dot info

I haven't posted anything substantial on dot info in months. Priorities change and this blog has become less of a priority. I still want (and love) to write, but I feel that if my writing is going to be sporadic, I am better off writing on Medium.

I am still going to maintain my about page and will continue to co-host Diagnostics & Usage on 5by5. But when inspriation strikes and I want to write, it won't be here anymore. This is my last post on dot info. Follow me here on Medium. I hope to post something soon.

The App Store for tvOS has grown rapidly in the short time since its release, and we’ve become fond of few great apps that go beyond your normal options like Netflix, HBO Now, and Hulu. We’ve put together a list of our favorites.

TV consumption used to be fundamental. Before streaming services and over-the-top boxes, you would pick a cable package with a set number of television channels. To find out when your favorite show was on, you either purchased a TV Guide, flipped to a channel and stared at a scrolling list, or most recently, accessed an interactive guide via a cable box.

But now, with cord-cutting becoming more popular and hit shows releasing exclusively on streaming services like Netflix, to find out what’s available, when it’s available, and what episode you are on could become a time-consuming chore. This is where a TV tracker app can be of help.

When Cody and I decided that we wanted to start a tech podcast, there was uncertainty: Would we have good chemistry on the show? Would we find an audience? Would we record more than a few episodes? Fortunately, the answer to those questions were all yes which led to the amazing opportunity to join 5by5. But before episode one of Diagnostics & Usage was recorded, we needed cover art.

When it comes to apps like Photoshop and Pixelmator, I know enough to be dangerous. Even though I'm far from a skilled graphic designer, I decided that I would try to create our cover art for the show and after several revisions in collaboration with Cody, we came up with this.

Looking back on it now, the design has much room for improvement, but at the time it was sufficient enough for us to start recording.

Then we met Joe Darnell. If you are a listener of the show, you may remember Joe from a few of our past episodes. Joe is a talented human being. In his spare time, he hosts multiple podcasts and writes on his website. But what you may not know is that he is a designer for a living.

When Joe reached out to us about the possibility of him giving our cover art a re-design, we were delighted to see what he could come up with. Over the course of a few weeks, Joe worked closely with Cody and I showing us different cover art concepts. Each concept had redeeming and unique qualities, but after reviewing them thoroughly, we chose our favorite elements from each. As the final revision drew near, Joe tweaked colors and object placement upon our request and when we were shown the final product, it was clear to us that this was one of the nicest podcast cover art we've seen.1

We proudly present to you our new cover art for Diagnostics & Usage:

Since I'm not the best at describing the design process, Joe Darnell has produced a great time-lapse video about creating the new design:

We want to give a huge thank you to Joe Darnell and encourage you to check out his work around the Internet. Look out for our first episode of 2016 releasing tomorrow, January 8. If you are new to the show, you can subscribe here.

Note: This article was originally published March 22, 2015 on The Sweet Setup. I am posting it here for preservation purposes. If my original article hasn’t been updated, I recommend you read it on The Sweet Setup.

We wouldn’t consider the OS X app launcher space a crowded one, but there are enough options out there that could make oneself think twice about clicking the download button. After numerous keystrokes and much reflective deliberation, we think that Alfred is the favorite launcher for Mac OS X.

What is an app launcher?

If you are a Mac user, then you have a launcher already installed. Spotlight has been a part of Mac OS X ever since version 10.4 Tiger, and even though its feature set has evolved since then, its purpose started out simple: To help you find and launch files and apps faster than it would take you to navigate to the location with a mouse.

While Spotlight wasn’t the first launcher for OS X, today it sits among a variety of good choices for you to pick from. But the word “launcher” has become less of a descriptor of what you are getting and more of a legacy term. Launchers now give you instant feedback like showtimes, news, and articles. And they’ve also become sort of an automation playground offering plug-ins and scripts for you to accomplish a series of tasks with just a couple of keystrokes.

With its history in mind, we sought to find out which launcher gave us the best experience in daily use while also offering powerful features to those who wished to take advantage of them.

Two new accessories have appeared on Apple.com and in retail stores over the past few weeks. An Apple Watch magnetic charging dock and an Apple "smart" battery case for iPhone 6s. I think many initially -- including myself-- were a little stumped as to why Apple released these now versus months ago along side their respective product launches. But after initial musings subsided, it's clear to me that Apple is sending a loud message. They want a bigger piece of the pie of holiday season accessory sales.

