As discussed at end of M.b pod, when I setup blog.w4rner.com @w4rner here I was only intending on posting about #tech, but I’m now using it for #arts base, and candid life stuff, so am switching to more personal wa.rner.me @warner | will update with any learnings from switch

Now ProtonMail’s redesign goes public, I’m ditching Apple Mail Bridge for web. I do wish they would iterate faster though, cos competitors (Apple Mail, HEY) are coming on leaps & bounds on privacy — #email #tech

Quick-take: Apple wants you to spend all your life looking at one of their devices, it doesn’t really care which and soon neither will you.

Guide to my notes:
Q = a question I’m hoping an Apple expert can help me with
italic = a personal aside

(vlog review to follow on Monday, final feature on FirstWeek LightPhone review)

iOS 15

Comms

FaceTime takes on Zoom

Audio: Noise Isolation vs. Wide Spectrum
Video: Portrait Mode - auto-blur background
FaceTime Links: Apple tries to get in on Calendar integration. Available for non-Apple users. It will now be my 2nd choice after Signal.
Music: SharePlay

Remember when Apple & Mozilla bragged that picture-in-picture makes you more productive? Now they’re bragging about picture-in-picture-in-picture:

AppleMusic feature: what does “Add to Library” actually even do? I’m so confused by Apple Music (reluctant Family user!).

Sharing online is “meaningful” lol!! Good segue to Focus:

Focus

Notifications

Summary delivery 👍 I will do after email time.

DND call features extended to Messaging.

FocusMode

Taking on RescueTime

Q: Does it integrate with ScreenTime? We need that data to empower users!

Intelligence (AI)

Live Notes : text surfaced

Nabs CamScanner ComputerVision features
’Deep Neural Network’ phone call was actually quite endearing!

Spotlight

Rich results takes on Google + Wikipedia

Memories

AppleMusic cut to the beat automatically
Great low-filter authentic social content: could become M.b’s answer to Stories?

Q: Craig made sure to say “on-device” before “intelligence”, but does it really stay on-device? As I’ve raised before with Ben Evans parroting this, surely it links data with iCloud?!

Wallet

Don’t use. Stay analog as long as you can for high-importance stuff.

Weather

Integrating DarkSky for hyper-localised stuff. When is iPad getting an app though?

Maps

City-dwellers: really no excuse not to jump from g00gle Maps now! I’d also jump from CityMapper, given crisis there about need to monetize data to run the business.

AirPods / Siri

this guy is fighting his nerd instincts in presentation hard! Must smile, must smile I really don’t want my whole 20-item shopping list read out when I walk past Tesco.
FindMy App beefed out: will delete “Wunderfind”

Some big artists including Ariana, doing Spatial Audio release.
Q: How hard is this to engineer?

iPad OS 15

Home Screen: Widget & App Library

As I predicted on iOS14, iPad catches up a year later. Let’s hope they get it right first-time this time.
Goes beyond: hide entire pages!
Where TF did that iPad go he chucked up?! Very cool effect

New UI

Split-view. I wouldn’t use unless 13in.

Notes

Brit’s smile is painful to watch Q: Do QuickNotes only work on Safari?

Translate

Why is iPad getting Translate before Calculator?

Swift Playgrounds

You can build apps. I’d love to tutor this.

!Privacy!

My big-picture question here is: a) is data truly ‘on-device’? What about iCloud
b) even if it is, how can it be exploited?

Mail Privacy Protection

they’re going after pixel tracking. Just after I quit AppleMail (via Bridge) to native ProtonMail. Q: are Proton still ahead of Apple Mail on this?

App Privacy Reports

the 3rd party domains are pretty unintuitive (e.g. ‘doubleclick’ for Google). They need make it as user-friendly as Markup’s Blacklight

Siri

On-device speech recognition
Super fast!

iCloud

jack my black tee swag. He wouldn’t fit in mine tho. Wouldn’t fit through arms

Account

Legacy contacts 👍

Private Relay

Q: what tech is this? a) VPN: if so how no speed loss?
b) more like Cloudflare 1^4 which I’m still tryna understand!

Health

I’m blessed with good health so haven’t tried to tech-enhance. I do think meds need to communicate with patients more like Apple. Health-Sharing 👍

Watch

vulgar product. I doubt I’ll bother with wearables until ~2023. Probs more likely Glass 2.0, because I’m only interested in enhancing iRL. So many of these apps are virtual-only. Like why need Photos-mosiac on an inch-screen?!

Breathe App: I recommend doing meditation bookended the day when your tech is off

Home

Why emphasis on ‘at home’. “We’re all popping out 6 (twenty, twenty, twenty) 21” (‘621’)

Interoperality: new standard: “matter”
Q: is it actually competitive?

lol at the eager beavers who couldn’t wait for these features so sold out their home privacy to Amazon & Google

MacOS Monterey

“Idolise the rich and their vulgar fashions | Zooming round in you Ferrari | It ain’t hard to see | Where you got that Patagonia fleece shiny blue shirt” (’Monopoly: England’) Q: is it a place or the sea??

