John’s Blog

Yesterday, mere hours after I boldly proclaimed that I would not be upgrading to Big Sur in order to keep my Macs stable and working properly: my Macs just stopped working.

First my desktop just was extremely sluggish. This isn’t the newest Mac around, so I’m used to a few delays every so often. But this was different. I couldn’t open any new apps, and the ones that I had open seemed to be locking up.

I was running late for a video call, so I quickly switched over to my MacBook Pro to hop into the meeting. But then the laptop was having the same problem! Luckily I already had a browser open and was able to join my call.. in the midst of a full on my-computers-are-being-hacked panic.

It turns out it wasn’t just me. I should have consulted Twitter more quickly, but the issue was making its rounds around the developer community. There is a process by which Apple verifies a “Developer ID” when an app launches to verify it is valid and not malware, etc. This is a perfectly valid reason, but when the service that does the verification is having an outage it’s bad news.

This was a nightmare situation for the team at Apple I’m sure, especially on the launch day for the new operating system version. But come on, this is ridiculous. There is no reason that a locally installed and valid application shouldn’t immediately run when opened without having to check with Apple.

Nice writeup about GraphQL in Rails by Dmitry Tsepelev at Evil Martians.

GraphQL can do wonders in a backend-only Rails application, giving your clients (whether a frontend framework or other API consumers) a single endpoint for fetching data in any shapes and sizes they might need.

As the list of the associations to load is always determined at the runtime, it is very hard to be smart about querying the database.

GraphQL seems like one of those things I’m going to need to get into eventually.

Interesting account in D Magazine here locally by Will Maddox, about the Pfizer Covid–19 vaccine that made news earlier this week.

The Pfizer vaccine involves two shots taken three weeks apart. Casanova says the first shot, which is merely an introduction that allows the body to get used to the messenger so the immune system can start developing antibodies, had nearly no impact. He said there was some soreness where the injection happened, but other than that, he thought he had received the placebo; he had no symptoms.

Three weeks later, when he received the second shot, he was sure that it was the vaccine. The second shot is a booster, which allows the immune system to kick into action, creating antibodies. The response was noticeable but didn’t last long. He experienced flu-like symptoms, with some chills as he went to bed. By 3 a.m., the symptoms were gone.

As announced during this week’s Apple event, macOS Big Sur will be released today. I haven’t been using the betas this year since I really don’t have a need to develop for the Mac at the moment, but everything I hear about it doesn’t sound like it’s ready.

I’m a very slow upgrader of Mac operating systems. I wait as long as I possibly can, and usually until Xcode doesn’t work any longer with the previous operating system. The past 5 or so years of Mac upgrades have been increasingly buggy and always have an interruption to my productivity. I understand that the Mac isn’t as big or important as iOS, and that the system is much older, but I really wish Apple would take the care to make things stable before releasing them.

Why do we need new operating systems each year for the Mac? I think most people would be just fine with slower, more stable releases. This is especially true for a computing system that many people rely on for their work. This is a mature platform and doesn’t need near the iterations that the phones or tablets do.

That being said, Big Sur does look very nice. I like the design refresh from the screenshots I’ve seen and I think it’ll be a nice improvement when I upgrade next year.

Yesterday Apple officially announced the M1 Chip and the initial lineup of new Macs using it. I’ve been looking forward to hearing about this since the transition was announced at WWDC this year.

The first Macs to use the new chip are, predictably, those Macs that do not require extreme performance characteristics. It seems like the MacBook Air, 13" Pro, and even the Mac mini are just scaled up form factors loosely based around the iPad Pro lineup of chips. This is a great place to start and I’ll be curious to hear about the performance of these machines over the months to come. The MacBook Air is really a perfect starting point. It’s a relatively cheap and baseline model laptop that is suitable for most ‘normal people’ that don’t have complex computing needs. These people are most likely to not even notice or care about the chipset inside the computer, but will certainly notice the longer battery life .