It may not be known to some, though it isn't a secret, that accessories are a huge money-maker. Have you ever had someone at Best Buy badger you non-stop about that extra cable? It's because those cables are the reason you are even standing in a Best Buy. They can sell you a $50 HDMI cable that costs them $1.50 to make. They aren't getting those margins on the TV you're purchasing.

I'm not saying Apple doesn't know this. They sell $40 adapters. But what I find new is their willingness to widen their net to give consumers what they want. Apple Watch docks became hugely popular after launch and if Apple didn't initially realize that, they clearly do now. Though the battery case is the biggest example of bending to the consumer. To date, Apple has always sacrificed battery for thinness on iPhone. As long as they hit their internal number, they seem fine with the current customer sat.

The smart battery case signifies two things:

Jony Ive is losing some battles. I would find it staggering if he truly liked this new case design.

Although Apple sold third-party battery cases and bricks before, they are finally sending a message that there isn't a battery breakthrough in site for smartphones in the near future.

Tim Cook is smart. Apple has manufactured tiny batteries for decades. Their processes are efficient and supplies strong. I wouldn't be shocked to find out if they were using the same batteries from older iPhone models inside this case.

Your intentions are pure, but your usefulness has clearly become uselessness. The idea of you -- now in hindsight -- was a clear misstep by your creators in trying to bring iOS paradigms to the Mac. But this was the wrong one for them to incorporate.

You are a home screen, but your location doesn't feel like home. While your dock placement is prominent, you hold apps that are already surrounding you and before you were created, we already got to these apps very quickly. Taking the time to organize within you feels counterintuitive and brings the most painful aspect of iOS to Mac OS X.

Please don't take all this personally; there is an upside. You have a dedicated key on every Mac keyboard. Not many OS X elements can say that. Granted, this key is most likely being remapped by a lot of people, but they still have to look at the six squares representing you every time they tap F4. Also, your master who green-lit you into existence is now an accomplished Broadway producer, Snapchat investor and linen connoisseur. That has to account for something.

Your time in Mac OS X is undetermined and I can't say I'd be sad if you were ever removed, but until such day comes, stay strong, stay docked and launch apps. I may not use you, but I'm sure someone does.

Sincerely,

Prior to the fourth-generation Apple TV, if you wanted your app on the platform, you didn't choose Apple. Apple chose you.

If you were fortuante enough to have your app installed on the second and third-generation Apple TV, you followed strict design guidelines and worked directly with Apple up until the new rounded-rectangular box magically showed up on the home screen.

With the announcement of the App Store for the new Apple TV, many developers' hopes and wishes had finally come true. You could now build and submit apps for the Apple TV much like you would for Mac, iPhone and iPad.

There's only one problem. You can't find any of them.

If you thought that Apple was done curating and selecting apps for your Apple TV, then you are mistaken. All they have done is moved the apps from being pre-installed on your home screen to the Featured page of the App Store. The only page displaying apps. The main way to get in front of user's eyes.

Of course, you can type in random letters on the search page of the App Store if you want to, but let's be honest -- the majority of Apple TV users will unbox, setup and download the apps that are prominently visible.

What's worse, is that developers can't even link to their Apple TV app to promote it. Some have resorted to posting screenshots of a search result in order for a user to find it.

Yes, PCalc is now available on your TV - finally. Here is the closest thing to a link I can give you. Hope you like! pic.twitter.com/chbxaxkSQD

— James Thomson (@jamesthomson) October 30, 2015

It's a shame that Apple didn't incorporate categories or even top charts for the Apple TV App Store. It has surely made developers second guess why they would want to develop an app for a new Apple platform on day one.

Things I’m glad I didn’t spend the last few weeks working on. 1. Apple TV apps.

— Paul Haddad (@tapbot_paul) November 1, 2015

Apple makes mistakes. They are human. But I think that app discoverability needs to be their number one priority for the next software update. And it needs to come fast.

If this isn't resolved by the holiday season, I don't see the number of quality apps going up. Why put in weeks to months of effort into an app that may never see the light of the App Store?

