First, a bit of context. When I purchased the Series 3 last year I was already in pretty good health. I was averaging about 9,500 steps for the year based on the Pacer app on my phone. My weight was about 176 which has been my usual for most past 15 years and about right given my height of 5’10". Dropping to 168 might be ideal, I just haven’t pushed for that. I started tracking steps and diet in 2014 because I had a few life changes at the time that led to dietary changes that led to a gain of about 22lbs over just a few months. I got that under control, lost 15lbs and then eventually lost the remaining 7. As of March 2017 I’ve hovered at my historical normal of 176.

Also, at the time I purchased the Apple Watch I had not been a regular watch wearer. Not for many years. My primary reasons for purchasing were Siri/Homekit, health tracking and for using with AirPods. In this latter intent, using for playback with AirPods it’s been perfect. It’s super nice to be able to playback music from the watch itself or control playback that I might be streaming from my iPhone. And now it’s not even just playback on the AirPods that can be controlled but also streaming from the iPhone to the HomePod. Siri has been excellent on the watch too. I expect all of this will be even better with the upcoming watchOS update.

My main gripe has been activity tracking. Overall it seems to track well. But it’s not without some problems. I’m 49 years old and have had a bad knee since I was a teen. It was better for a while then not so much. I’m not someone who can cycle or run. But I can walk and if I’m really careful I can handle a gentle jog. But my ideal is a vigorous walk. Within the first week with the AppleWatch I learned that I was walking to slow. Not surprising to me as my walking was more for enjoyment than working out. Yes, I considered it exercise and a part of being healthy but I didn’t consider it a workout. And the AppleWatch confirmed that. My green rings didn’t move much when I went out for my 2 daily walks which usually consisted of 2 miles each. During the first week with the watch I would look at the end of the day with 4 miles walked and I might have 10 minutes on the green ring. The red rings were closing based on the initial default of 420. So, I picked up my walking pace. I went from a casual dog walk to a brisk walk and without much trouble could close the green ring with just one 2 mile walk. Then I’d take it easier with my second walk.

At also learned that I could get a more accurate account by using the Outdoor Walk workout if I was cutting grass or walking the dogs because often in that case my arm was not moving back and forth as it normally would during a walk. But over the past few months I’ve been taking note of a few things that bug me.

In April, for the 2nd time in my life, I came down with the flu. My 7 month streak came to an abrupt end and my rings went unclosed for 2 weeks. I later learned that it’s possible to do the “Other” workout and close the rings. Would be nice if Apple enabled some sort of option for sick days. Along those same lines, for those of us that don’t have access to home exercise equipment or a gym, days of bad weather can be a problem. Again, I know now that I can use the “Other” workout on those days but I only learned about that workaround by accident. Maybe Apple does document it more obviously and I missed it? But maybe just a better way to handle sick and bad weather days and the occasional rest day?

Another problem I have is that nearly a year in to closing my rings every day (except for the sick days) and I’m now noticing that even a brisk walk 2 mile walk often does not close my green ring. I guess my cardiovascular system is healthier (obviously a good thing) and so I need to go faster to get my heart rate to the point at which the green ring will close. But as I said, with my knee I’m not able to run and I have to be very careful even with a gentle jog. I’d guess this sort of thing might be an issue for quite a few people with knee or other joint problems. It would be helpful if Apple could allow for a manual setting of some sort. If my brisk walk is now only getting my heart to 110bpm then I should be able to set 110 as the point at which my watch counts green ring minutes. I don’t want to risk damage to my knee so that I can close my green ring.

One last observation. Sometimes the watch just seems a bit crazy. I’ve had days where I’ve gotten 10 minutes of green ring credit for no reason at all. Today while walking I ended the workout half way through the walk. I just wanted to compare the green ring accounting during workout and out of workout. For the walk back I just tapped every so often to calculate the heart rate. When walking at a brisk pace that would normally have me in the 110 to 120bpm range I got 63. I tapped again and 63. Again and 63. Finally it jumped up to 123 which is what I expected. Once it jumped up to 200 which was obviously wrong. In short, sometimes it seems wildly inaccurate.

