Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

A month ago I bought myself an iPad. It was on a good sale and was within my toys budget so I bought it even though I've reasoned for many years that a tablet is a digital third wheel. I figured I might as well give it a try. (Plus, okay, there was a bit of retail therapy in there during a week when I felt blue for no particular reason.)

So, now it's a month later. What's the truth of it— is the iPad a trusty tool I use every day, or is it like an awkward "third wheel" on a date?

Sadly, my iPad so far is that unhelpful third wheel. Most of the time it sits by my desk gathering dust. The one situation where I've really used it & enjoyed it was flying to/from Australia. Using my iPad to watch inflight movies and play games was way better than doing the same on my iPhone. The bigger screen absolutely rocked. But the rest of the time in my day-to-day life I'm fine with the smaller screen and pocketability of my iPhone.

My birthday is this week. I mentioned that a few days ago already. One thing I only hinted at there is that I rarely do anything special on my birthday anymore. I got out of the habit of birthday celebrations from my years in college and graduate school when my mid-December birthday fell not only in the run-up to Christmas but also during final exams week. On my birthday classmates were generally either studying for their last exam and didn't want to carve out time to celebrate with me, or had already finished their last exam and left town for winter break.

Well, just because I've gotten accustomed to not feeling love from others (other than my spouse of many years) doesn't mean I can't practice a little self-love. Monday night I bought myself an iPad!



I got the idea to treat myself to an iPad when we dropped by a Costco store on Sunday. Right next to the sale-priced 15" MacBook Air I envied were a few also-sale-priced iPad models. In particular I thought about the $250 iPad 9th generation model.

As we went out to dinner Monday evening I decided I'd drop by local Costco afterward and pick one up. I've never owned an iPad nor felt like it was a good value for me, but for $250 I decided it was worth a small splurge. Except once we were in the store I up-sold myself to the slightly pricier 10th generation iPad, for $350.



What's the difference between the 9th and 10th generation iPads? For one, the 10th gen is available in this beautiful blue color. 😅 The 9th gen only comes in silver or dark gray. Other than that, it has a one year newer processor (A14 chip vs. A13) and has a slightly larger screen (10.9" vs. 10.2') without being bigger overall. Oh, and it uses a USB-C plug instead of a proprietary Apple Lightning plug.

Like I said, this is my first iPad. I'll figure out over the coming days how to fit it into my routines.

My two Macs, work and personal, were pestering me for upgrades yesterday. MacOS "Sonoma" is up to version 14.1. I was running the latest version of "Venture", 13.6.1. On my work machine there's company software that forces me to take upgrades after a certain period of time, so I figured I'd get ahead of that nagging by upgrading the OS now. What a mistake!

For some reason I decided to upgrade my personal computer first, even though there's no requirement on taking upgrades for it. I think I was thinking it'd be lower risk. At least I had the presence of mind to make a Time Machine backup before applying the OS upgrade. That turned out to be critical when I chose to downgrade away from Sonoma and had to wipe my disk and restore from backup!

Why I Didn't Like Sonoma

What was wrong with Sonoma? Two or three things, some little and one bigger. The little things are UX nits I don't like. The highlighting of title bars is different. And the lock screen includes a digital clock in a ridiculously large font. If you've updated an iPhone anytime recently, you know what I'm talking about. Even stupider that clock's font can't be reduced (on the desktop) though it can at least be removed. Though then the login prompt stays down at the bottom of the screen for no good reason.

The big thing I didn't like is that MacOS Sonoma screws up Adobe Photoshop Elements. My 2022 Elements at least doesn't crash, like I read some accounts of online, but there are problems with none of the color pickers displaying properly. That's a small thing but also kind of a big thing... as one of the main things an image editor is used for is to modify colors!

Support channels on this problem were useless. Both companies just finger-point at the other. Adobe fanbois state, "Why should Adobe fix something Apple broke?" while Apple says Adobe was provided advanced access to the new OS months ago to qualify its apps and prepare updates if necessary. Adobe's only update right now is, "We've just released Elements 2024 >> CLICK HERE TO BUY! "

Downgrading: Wipe, Reinstall, Restore

The process to roll back to the older OS turned out to be harder than many support sites but not crazy overall. That backup I made immediately before upgrading turned out to be my salvation!

First, I tried simply restoring the backup. That's what most sites say works. It does not work. It does not support rolling back the OS, at least not between major versions. Apple says you have to reinstall the older OS— which requires erasing your disk.

I considered the risks of wiping my disk. I do have that Time Machine backup (actually I have several)... but would it work? I reassured myself that this is a normal process. Copying via a TIme Machine backup is one of the standard ways of migrating to a new computer.

I held my breath as I pressed the button to erase the disk. It asked me if I'm sure. Then if I'm sure I'm sure. Then if I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure. There were so many confirmation prompts I had to take at least one breath in there somewhere. 🤣

The reinstall took a few hours. I left my computer sitting overnight to finish. This morning the new— I mean, old— OS was installed and the computer was at it's, "Hi, I'm your new computer, let's get your stuff copied over!" state. I chose my Time Machine backup and left it to chug along for about 20 minutes. Success!

