never taken even a semi-serious photo with an iPad.
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Coming from a 2018 12.9 Pro that was no slouch, the M1 is literally seamless. Switching from application to application and multi tasking (as it is on iPad at present) has zero stutter. The device simply moves out of your way. it’s phenomenal to use.
- The new Magic Keyboard case is just as much of a fingerprint/grease magnet as the old one. Just accept without putting a skin over it, it’s going to mark and be done with it. I wish I’d bought the white one. But I’m sure in 6 months after it was worn in I’d think differently.
- large focus on file management
- Multi-screen support
- Re-worked multi-tasking
- Inclusion of the (Fabulous) Apps Library
- On-Screen Widgets
- Closer synergy of MacOS/iPadOS Applications
Aww yeah I think it’s upgrade time for me 🫴💰
The Law Of Triviality and the joys of plodding
The Law Of Triviality or “Bikeshedding” was in full effect at work today.
I had permission to put a message on a system about upcoming changes. When it went live, a bunch of more senior staff thought my message was not quite right and levied their opinions on what should replace it. Eventually, after everyone had spoken, no one could decide on precisely what the message should say and they all just stopped talking about it without making a decision.
🤫 The original message I wrote still remains on the system 🤭🤷♂️
An old friend of mine who very recently passed away,1 once told me
“The rarest technical skill you can cultivate is common sense. And it’s often in short supply”
I think there is a lot of truth to that. People tend to chase flash or want to get involved in whatever the zeitgeist of the day is vs just slogging away at the fundamental bricks that complete projects. We’re easily distracted, turned and moved away from what we were doing not just 30 minutes ago. It’s part of the modern workplace with email, Teams/Slack…distractions can be everywhere… If you want them or not!
I’m often not the smartest technical asset in the room, but what I can do is make a structured list, update it and follow through on it.
If I can’t follow through I communicate why and I ask for help and advice. I send updates update calmly, descriptively and consistently. I feel like these fundamentals are key to collaboration and moving things forwards, but they can very often get lost in the storm for want of the thrill of starting another new project, looking at the shiny new thing or indeed bikeshedding over a two sentence paragraph for 30 minutes in what should be a 5 minute decision.
My wife jokingly refers to how we tackle work as being plodders. We’re At the coal face consistently smashing away and making the pile smaller whilst sometimes someone whifts past and may tell us they think we’re holding our picks wrong before they vanish again to the fresh air outside of the mine.
Someone this week came up to me whilst I was working and told me they were grateful for some work I’d done on a project and felt like I had kept them informed of what was happening and why throughout. At the end of the day, I think that’s what keeps me doing what I do. Providing that measurable consistent delivery that makes a difference to….someone out there.
So I’ll just keep plodding. I hope you keep plodding too.
I bought a licence for an indie app I love today💸
(I’ve been on the free tier of that one waaaay too long)
Then bought an upgrade for another indie app I love 💸
(Had every version since V10)
Happy to pay and support these apps that I could not do without 👏👏👏
A tech ghost story told around the campfire on a cold dark night 👻
“And when he unboxed his laptop… IT DIDN’T HAVE A PHYSICAL ESCAPE KEY” 🎃😜
iPhone 15 Pro Max Finewoven Cases 1st look
🔗 The Internet Archive just put 565 Palm Pilot apps in your web browser
you can reach out and touch a 1996 pocket computer with your 2022 pocket computer and it works like a charm. It’s a tiny interactive window into the pre-iPhone era, and what lived in the proto-App Store.
I have a lot of nostalgia for the PDA era. Psions, Palm, Pocket PC, before phones became computers and computers became phones. Anyway, if you need me I’ll be playing Space Trader
It’s a Playdate! 🎮
After joining the update list on 30/10/2020 and putting in my order on 29/07/2021 my Playdate finally arrived 08/05/2022 🎉👏
The playstation 5 would arrive in peoples hands roughly a month after Playdate pre-ordering opened, and whilst I’m still waiting on finding one of those 1 I’m happy to say Panic have delivered what they promised, even after some bumps in the road.