Hopefully Apple can answer that question.

Update: Hours after this post, Apple pushed an update to the App Store to include Top Charts. I'm glad that they are working fast on resolving this misstep.

If there's one piece of advice that I could give someone interested in writing about technology, it is: Don't be Daring Fireball.

Read Daring Fireball, enjoy Daring Fireball, but don't be like Daring Fireball.

I see it every day. New writers, hungry for an audience, modeling their sites after John's. Creating multiple link posts per day when -- in reality -- they should be focused on polishing their writing. If you go back far enough on my site, I did and made the same mistake.

What some people don't realize is that John Gruber didn't always have the luxury to post a long piece once or twice a month.

Navigate to his archives. Now scroll all the way down.

John wrote like a mad-man in the beginning of Daring Fireball's infancy and he kept writing and kept writing until his audience trusted and supported him. That is what has allowed John to have DF's current format of commentary on link posts with bigger pieces written in between.

Others have followed suit and also enjoy varying degrees of success. But they didn't take a shortcut. They wrote and kept writing.

This is why sites like Medium are compelling to me. Although it can be treated as a destination to read great content, It's also a place to go to when you just want to write. No link posts, no fiddling with fonts or designs -- just a blank page. If I decided to start writing today for the first time, I probably would be using Medium.

Though, there is a point of pride in running your own site.

A recent example of this would be writer, Samantha Bielefeld. Love her or hate her, you have to acknowledge that she is garnering attention, retaining readership and building an audience. She's also writing -- a lot.

I'm not telling you what to do. If you run a DF-style blog and are having a fun time then that's great. But I feel like there are some writers who think that is how they should run their site from the start, but don't realize that it's detrimental.

My advice is to use Twitter for your link posts. That is what I'm doing. I can provide a few lines of commentary and share links to my followers and focus on writing articles for my blog and other web sites.1

It is going to take hard work. Not everyone will be an overnight success, but if writing is a passion, you are going to want to get better each time you hit "publish".

I know everything is a remix and I don't want this to come across as a lecture. But take it from someone who used to copy Daring Fireball when this site started in 2011, that I'm a lot happier with writing at least one article per week then spending time posting links with commentary.

Maybe I will have that luxury some day, but it will be a luxury that I've earned.

Wireless networking can be a pain in the ass.

Even with Apple's Airport-line of routers, there are times when my network just isn't working properly.

I think this is partly due to the amount of wirelessly connected devices we have now versus 2008, but I also think that there is more potential interference and bandwidth demand for tasks like HD video streaming and online gaming.

Over the years, both personally and professionally, I've learned tips on how to tweak settings and balance a router's resources so that you run into less problems and spend more time online.

Placement

Your modem may be optimally placed in your home or -- like me -- you didn't have a say on where it was going to be installed. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play around with your router's placement within that area.

When I worked for Apple, I remember my Genius trainer recounting a story of how their Airport Extreme1 wasn't providing the best speeds and range even though it was centrally placed in their modestly sized home.

One day, the router fell off the shelf that it was on and became wedged between the entertainment system and the wall. It was at that point where my trainer saw a tremendous difference in wireless range and speed. Something as simple as moving your router from laying horizontally to vertically can make all the difference. In my case, my Airport Express seems to give me better range when it's elevated around five feet above the ground.

I would encourage you to mess with your router's positioning if you think it could be giving better range.

One last thing about placement. Try to avoid placing your router near kitchen microwaves and home phone bases. Both items can cause awful interference.

Bands

If your router was purchased within the past four to five years, you most likely have a dual-band router which transmits 2.4GHz and 5.5GHz frequencies at the same time.

If you set up one SSID (router name), when a device connects to your router it will give that device one of the frequencies based on what it thinks will give it the best wireless performance. I used to set up my router this way, but when I started to own more devices, I saw more problems. I decided to split each band on a different SSID.

Your router should have a setting to make your 2.4GHz band one name and 5.5GHz band a separate name. In doing this, I've found that it has helped all of my devices stay on the network and receive consistent signal and speeds.

I put my Apple TV, Fire TV and a stationary Mac with Plex on the 5.5GHz network and the rest of my devices on the 2.4GHz. Prior to doing this, my streaming devices would struggle to get the proper bandwidth needed to stream video if other devices were in active use. Now, buffering has become a thing of the past.