Well that fast. After I took my computer to the Apple Store last Friday for repair I thought it wouldn't be back from the shop until Thursday. I got a text message today around 3:15pm that it was back at the store, fixed, and ready for pickup.

I decided to wait a few hours before driving to the store. Meanwhile I already started composing in my head the glowing review I'd write about Apple's customer service, with how their repairs were so speedy and everyone who assisted me in the process was highly trained and took responsibility immediately without making me argue to get warranty coverage. Then I had a series of bad interactions at the store.

First, the door greeters were busy lip syncing songs on their headphones. They were so into their music they didn't notice I was looking at them, speaking to them, and waiting for a response. "Go sit over there," one of them finally said. Then when I sat where indicated, "No, not there, over-there over-there!"

After a few minutes another staffer came out with my computer. He had me sign for the repair and then disappeared. "Hmm, I should verify the computer works before I leave the store," I thought to myself. It's a good thing I checked— because it didn't. My password wasn't working, and there was no documentation about what it was changed to.

I flagged down another staffer, interrupting her from reading her Instagram. "I just got my computer back from repair, and my password has been changed," I explained. "I don't know what the password is now."

"Let's see," she offered. But then quickly argued, "They don't change the password."

We went back and forth a few times about how, no, really, I do remember my password and had tried (and failed) multiple times to log in already. She told me we'd have to reset it and went back to reading her IG while my computer reset.

It took a few minutes and a few reboots to complete the password reset process. The whole time I was splitting her attention about 50/50 with her social media.

During one of the waits I asked her to explain the way the repair was documented on the invoice. "This description of the problem sounds like they're saying I dropped or somehow caused severe physical damage to the machine," I explained.

She looked at the invoice briefly and, instead of explaining what the failure code meant or admitting that she didn't know, mocked my question. "Well, did you pay for it? ...No, you didn't. So obviously we don't think you dropped it, because if we did we wouldn't fix it for free."

Next I tried opening some picture previews to ensure that the display was fixed. When I tried opening an image file on local SSD the system hung with the spinning hourglass icon. No files would open in preview. I called the staffer's attention away from IG again and asked her for help.

"Oh, you're probably running too many applications," she shot back.

"I'm literally not running any applications. You just saw me reboot this machine."

"Okay, let's open your Activity Monitor and see what you're running."

"I'm literally not running any—"

"Well, you're running a Window Server," she said, seizing on the first name on the list of services. "That's your problem!"

"I'm not running any application called Window Server," I explained. "That's a built-in part of MacOS—"

"Hey," she interrupted, "It's your computer. I don't know what you're doing with it."

"I'm telling you, it's a part of MacOS, which you should know— You know what, nevermind, I'm good." I closed my computer and walked out of the store.

I've had my new computer for 10 days now. How's it going? Here are Five Things:

1. In some respects, little has changed. My last 2 personal computers have been MacBook Airs, this is another MacBook Air. So much is familiar.


2. Everything is faster. That much I expected. And it's not just because there's a lot more CPU power— it's also because I configured this machine with 16GB RAM, vs. 8 GB (max) in my previous Air. Memory is the limiting factor on many desktop/laptop computing applications... especially when you've got multiple applications open simultaneously.


3. The screen rocks. Apple wedged a new display in the M2 MacBook Air. The old display wasn't a slouch, but this new one is awesome. With so many pixels (2560x1664) text is super sharp, and I can work on high res images without so much zooming out and/or panning. Plus, the new display is bright.


4. The squared-off shape is... okay. It's a little sad that Apple abandoned the signature, wedge shaped design the 'Airs used for more than 10 years. The new 'Air looks like a slightly smaller, svelter MacBook Pro. That's both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because it's a clean, modern look; but also bad, because now it's kind of anonymous. Either way, there's no loss of compactness. The new shape is actually smaller than the previous one overall. (See my side-by-side picture when I unboxed the MacBook Air.)


5. Moving to dongle-land is... not so bad. A small but significant feature I loved in my previous 'Airs was the built-in SD card slot. When Apple dropped this from their design two years ago. I actually held off replacing my computer for more than 18 months hoping they'd bring it back. Last month I decided to take the good with the bad and accept that I'd have to use a dongle to read SD cards. I bought a 3-function dongle for about $15 and... using it doesn't suck.
   
   The dongle is compact enough that it fits in my camera bag without being a hindrance. And it's surprisingly fast. I surmise that's because it's running over a USB-C bus instead of the old built-in slot probably piggybacking on a slower USB-A architecture.

Overall I definitely enjoy the new computer. I'm glad I bought it. I quail a bit at the price— around $1800 plus tax due to the upgraded RAM and SSD storage I configured— but that's not bad if I get another 6½ years out of this one like I did my previous one.

Speaking of 6½ years, I kind of regret sticking with my last computer that long. The faster-is-better thing and the much greater SSD storage make me wish I'd upgraded a year or two ago to start enjoying these benefits sooner. I'll more seriously consider replacing this machine around the 4-5 year mark.

