Is today the day?
I just backed up my iPhone…
I have an iPhone 14 Pro Max. I skipped the 15’s entirely. The 16’s have been out for a while now but I’ve been holding off.
Is today the day that I stop holding off and finally upgrade?
We’ll see.
Is this photo of a sleeping cat the last photo I will ever take with my trusty iPhone 14 Pro Max?
Again… we’ll see.
My phone is an iPhone 14 Pro Max. I didn’t upgrade to a 15 last year. I used to always skip a generation, then there were a few years where I did not, now I am trying to get back into the every-other-iteration way of thinking. When the next iPhone is released I will probably upgrade. Not because I necessarily want to (though I absolutely do) but because my trusty ol’ two-year-old is starting to get weird on me.
Are there any other 14 users still out there? Are they experiencing weirdness too? That’s a rhetorical question. I’m not expecting a discussion here, I’m just an old man yelling at clouds, so to speak.
It’s not so much weirdness as slowness. Everything, both native and 3rd party applications, just seem to need a little more time to do what they gotta do. Launch? Crunch some data? Open a photo? Play an audio or video file? It just seems to take a little longer than it used to. In some cases it takes a few full seconds more than it used to.
I wonder… is this some planned obsolescence program kicking in? Is Apple trying to convince me to upgrade this cycle by hamstringing my system over here? It’s possible. I don’t think it’s likely- (I mean it’s a 14 not a 4, right?) but it could be.
Not that I need any arm twisting or anything. I do want a new phone and it will probably just be a few months until the 16’s hit the market. I just wonder.
Anyway, I took today’s photo a day challenge pic before I left the cellar this morning. Yeah, it’s another guitar pic. What are you gonna do about it?
Today is the release day for the new MacOS! Sonoma should be available, but it hasn’t shown up in my Mac App Store yet.
I have to say that there isn’t a whole lot here that I am excited about, apart from the normal “newer is better (and hopefully faster and more efficient, but who really knows)” vibe. I might look into widgets. I don’t really use them on my iPhone and barely acknowledge they exist on my iPad. Maybe I’ll see what’s out there for hockey and baseball and notepads and weather and news headlines and blogging stuff and random things like that.
I don’t use Safari so even though some of the updates are interesting, I am never going to see them. Oh well. That’s the downside of using third party browsers, I guess.
Whatever, Happy MacOS Sonoma Day, Apple fanboys and fangirls. Enjoy the day (assuming the download actually becomes available in your neck of the woods)!
Ironic yet unrelated note, I was prompted to take an OS update in Windows on my work machine today. What a small world, huh?
ADDENDUM: I guess the Mac App Store was just waiting for me to start complaining on the blog because the OS Update download became available to me just a few minutes after initially I published this post. Thanks, universe!
Last night my camera scared me. I took out the memory card so I could upload the picture of my cat that I posted here last night. When I put the memory card back into the camera it errored. What was that? I took it out and put it back in… same error. I went all Nintendo on it’s skinny ass and blew on it as well as the card slot and it was fine again. I took a few pics this morning and I just uploaded them to Flickr and I put the card back in and it’s fine.
Sigh of relief.
It got me thinking though… I bought my DSLR in January 2010. That was 12 years ago. That seems like a long time for a tech gadget. A really, super long time. When should I start considering thinking about the “u” word? You know… upgrade. Realistically, I probably should have been asking myself this question five years ago (at least), but even though I know I can probably fix this problem by picking up a new memory card, I have to start thinking about what camera comes next.
I went on Nikon’s website to see what they have available these days. For DSLRs , the D5600 is marketed to advanced beginners and it costs $700 without a kit lens. The D7500 would probably be what I looked at if money wasn’t an issue, but it costs a grand for just the body.
What about mirrorless? That’s the future, right? Shouldn’t I get on the wagon before it leaves that homestead? The Z fc is clearly the coolest camera on the Earth at this time. Yes, it’s a retro inspired, hipster focused gimmick, but now that I am nutty over old manual film cameras a mirrorless camera based on an old design is right up my alley. I’ll take one to go, thank you. Except that it costs $959 without a lens, and the lens mount is different than my DSLR so I will need a new lens as well and the price with a kit lens is $1,099.95. There is also the Z50, which I think is the same guts as a Z fc, and that will be $999.95 with a lens.
Shit.
I don’t want to leave Nikon-land and I don’t want to buy a used camera…
Shit.
Maybe I should start looking at Fuji… those probably cost a mint too.
Anyway, here are some pictures I took around the living room just to make sure everything still works. I put a mono filter on the RAW files in honor of the gloomy camera atmosphere.
Most of the cool changes we made in our kitchen last year have been undone.
Why?
Are new changes coming?
Stay tuned.
This is my laptop, not my work laptop. Windows 11, kids. Will I like it? Will it be awesome? Will it annoy me?
Today’s the day. iOS7 will be made available at some point today. It’s not out yet, but it will be.
Are you looking forward to upgrading your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch with a user interface that looks like it was designed by a five year old with a box of crayons?
I know, I know… I’m going to upgrade both of my iOS devices. Maybe not tonight, but definitely this week. The new UI doesn’t excite me at all. In fact, it makes me a little sad. It makes me hesitate to upgrade. The screen shots I’ve seen look… well… stupid. I can’t stop imagining a five year old with the smallest box of crayolas scribbling away on the screen. Despite that, I am guessing that within a day or so I won’t even notice the changes anymore, and I’ll forget what iOS6 looked like. I mean, it’s only a UI after all.
Happy iOS7 release day. Come on and party down with the Apple nerds.
Inside the Red Head's Head 