For you, it might be better to do the opposite, but you'll have to play around with it.

Channels

Choosing a lesser-used channel for your 2.4GHz and 5.5Ghz frequencies is a way to fight interference and network crowding. If you are like me and live in an apartment building, this settings tweak becomes paramount.

In Mac OS X, if you open up Wireless Diagnostics, click "Window" in the menu bar, then click "Scan", you can see all the surrounding wireless networks and what channels they using. Take note of the most popular channels and in your router settings, choose the opposite for your network.

If your router is on a commonly used channel, it can cause less-than-optimal range and network drop-outs.

802.11x

Routers now are capable of broadcasting 802.11 a, b, g, n and ac wireless signals. It's great to have options, but if your devices are working on the latest n and ac bands, you could be hindering performance by allowing your router to broadcast older wireless signals.

Most routers allow you to limit which 802.11 bands are broadcasted, so if you are the type of person who's on the latest and greatest, I'd see if this could be changed.

Wireless World

Hard-wiring via Ethernet will soon become a thing you only see in server rooms. Knowing how to make your wireless Internet give you the best performance is something we all should know how to do and I hope it becomes less fiddly in the future. But for now -- I hope this helps.

As with every year since 2007, this year’s rumors of the next generation iPhones were in abundance. Apple-watchers were almost certain that we’d see an iPhone 6s and 6s Plus introduced, but what wasn’t as airtight was if Apple would unveil a new c-product in addition to their flagship phones.

In the prior s-cycle, the iPhone 5s was introduced alongside the unapologetically plastic iPhone 5c. A move that – to many – felt unorthodox. As we know now, a 6c was not announced this year and even though it had been rumored, I’d wager that those were patterned guesses.

I think that the iPhone 5c was introduced to solve a whole different set of problems which weren’t as clear at the time as they are now.

iPhone 5

Before the iPhone 5s, Apple started to become predictable with their pricing. A new iPhone would be announced starting at $199 and the previous generation’s price would drop by $100. It worked out very well and would seemingly work out the same way when they introduced the 5s. But that year, Apple would be dropping the price down on an expensive disaster – the iPhone 5.

You didn’t have to work for the company to find out that the iPhone 5 was a manufacturing blunder:

Most of the new units were coming out of the box chipped, scratched and scuffed.

All units were susceptible to dust particles easily getting into the microphone next to the rear camera causing artifacts on your photos.

The Sleep/Wake button would become depressed and unresponsive on an unknown percentage of units manufactured between September 2012 to March 2013 causing Apple to initiate a Replacement Program covering repairs outside of the one-year warranty.

The battery was defective on an unknown percentage of units manufactured between September 2012 and January 2013 again causing Apple to initiate a Replacement Program covering repairs outside of the one-year warranty.

The battery adhesive on certain models was not strong enough causing the battery to become loose inside the phone which could be a potential hazard.

iPhone 5c

Minor manufacturing issues are to be expected with a new form-factor iPhone, but the iPhone 5’s issues were out of control.

I think that the iPhone 5c – though marketed wonderfully – couldn’t have been Apple’s plan all along. I feel Apple knew that if they were going to sell the iPhone 5 for another two years, they would have to address these manufacturing oversights.

No matter what, this was going to be expensive for them and that’s where I think the geniuses inside Apple came up with the iPhone 5c. A phone whose internals, save for the upgraded front-facing camera, were identical to the iPhone 5, but came with none of its failures.

I owned and loved the iPhone 5c. Its plastic curves reminded me of the iPhone 3GS and I never had any of the problems that the iPhone 5 had in the year that I used it.

The iPhone 5c was Apple’s happy accident.

Diagnostics & Usage isn't just the name of my podcast with Cody Coats. Its name comes from Apple's Diagnostics & Usage Data section in iOS. Pre-iOS 8, you could have found this is section under Settings → General → About → Diagnostics & Usage, but now it lives in Settings → Privacy → Diagnostics & Usage.

What Is It?

I would liken the Diagnostics & Usage Data section to the Console on the Mac. There is a lot of noise in there, but sometimes you can find important information about issues related to your device. At its most basic definition, the Diagnostics & Usage Data section is a log of system events that happen on your iOS device. This log isn't tracking your every move, but it is creating entries whenever events like an app crash happens.