Universal Control

Q: has it replaced Sidecar?
Again: can’t believe they are claiming this “improves focus”. There’s more screens!

AirPlay to Mac

Can it easily play to others Macs?

Shortcuts!

Uses I’ll use: Quick opens
Finder automations: e.g. Convert HEIC to Jpg

Safari

Mozilla needs to jack Tab Groups. It’s a bit like SessionSync. Very cool link sharing. I’ve recommend to Cutt.ly to allow opening multiple tabs: this might actually be technically feasible now.
Q: Can I customize Mozilla to jack that tab color = page Background color ??

Devs

Aazam & I are tryna get DinnerSpinner.FastFeedApps.com out this summer, cos there’s never been a better time to try new eateries! Screen Time API !! Q: if someone technical sees an opportunity to exploit this to make a screen time recorder app, please “warner me”

Swift

Concurrency
tip to dev comms, don’t use the phrase “race conditions” in release notes, like Jean said it will not be understood!

AppStore

Go on then: convince me you deserve 15% of all payments, even though Stripe only takes 2%. Better ASO: A/B test custom Product Pages
In-app Events: could be fun to do Food Holidays on DinnerSpinner

XCode Cloud

Apple’s least user-friendly product, maybe gets improved? Look forward to being able to collaborate more with Aazam.
Q: does this mean we don’t have to install full tens-of-gigs Mac app?
Full rollout in the Fall. Might have a price?!

so weird she said it was better when she switched from a human video to a memoji. Does she really wanna become an emoji?

Biggest Absences

ScreenTime
Device longevity: no mention of anti-obsolences, or anti-theft (e.g. lockdown in FindMy)
Tech enhancing real-life events, e.g. restaurants or live music

(edit: immediate Markdown reformatting)

Thanks @mdrockwell for inspiring me to customize Firefox for the first time. Here’s what both of your recommended tweaks to 89 look like in action — #tech

Giving 1.1.1.1 (btw - what black magic is that domain?!) a go on Mac. M.b (e.g. @sonicrocketman): can anyone speak to whether it’s a good idea? Suspicious Cloudflare provide free. + how does it interact with other VPN services (e.g. Proton)? — #tech

FirstWeek FlipPhone — #tech

FirstWeek FlipPhone — #arts

Just added a triplet of promo videos for the Album Launch to the webpage, ranging from the informative to the comedic | check ‘em out this week while I’m offline, and if you’re Southern England: grab yourself a ticket before they gone! — #livemusic 🎵 #arts

While I’m offline for FirstWeek FlipPh.one next week, dig out the wireless 📻 and tune in live on Wednesday to @voicefmradio 103.9FM. It’s also online as is @thebearradio on Friday! — #radio 🎵 #arts

I can’t help but find it adorable when #Carrd by @ajkln can’t render an emoji, so “decomposes” it like it’s playing Charades… “male painter” = “man” + “painter” — #emoji #codeless #crystal #tech

So cool hearing Obama on Conan | fave bit is when he refuses to get carried away about being a novelist, and says good to know when you’re an “OK dancer”. How I’d describe my dancing too #DoubleThreat — #arts

FYI: #SmalltownDreamer artists listing their post-lockdown gigs with @Songkick : must use official vendor URL | so TicketTailor in my case rather than own site where that widget is embedded | can’t wait to add other artists! — #live #music 🎵 #arts

New Yorker ignore Olivia Rodrigo’s attempt to add edge via capitalisation in otherwise solid review | p.s. @theDanielNigro is the ‘Dan’ who masterminded SOUR — 🎵 #arts

“Tech Tech Boom” spoof tech show is a great concept but I’m not convinced about delivery. What is the “laver” (sic) in trailer: www.bbc.co.uk | 1st gag in 1st ep identical: ‘product does nothing’ |does it get better @bbcsounds ? — #techtechboom #comedy #tech

Congrats @StarNow on getting acquired by @backstage . You guys simply built the best produt from your corner of the world 🌏 | I’ve done a couple successful collabs from StarNow.co.uk/Cerulean | #SavvyIndie recommended — #casting #arts

Twitter has the audacity to call it’s account search “People”. When you search “person” only 1 is not a ‘metal ghost in a rainbow box’ | 👂about Micro.blog, a Twitter companion full of humans — #humanetech #tech

Thought I already told you: I’m in the 25%! - Though #PornKillsLove for me so stopped in 2014, if you enjoy it pls don’t be shamed into sending 💸 if you receive this, report to email provider & consider DMARC — #tech

Agreed too many games @mdrockwell in ADAs. It’s because that’s now Apple’s main software revenue source (see @BenEvans on this) — #apple #tech

Congrats Edem for coming in hard with Creator Care 2nd interview w/ very #SavvyIndie @AudioMack VP | some “Swan Centre” commenter’s ‘begged’ me to upload it there | maybe I’ll distro #SmalltownDreamer there now DistroKid allow manual linking — #streaming 🎵 #arts

I’ve used Trello for years, and then discovered Notion, which was more flexible with view configurations.