Overall I consider the watch a good addition to tracking fitness but looking around online it seems many other folks have similar issues. Apple offers a an excellent overview of how the rings work but it seems many people are still confused. Clarification on closing rings and perhaps options for manual settings would be helpful far many.

The talented folks over at Serif released the Affinity Publisher beta today! They’ve been teasing it for a year or more so there are a lot of very excited design nerds today and I’m one of them. The current release is for Mac and Window but they’ve already begun work on an iPad version!

I currently use Pages on iPad for most of my layout work. If someone specifies InDesign then I’ll use that on the Mac. I’ve already installed Publisher and have a test file going. Currently it’s unable to open or export InDesign files but that may be coming in the future.

There will come a time when I stop offering InDesign files as an option. I’m not sure when that will be but the sooner the better. As much as I like using Pages I expect I’ll enjoy Publisher on the iPad even more and will likely shift much of my layout work over to it when available.

Something I’ve seen come up a bit on the internets is the suggestion that Apple’s stock apps are usually enough for most people and I have to say that I agree. My tendency over the past year is to refrain from purchase of apps that duplicate a built in Apple app. And in the same line of thought, in terms I’ve already purchased that duplicate stock app function, I’m finding I use them less.

The basis of my thinking here is financial and also just simplicity. I don’t want to buy every new app that comes along nor do I want to spend the time trying every app or cluttering up my iPad with them. I’ll explore a few examples.

A few days ago a poster over at the fantastic newish Mac Power Users forum started this thread about Yoink. My reply:

I’ve tried Yoink as well as Gladys and Copied and others. As is often the case what I’m finding in actual use is that Apple’s native apps are likely the best option for me. I can drag and drop into Files app for storing temporary images or other documents or, just as easily for text, images, pdfs, I can drag into and out of Notes. And of course both of those apps have action extensions. They both sync up very quickly to iCloud should I need to hop to another device.

And that pretty much covers that particular example. Yes, at first these shelf apps are a neat idea. But in my usage they very nearly copy Apple’s Notes app and the Files app. As a result, I just don’t find that I use any of them. It’s easier to just use Notes or Files. Bonus, pdfs added to Files can also have tags added to them. PDFs added to Notes are properly indexed and searchable in Notes. They’re also easy to annotate within Notes and easy to share back out if needed.

Another example is email. I’ve tried Airmail and Spark both of which are great email clients. But I always come back to Apple Mail and the other two sit unused. Apple Mail isn’t perfect but it’s pretty great and it works very well for me in how I use and process email.

Podcast apps are another area where I’ve found Apple’s stock app is all I need. I’ve tried several others but generally find them duplicates that don’t offer enough in additional features to bother with. This is in part because Apple’s app has the added benefit that it syncs with all devices from HomePod to AppleTV and all the others, remembers playback position on any of those devices, and is fully integrated with Siri. Third party apps can’t do all this.

When it comes to web browsing I use Safari for everything. It’s a great browser and again, all my data is synced between devices. I only ever use iCab for a few odd needs here and there. I have zero interest in trying another browser.

For most of my pdf viewing I now use the Files app or the built in preview within apps. I still have PDF Expert and occasionally use it for more advanced editing of pdfs but the Files app is great for viewing and basic markup.

And while they’re not quite “stock apps” the iWorks apps are my go-to. For word processing, spreadsheets and presentations I always choose Pages, Numbers or Keynote. I have the Microsoft and Google apps but almost never use them and only do so when I must. I’ve been using the iWork apps since they were first made available and I really love them.

Exceptions to this trend would include the Calendar app which I rarely use. Mostly I use Fantastical or TimePage for viewing. I use Siri or data detectors for creating new events. For those that may not know, a data detector is what underlines a date or time in a Message or email. Tap and you get a suggestion to create a new event.