Like the Console, unless you are an engineer at Apple, you probably won't know what every string of text means, but I'd like to think I know enough to help you figure out what's important. If you are interested in what's going on in your iOS device, navigate to the section and let's dig in.

Common Entries

Now that you are in your Diagnostics & Usage Data section1, if it's your first time, you may be overwhelmed by the amount of entries and gibberish you are seeing. The good news is that some of these entries are very common across devices and generally can be ignored.

Apple Wireless Diagnostics Data

Entries starting with "awdd-[yyyy-mm-dd]" are the most common. Depending on whether you read the setup screen when configuring iOS, you may remember coming across a screen like this:

If you enabled diagnostics data, Apple will periodically create logs and send them anonymously to their servers for examination. Each time Apple does this, it creates an "awdd" log in that list. If you didn't realize you have enabled this feature, just back out one screen in the Diagnostics & Usage section and toggle it off. Though I'd recommend you keep it on, including the "Share With App Developers" section because it helps resolve bugs a lot faster.

Memory

I would be shocked if there wasn't "JetsamEvent-[yyyy-mm-dd]" entries on your devices. These were previously called "LowMemory" and are logs of when apps and data have been booted from your device's RAM.

Even on the 2 GB-equipped iPhone 6s, I am seeing one or two entries per day which is pretty good, but if you are seeing ten or more per day, you probably haven't turned off your iOS device in a very long time or your device is getting old and new apps are consuming all available RAM. I've found that completely powering off your iOS device, waiting ten seconds, then powering it back on should be done once every few weeks and can help with RAM management.

I wouldn't worry too much about seeing this listed, but there have been situations where I've seen this log hundreds of times on people's phones which could signify a problem and warrant a trip to the Genius Bar.

Stacks

The "stacks-[yyyy-mm-dd]" entry, short for stackshot, doesn't represent a crash. A stackshot collects kernel and OS data that are generally meant for Apple engineers. Some of these entries can be accidentally triggered by users if they press the home button and one of the volume buttons at the same time. These shouldn't be a concern.

Other Entries

Certain entries that you will see daily are "log-sessions", "log-[daemon]" and "CoreTime". There isn't much value into reading these, but you will see them.

Entries like "Carousel", "BTServer", "searchd" and other daemons can be peppered in, but you shouldn't see them every day.

If you've noticed some common entries and know why they are in your diagnostics data, feel free to reach out. I'd love to keep this a running list.

Problematic Entries

Springboard

Think of Springboard like the Finder in Mac OS X. Sometimes Finder locks up, crashes or needs to be relaunched. On a healthy Mac, this should happen close-to-never, but it isn't uncommon to run into it a few times. The same rules apply with Springboard on iOS.

Springboard is what runs your iPhone's home screen. If you've ever experienced a Springboard crash, it's when your device cuts to the Apple logo for about 5-7 seconds then goes back to the lock screen. This is shorter than a complete device reboot.

If Springboard crashes are something you are commonly seeing -- even a few days per week -- I would back up your device, erase your iPhone and restore from your backup. Keep in mind, if your device continues to crash the Springboard, your backup may be corrupt and you will have to erase and set up as a new device.

App Crash

Sometimes when an app is problematic, it is obvious. You see it freezing, hanging or crashing to the home screen. But there are times when an app could be malfunctioning in the background and one way to see that is if the app name shows up in your Diagnostics & Usage data. Like with Springboard, a few entries aren't a problem, but seeing 15-20 happening repetitively each day usually points to a faulty application. These entries may start with the words "LatestCrash" preceding the app's name.

The good news is that most of the time this can be resolved by deleting the application and reinstalling it from the App Store. In certain cases, the app may be poorly developed and I'd recommend looking at alternatives.

If it's a first party app in the logs, then an OS re-install would be in order.

Panic

I've saved the worst for last. Entries ending in "panic" or "panic.plist" have historically meant that your iOS device needs to be replaced due to faulty hardware. In Mac OS X, kernel panics aren't as clear-cut. They could be caused by software or hardware issues and although technically panics work the same way when it comes to iOS, I've never personally seen an iOS device with a "panic.plist" not have to be replaced.