Playdate has obviously been a labour of love for Panic, and is being made just for fun. It’s kitschy and cute. Artful and functional. It’s a joke made serious. A black and white handheld with a crank in 2022?!
If you’ve ready any stories or watched any videos comparing this to Gameboys or other handheld portables they are waaaaaay off the mark. This is a Tchotchke, a fun little thing, an art project. It’s not a ‘games platform’ it’s not made to ‘shift units’ or gain ‘market share’. If you’re taking this product seriously, you’re kinda missing the point.
Presentation
Just like Panics fine FTP software, the presentation is crisp and clear. Panic have always been a company that is passionate about design and presentation and this shines through the boxes and how the device is presented when you first open it. Yellow shines through the whole presentation.
The unit
Panic worked on the design with teenage engineering. Not being musically talented, Teenage Engineering had kinda of passed me by, but it’s obvious after looking at their offerings that they make absolutely beautiful pieces of hardware.
Their Mini-ITX case makes me contemplate building a PC. Something I haven’t thought of in years.
Whilst it looks like a simple yellow square at first, it’s a system of the small details that all add up. The more you look at it the more you spot the small considerations and how tight the design is. The screws and how they have holes into fit the optional purple case are a part of the units silhouette, creating an identity (Look at the icon on the back of the unit).
The mesh over the speaker case, the metal on the famous crank. It’s a beautiful looking piece of hardware that looks fun and considered at the same time.
USB-C charging is great, and I can’t wait for the stereo dock
The Screen
The display is a 1-bit sharp memory LCD. It’s not e-ink but has some of the same properties when it comes to power use. This means the playdate screen is always on, just like e-ink, so it displays the time/date when at rest (you have a choice of multiple different clocks to display when the unit is at rest.
The display being 1 bit means it’s black or white. No greyscale, so greys are made by dithering patterns onto the screen. This gives games a very distinctive look. People will compare the playdate to gameboys and other early handhelds, but this screen really reminds me of the original black and white Macintosh displays. In some ways, the playdate feels like if hypercard had a games console.
I’ve never seen a display quite like this before. Imagine an original gameboy screen without the smearing, or e-ink without the latency. You have to see it to appreciate it. It runs up to 50fps, but games are typically 30fps and in the right lighting it just looks spectacular. It’s such an odd combination of capabilities.
By right lighting however, I really do mean the right lighting. You absolutely must have a good and direct souce of light on the screen. The screen is reflective and not back-lit. Playing in the open air, at a desk under a screen-bar or in my living room under a lamp are optimal for playing.
You can play in indirect light as well, but you will get an experience similar to the O.G. Gameboy as you find the best angle to play at.
The Crank
The crank is solid and operates….smoothly? How do you describe a crank? It’s an input interface and works really well. Games like WhiteWater Wipeout essentially use it as an analog input. Crankin uses it to fast forward or rewind time, casual birder to cycle your inventory. Is it a gimmick? More of a unique selling point I’d say. There’s gotta be a fishing game in Season 1? 2?
The experience
Registering the playdate is like activating a streaming service on a a streaming box. Log into your account on the play.date website and turn your play.date on. The play-date will generate a code that you put on your account that ties the two together! At this point you’ll receive your first two games and your playdate season 1 will begin!
The Games - Season 1
Playdate comes with an entire season of 24 games made exclusively for playdate from a range of developers. I’ve deliberately not looked too hard into what is included with the season as I want the games to be a surprise and will try and do write-ups on them as they become available. So far into the process I have the first two weeks of games unlocked.
The games do seem eclectic, some use the crank, some ignore it. You probably won’t like everything (I have zero interest in Boogie Loops having zero musical talent), but it’s pretty much guaranteed something so far will appeal.