Then when I started collaborating on my musical Snowflakes in SoCal! with our Music Director, I tried AirTable because it treats non-text fields (e.g. sound attachments) with more respect than Notion does. Ever since then, as I discuss on a forthcoming podcast appearance on Chris Dancy’s “Off the Record”, I’ve been going hard on AirTable (according to Chris).

But I’ve had a niggling feeling in my mind for a while: won’t my boards just get stuck in AirTable like my Trello & Notion projects are?

Admittedly as Chris pointed out in the interview, AirTable aren’t at early Facebook levels of literally not letting you even export your data. They do let you export data as csv (though as far as I’m aware that is only per view, perhaps there is some account level full export?).

I didn’t wanna dwell in this on the pod to bring the vibe down, but I still have some serious misgivings.
With AirTable, the data is only half (or less) of the picture.
Most of your time is spent on configuring around that data: simple metadata like Field Types, the relationships between tables i.e. a full-picture of the database, but most uniquely the View Configurations (the sorts, filters etc. to create each given View).
I would love for that effort not to go to waste if I switch with brand’s product I house my data in.

AirTable doesn’t have a Metadata API or Export

Here’s info on their so-called “metadata API”: airtable.com/api/meta.

Firstly, it’s not complete:
Not only does it contain nothing about view configuration (i.e. the sorting & filtering you do to create each view). They haven’t even updated their view types to include the latest view (Gantt):



There is a legacy form for requesting access to this limited API: airtable.com/shrWl6yu8…  But at the end you get this charming message:

 In short, AirTable are acting like a closed shop on the metadata level - which is where the action is happening for their product!

So I’ve been waiting for an open source version to come around with fully open APIs.

And this week, voila: NoCoDB launches to acclaim on ProductHunt.

AirTable (& its Consultant Community) clearly see it as a threat because they flagged my question-sourcing post for the founder in the AirTable Community as Spam:

Speaking with NoCoDB’s founder

Today I chatted over Zoom with Naveen based out of India.
He reckons they’re 3 months off core feature parity with AirTable, and based on the demos I believe that, though I remain to be convinced if they’ll do web embeds.
Their business model will be to open-source and monetize through hosting like Wordpress, and I believe they will follow a similar trajectory of becoming market leader because they will be cheaper for enterprise.
To follow the analogy, if they stay as closed as they are, AirTable & Notion will end up like Website Builders - small market share but huge profit margins because focus on user-friendly & support - and NoCoDB or a similar open-source will be like Wordpress with whole ecosystem of hosting & consulting. AirTable can either be GoDaddy - failing to innovate - or Squarespace - innovating to have the best UI, but still a closed shop.

Any database is better than none… or a spreadsheet

This isn’t to say that I’m bailing on AirTable any time soon. Like I say in the pod, I’m banking on AirTable as part of my tech stack for the next 2 years.

They’ve shown the aptitude to be ahead of the curve, so they might be able to outbuild NoCoDB in terms of the front-end customization tools (like Softr and Pory) which SavvyIndie creatives are yearning for! They would also do well to strengthen offline backup to at least make people feel their (meta)data is secure & accessible if it is going to be in their silo.

But they can’t delude themselves into thinking they can create a monopoly with a technology as vital as relational databases. It’s data geeks who use it. We want to own our (meta)data!

Unless they switch up their philosophy and show a commitment to interoperability soon, they will be relegated to a minor player in the very space they helped pioneer.

Come on AirTable, be true to your name and let our (meta)data breathe. We’ll feel more confident investing our craft in your product, and pay for your features if you continue to innovate!

Trend towards less extreme black dark modes. On Micro.blog @stett gives Marfa template a more muted DarkMode colour scheme (right), after @tingle twilight blue tweak. Look forward to calling him tomorrow for advice on tweaking a template next week! — #crystal #tech

The #Privacy Focussed #Analytics article I wish I’d written: by @CarlCassar from Alan Partridge’s ends | (Couldn’t find contact: but wanted to notify typo under Plausible image) | @Cloudflare since opened up to 10 sites free - but worse UI/UX as predicted. — #tech

Whilst I rate @_matthewpalmer indie hustle, and back the free tier of “🚀”, the free tier of “Vanilla” is easily ‘dwarfed’ by @dwarvesf “Hidden Bar” — #digimini #mac #apple #tech

Ideal evening ⚽️

SNVC @PolskyCenter (2/2): Axo | Zoom: window defo too small with 2! Miss Pitch “performance”! | Why do people pronounce “tenet” as “tenents”?? | Problem: specialty #farmers: boring but probably important. Could have explained basic terms clearer at start — #techq