I still use a dedicated RSS reader, specifically Reeder though I’m using Apple News more and more. I doubt it will replace Reeder anytime soon because I like to be able to group feeds into folders which Apple News does not yet do. Also, with Reeder I can share an article which sends out a standard url whereas sharing from Apple News sends an Apple News link which does not work for non-Apple users.

When it comes to books I’ve used Kindle a bit more than iBooks but going forward I’ll prioritize Apple Books. I like the app better so, assuming a book is available from Apple at the same price as Amazon I’ll purchase from Apple first.

I’ve never been one to spend lots of time on the App Store. Perhaps my app minimalism reflects my real-world life in that I tend not to keep a lot of stuff around. Why clutter up my environment if what I have works for me?

I’ve had my AirPods since the first shipment, December 2016 and have noticed that the volume seems quite a bit lower. I clean them fairly regularly. At half volume I can barely detect the audio. In other words, half volume seems to be low. High volume is what I would think of as half volume. I’ve compared output between iPad, iPhone, Watch and Mac and all seem to be about the same. If there is a difference it would be that the iPhone and Mac are slightly lower. Watch and iPad seem slightly higher but at half volume the audio was barely detectable.

I did yet another search to see if I could turn-up any tricks for resetting the volume of AirPods. I again tried the usual suggestions of turning off bluetooth, disconnecting, unpairing, repairing, etc. Nothing worked. I came to the conclusion that it had to be a build up of wax under the grill. Perhaps in cleaning it from the surface some of it get’s pushed through rather than scraped off. That seems the likely culprit.

I took an extreme measure. I’m not suggesting anyone do this because it might ruin your AirPods. Nowhere on their website does Apple suggest this. But for myself, I figured that as low as the volume was, it couldn’t get much worse. My AirPods were nearly unusable so I put 1 drop of ear wax removal liquid onto the mesh of each AirPod. I was very careful to just do ONE drop. I let it sit for a minute or two. I tapped them a few times to assist in getting the fluid through. I assumed that because the fluid did not just go right through that there must indeed be wax under/inside the grill. I waited. I tapped again a few times. Some of it very slowly disappeared through the mesh. I turned them over to drain. I used a small bit of tissue to wipe the mesh. I gently blew into the three other holes of the air pod tapped the airpods against a table mesh side down. I can’t really say that I saw anything come back out, liquid or wax.

At that point in the process I was hoping that while the wax might not make its way back out through the mesh it would at least be dislodged enough that it might clear the way for more sound to get through. The result: slight improvement. I tried it all again with another drop to each AirPod. I let it sit then wiped and blew. Then I did a third drop. The whole process took maybe an hour of just letting them sit then wiping then blowing and testing between each drop. When I decided to stop I’d noticed about a 30% improvement. Still not as loud as I remember them being new or as loud as the wired EarPods are (they never get used), but now much more useable. At full volume now they are almost too loud again. I might actually need to bump the volume down a wee bit.

So, for me, this has helped. It might ruin your AirPods as it is a deliberate attempt to get a drop of liquid inside. I’ve read accounts of people running them through the wash and still working after so I took the chance. I’ll likely do it again when I notice another degradation. But this is not something that Apple recommends.

Update: A few weeks later and the sound is still improved. Actually, it seemed to me that after a few days the sound had actually improved further. As though whatever was inside had further dissolved or had moved further out of the way. I’d say at this point that they sound at about 50% improved and while not as loud as new they are much more usable. I’m not struggling to hear them and have actually turned the volume down from the highest setting. When I notice the volume decreasing again I will definitely repeat the above process.

I’m really happy to see Apple upping their efforts with Apple News. The latest special coverage for the US elections shows great promise. I’m a longtime user of RSS and continue to use that but I’ve been supplementing using Apple News since it’s release. I recently wrote about Apple News and compared it to the new Google News. Apple News will get even better with the upcoming changes in iOS 12, namely the addition of the sidebar on the iPad. I really prefer having a sidebar for easy navigation of sources and I suspect my use of the app will likely grow as a result of the change.