SideLoading
Anyone can develop for playdate and the SDK and documentation are freely available. Several titles have popped up on itch.io with some standouts already out there. Bloom in particular seems one not to miss. There’s no issue charging for your games and side loading is as easy as logging into your playdate account, clicking side-load and dragging the .pdx file containing the application over. This then appears on your download list just like the official Season 1 titles.
Mirror
Panic have also related an application to mirror the screen to a Mac or PC. A must for streamers or to capture images. I plan to use it as I start to write up about the Season 1 games.
Summary
The playdate turned out exactly like I’d hoped. It’s A fun little unique community driven toy you can explore and dig into. I’m excited to see what developers start to create for it as well as exploring the rest of Season 1 as it opens up to me through the next 10 weeks. Couldn’t be happier with the experience!
I plan to write up the weekly games as they come out, as well as review the dock when it’s available.
It arrived!
Thinking I will probably write up a review of the hardware, then the season 1 games in real-time as they unlock to me.
My god it’s a cute little tchotchke though 🥰 🎮
The pleasure and the pain of getting a new Macbook
Got a new M1 Macbook Pro now apparently a ton have hit the refurb store (Thanks Youtubers everywhere 😜!) First impressions were I immediately love the build quality, the screen is amazing (HDR + ProMotion = Lush)
However, I Instantly run into what is apparently quite a well known problem with absolutely terrible WiFi performance that would drop out at 5Mbps, corrupt downloads and generally be absolutely unbearable.
Initially I was worried I had got a lemon but did some googling online. Thanks to Reddit and Stackoverflow I discovered this initially appeared to be related to having Bluetooth and WiFi enabled at the same time and disabling Bluetooth would resolve the issue.
Pretty unacceptable as I like my wireless headphones 🙄
Some more digging lead me to discover this specifically appears to be related to Apples AWDL (Apple Wireless Direct Link) protocol.
This runs IP over Bluetooth and (Maybe….appears to….?) run over WiFi as well directly between devices. It runs over interface awdl0
I discovered the issue was instantly solved by shutting the interface down with
sudo ifconfig awdl0 down
but the interface appeared to turn itself on constantly, killing performance again. Some more fiddling, I discovered turning off Airdrop resolved this and now my WiFi has been stable for hours. 👍
Apple hardware is in a fabulous place with the M1 series of chips at the moment. The Macbook Pro returning to an evolution of the pre taskbar years is also very welcome, but dear god how is it possible sofrware problems like this still exist that have a history of being an on-again / off again problem over years and years and years. I could go on about other issues like this in MacOS.
I could come up with dozens of examples of how MacOS still frustrates. It’s 2022 and Podcasts still don’t reliably sync! A podcast app made by one man works absolutely fine…
Anyway, now I’ve wasted my first day of ownership resolving this I’m now off to download my apps and have fun! 👨💻
Short Thoughts on the M1 iPad Pro
I will leave the long form reviews to those who do it as a living but thought I’d post some of my notes after a weekend with the new device.
The Device Itself
Not to discount other peoples experiences of the product, but it wouldn’t be a new Apple product launch if there wasn’t a ‘something-gate’ issue for the worst parts of Apple fandom to hand-wring over 🤷♂️
Accessories
The future?
We’ll see what iPadOS 15 brings. Scuttlebutt from some is that there’s bigger software changes on the cards that will unlock more magic of the M1 and the increased RAM. I personally think the upgrade will be more conservative than people think, but I do hope for much requested features such as…
I do not think we will see a larger focus on ‘desktop’ style apps or rendering, Nor do I think we’ll see anything like a Samsung DeX experience as some have wanted. I do think we will finally see the Pro-Apps translated to iPadOS.
Summary
Nothing comes closer to the view of the future of computing than what the iPad Pro is. It’s the most adaptable, transformable computer and a true joy to use.
It’s just that vision hasn’t moved forwards considerably hardware wise from the 2018 model. Introduction of mouse support and the Magic keyboard has done a lot of heavy lifting in regards to iPad usability over the past 3 years. Let’s hope WWDC reveals how that will be pushed forwards soon.