The symptoms that I've seen which would cause a "panic.plist" entry are random device reboots and random device shut-offs where the device gets very hot and can only be turned back on with a hard reset connected to power.

If you are seeing these entries and symptoms, I'd recommend booking a Genius Bar appointment as soon as possible.

Unknowns

With iOS and watchOS evolving on a yearly basis, new entries are bound to appear in the Diagnostics & Usage Data section. I'm sure we aren't meant to know what they all mean, but I hope this has alleviated some curiosity or anxiety about the data that lives there now.

I am not a professional photographer or even hobbyist by any stretch of the imagination, but like many with smartphones, I take photographs often. Over the weekend, my wife and I took a trip to Pennsylvania and it turned out to be the perfect setting for me to try out the new camera on the iPhone 6s.

The results were jaw-dropping.

The following 25 photos are untouched from the iPhone 6s. Some were slightly rotated or cropped, but no other modifications were made.

Flickr Album

iCloud Photo Album

Sometimes when you choose a vacation date so far in advanced, you forget what time a year it is. This happened to me this year when my wife, her family and I decided to book a trip to Disney World the week of September 14th – a notorious week for all things Apple. The Apple event luckily happened a week before, but the release of iOS 9 and watchOS 2 were slated for the 16th.

Being uncertain about what type of Internet access would be available to me on the 16th, I decided to upgrade my iPhone 6, Apple Watch and iPad Air to the GMs early so that I wouldn’t miss out on any of the launch day fun with new apps, updates and features. On Friday, the 11th, by evening time all devices were successfully updated and ready to go to Orlando, Florida. 1

By the end of our stay in Disney, I realized that this trip was a great test of some new features these OS updates introduced and I wanted to share how it made the experience of spending all day in theme parks better.

Wi-Fi Asssist

It’s clear to me now that Wi-Fi Assist was made for vacations. Though Disney provides more free Wi-Fi than I originally anticipated, they still can’t cover every square foot of their land. Disney has also built their new infrastructure so that you benefit from using their mobile app in the parks. This allows you to changes food reservations, check ride wait times, and maneuver FastPass+ time slot to get on rides quicker.

As you can imagine, this could eat up data fast. Thankfully, with Wi-Fi Assist, I was able to keep my Wi-Fi turned on and didn’t get caught in that limbo of the iPhone figuring out if the Wi-Fi signal is giving data or if it should pick LTE. The transition was as seamless as it should have always been. This smart switching reminds of Goolge’s Project Fi and I’d like to see Apple take this even further in future updates.

Lower Power Mode

Low Power Mode (LPM) truly felt like Disney Magic. Barely halfway through our first day, I noticed my phone was at 52% battery remaining. I remembered that I was running iOS 9, flipped on LPM and was thoroughly impressed with what Apple has done. I thought Federighi was just being playful when he said they were pulling levers that weren’t available to us, but I shouldn’t have doubted him.

I used my phone just has heavily the second half of the day and to my genuine surprise, it was only at 34% when it hit the charger before bed. To say that was magical feels like an understatement. For the rest of the week, I’d wake up and immediately toggle on LPM while the phone was at 100%. Needless to say, I never found myself with a dead phone.

Time Travel

Before you roll your eyes, I felt the same way when Apple introduced Time Travel. I didn’t think it would serve much of a purpose. But what I found out throughout my week in Orlando is that Time Travel had more benefits than making my Mickey Mouse watch face dance the disco.

The week I visited Disney, the rain was slated to be unpredictable. Scattered showers throughout each day with the percentage of precipitation fluctuating. Although we carried ponchos, I wasn’t going to wear one all day. By using Time Travel via the Weather complication, I was able to get a sense throughout the day when we should prepare for rain and it helped us plan for attractions that were in doors.

Niceties

These were just a few niceties that I came across while discovering Apple’s new OSs in Disney World. They may not have all been touted as tent-pole features, but they made a huge difference in my experience at Disney and I came away very happy overall.

You might have (or not) noticed that things have been quiet on the blog. This wasn't my plan. It just so happened that finishing my review for The Sweet Setup, vacation this past week, and getting a cold/flu this week all happened in a row.