There's good news/bad news on the new MacBook Air I ordered July 23. The good news was that it shipped on the 29th with expected delivery by Aug 9— an improvement over the estimate of Aug 10 ~ Aug 19 when I ordered. Even better, it cleared US customs this morning (it was shipped from China), and UPS estimates delivery by tomorrow.

The bad news? It's UPS. Their drivers are notorious for not even attempting to deliver a package when it requires a signature. Waiting for a signature would slow they down too much and hurt their numbers. They just tag a "Nobody was home" sticker on the door and hop back in the truck. Fuck UPS, that bunch of fuckups.

I've been waiting to replace my laptop, a MacBook Air I've had for now... 6.5 years! When the M2 MacBook Air was announced several weeks ago I decided it's time to upgrade. This new version is literally what I was waiting for... even though it's not everything I was hoping for. (The inclusion of an SD card slot would've made it 💯.)

The new Air went on sale for preorders last Friday. I didn't rush to place an order because I was on vacation and it's not that urgent I replace this machine. But this week I'm back at home, so on Tuesday I went to Apple's site and started speccing out my machine. Before I pushed the "Buy it now" button I realized... I need a new credit card first! 🤣

Okay, so I don't literally need a new credit card. I have several already I can purchase the machine on. But it's a sizeable purchase, and I'd like to get maximum value from credit card points for it. That means opening a new credit card with a big sign-up bonus, and using this big purchase to go a long way toward meeting the spending requirement.

I applied online for a new credit card and was accepted right away. The card should arrive in the mail mid-next week. Once I've got the card I'll order my next laptop. Between now and then I think I might visit an Apple store to see one in person. The machine are supposed to be in stores tomorrow. I figure that although the machines are sold out for a few weeks at this point the stores will retain a few copies to use as demo models on the floor. I'm curious about how the new non-wedge shape looks as well as whether the "midnight" color looks more blue or black

This week Apple announced its new MacBook Air. Link: Apple press release. I've been waiting for this because I love my Air but it's 6.5 years old. That's an eternity in computing!

I looked at replacing my Air in November 2020 when the M1 processor model came out but decided there were too many things I thought were the opposite of improvements in that model. I considered it again earlier this year as I'm constantly space-crunched on SSD storage for my digital photos. But still it wasn't right. In particular, I hate the loss of an SD card slot. That really simplifies my workflow for digital photography! So I waited for the next model in hope it would come back.

Now the new Air is here. Let's take a look!



The headline feature is that the new MacBook Air sports the new M2 processor. The case it comes in is slightly redesigned. The wedge shape gives way to more traditional box shape, though overall the max thickness is said to be thinner, and the weight remains svelte at 2.7 pounds. And it's available now in four colors. Rumors that Apple would offer half a dozen bright colors á lá the classic iMac didn't pan out. But in addition to silver, dark gray, and gold, there's now dark blue.

But what about that SD card slot? I was hopeful it'd be in the new M2 Air after it reappeared last year in the M1 Pro MacBook. Alas, no. Though the new Air does add one slot, a dedicated charging port in addition to two USB-C ports. Having to run power through the limited USB-C ports was a pain that made it necessary to use clunky, failure prone adapters for even relatively simple setups. Separating out the power makes things way easier, and it's a MagSafe adapter, too.

What about the new M2 MacBook Pro, then? Well, the new one— the 13" model— does not have an SD slot, either! It's the 14" model that has it. Sure, I could go with a 14" Pro... though with a comparable configuration of RAM and SSD, but with the slower(?) M1 Pro CPU, it costs $300 more than the Air.  And it's larger and heavier. I'm not going to pay that kind of a premium to avoid dragging around a dongle for my photography workflow.

A few weeks ago I wrote "Air Envy?" about considering whether to replace my beloved MacBook Air, which is almost 5 years old, with Apple's exciting new M1-powered model. At the time I decided I would stick with my current laptop a bit longer. Now there's an compelling Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale on it that's got me reevaluating everything again.

B&H is selling various models of the new Air for basically 10% off. In terms of discounts on current-model Apple products, particularly just-released models, that's huge.

The reason I haven't already jumped at this deal is that upgrading to a new Air would entail costs and frictions beyond just buying a new machine:

1. I still use a few 32-bit apps. The new Air comes with a new version of Mac O/S in which support for 32-bit apps has been dropped. I would have to buy newer versions of these apps. Expense + hassle.
2. The app I use that is most performance sensitive is not written for the M1 chip. I'd have to run it in Apple's emulator (Rosetta 2). While I've read that works, its performance is not stellar. To get top performance out of it I'd have to wait for a new, M1-ready version to be released and then buy it. Expense + hassle.
3. I'm still dissatisfied with losing the great ports on my older model Air and having to having to carry and use a dongle practically constantly to connect anything other than power. Expense + hassle.

I'm torn about what to do here. The discount is nice, but the prospect of having to immediately re-buy a few apps and buy and use a dongle makes me think I'd rather see how well I can stretch my current computer another year.