But in terms of substance, today’s introduction of the midterms elections coverage section is an important step towards increasing the quality of information. I’m hoping that the level of human curation will continue to grow in Apple News and that the result will be more a more dependable feed.

Today’s introduction features an editorial by Lauren Kern, Editor-in-Chief of Apple News: Decision 2018: Make It an Informed One – Midterm Elections

Elections aren’t just contests, they’re conversations — about who we are as a country and who we want to become. When the loudest, most extreme voices dominate that conversation, we can’t hear each other. At Apple News, we want to help fix that.

This election season, our editors will highlight the most important, rigorously reported news to help you understand key races and your fellow voters. Rather than focus on party politics, we’ll cover issues as they’re lived on the ground, in the districts and states where these races will be decided, vote by vote. We’ll publish exclusive analysis, thought-provoking opinion pieces, and inspiring stories of citizens getting involved and changing the world. We won’t shy away from controversial topics, but our goal is to illuminate, not enrage. And we’ll always steer clear of rumor and propaganda.

Last night I listened to yet another podcast in which complaints were being made about the cost of iCloud. This has been going on for years now.

But here’s the thing, and this is anecdotal. When my granny needed to upgrade her iCloud storage to back-up her iPad I suggested the 99 cent tier. She shrugged and said sure. When my parents started getting the message I suggested the same tier. They shrugged and said sure. Everyone in my family is paying for it and I’ve never heard one of them complain. Even the $9.99 plan, for 2 TB which can be shared within a family is a good deal if 4 to 5 people are using it. For them it’s just a cost of using/maintaining the devices.

I’ve been using the $2.99 plan for the past year. I dropped my $10/month DropBox and am saving money. Funny thing, I never hear people complain about the cost of DropBox. Many of the nerds that complain the loudest about the lack of more free iCloud storage are the same people yelling from the rooftops that everyone should happily support app subscriptions. Now, I get that there is a difference between a small app developer and Apple. But a service is a service. Once we start down the road of demanding that a company give us this or that because we purchased their product, well, that’s a slippery slope. Heck, I’d like to demand free music every month too. They owe it to me. And let’s have them throw in a free movie every month too. They can afford it.

Enough. If I can afford a $400 or $600 or $1,000 iOS device that also requires fees for monthly internet and apps to be useful, I can also afford a monthly .99 or 2.99 a month for added iCloud.

When we buy our wash machines we know that we also have to buy laundry soap and we don’t expect a certain amount of that to come with it. When we buy cars we know that we’ll need to get oil changes and buy gas. Even a bicycles require new tubes and the occasional tune-up. Years ago I worked at a bike shop and we provided a free 30 day tune-up to tighten the chain and check everything out on new bike purchases. But if someone came in a year later for a tune-up they paid for it. As I recall a basic tune-up was in the $60 range. If they needed a new tube they paid for it to be installed. They didn’t get to demand that service for free.

Do I need to go on with the examples?

I don’t know why we now have this trend in which people feel the need to incessantly complain. Am I the only one that finds it tedious? I’m not suggesting Apple or any company is above criticism. It just seems to have become the constant hum. It’s not even a background hum. The snark is front and center with most Apple oriented podcasts and blogs. Seems to me we have issues far greater in our world than whether or not Apple is charging my granny .99 a month to back-up her iPad.

Thought I’d do a quick round-up of a few iPad and iOS sites I’ve recently come across.

In no particular order…

The iPad Guild is written by Chris Wilson who is using the iPad as his primary computing device. A very nice site illustrating how he uses the iPad, various tips and tricks and the problems he’s encountered.

Tablet Habit is an excellent site written by Jeff Perry who is the co-host of the Slab of Glass podcast. The podcast is cohosted by Christopher Lawley who also publishes the website
The Untitled Site. You’ll find a blog there as well as his videos which are published via YouTube.

Last, I recently came across a podcast about using iOS, In Touch with iOS which I’m really enjoying.