The Mac mini is a curious inclusion in this first round of updates. I’ve been eyeing a mini for a while now to solve some uninteresting needs in my office, and was about to pick one up this week before the announcement. I’m glad I waited! I don’t have anything performance intensive for my use case (basically just a network file server) so I’m going to pick up one of the M1 minis to try it out. I think it’s a bit strange that the mini has the exact same chip (from what I can tell) as the laptops, but doesn’t need to fit within the same power envelope at all. The mini is plugged into power all of the time, and has no battery, so I’m wondering why it couldn’t have a more powerful chip. Maybe the M1 is so good it doesn’t matter.

This is the first step of several over the next few years for Apple to transition its chips entirely to its own silicon. There are plenty of Intel Macs still for sale, and it seems like that will be the case for at least a year or two. This week’s announcements are a very solid first step.

Austin Mann has another beautiful review of the new iPhone 12. This time it is for the iPhone 12 Max Pro. This year’s Max variant has much better camera specs than the non-Max-Pro, so I’ve been curious to see the results.

I knew the Max would be a great camera and I loved shooting the photos above, but I was really curious to learn if the Max hardware upgrades would be worth carrying the larger device even though I definitely prefer the smaller size of the already powerful iPhone 12 Pro.

I shot in tons of different lighting scenarios, and frankly in many of the scenes both cameras rendered a beautiful image and I could barely see a difference between iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Glad to hear this, to be honest, after getting the non-Max myself. I just don’t like having the massive phone in my pocket.

With the majority of the election coverage and news now behind us, it’s time to get back on with life in 2020. Over the past week, while we all watched the election coverage on the edge of our collective seats, over 720,000 Americans tested positive for Covid–19. 49,953 in Texas alone. Yikes. This is going in the wrong direction.

A few potentially good notes to be optimistic about:

Pfizer announced this morning its vaccine has been 90% effective in preventing the disease:

Today is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our Phase 3 COVID–19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent COVID–19,” said Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer Chairman and CEO. “We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen. With today’s news, we are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help bring an end to this global health crisis. We look forward to sharing additional efficacy and safety data generated from thousands of participants in the coming weeks.

From the New York Times feature by Katie Thomas, David Gelles, and Carl Zimmer:

The company said that the analysis found that the vaccine was more than 90 percent effective in preventing the disease among trial volunteers who had no evidence of prior coronavirus infection. If the results hold up, that level of protection would put it on par with highly effective childhood vaccines for diseases such as measles. No serious safety concerns have been observed, the company said.

Pfizer plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization of the two-dose vaccine later this month, after it has collected the recommended two months of safety data. By the end of the year it will have manufactured enough doses to immunize 15 to 20 million people, company executives have said.

This is extremely encouraging news. (Pfizer stock is up 11% as of this writing, wow.)

Also this morning, the Biden-Harris transition team announced its Covid–19 task force members. They also have a seven-point plan to beat the virus, including:

• Ensure all Americans have access to regular, reliable, and free testing.
• Provide clear, consistent, evidence-based guidance for how communities should navigate the pandemic – and the resources for schools, small businesses, and families to make it through.
• Plan for the effective, equitable distribution of treatments and vaccines — because development isn’t enough if they aren’t effectively distributed.
• Rebuild and expand defenses to predict, prevent, and mitigate pandemic threats, including those coming from China.

Sounds like a great start to me. Looking forward to seeing the follow-through on all of these items. I’m optimistic, but this is going to be tough.

It’s official: Joe Biden has been elected as the 46th president of the United States.

It’s a good day. Let’s enjoy this moment. 🇺🇸

It’s been a wild and tiresome week in the United States. As of right now, on Saturday, there still is no official winner to the presidential election. We could hear an update this weekend, or not.

This week I was unable to focus very hard on anything else. How can I be productive when the balance of our country is in limbo? Sure, it’s just one election but it seems so much bigger than anything in our lifetimes and the moment is weighing heavily.

Sadly, this was not the repudiation and pushback of the Trumpian ways that some, including yours truly, had hoped for. By most accounts, Biden is expected to win big in the electoral college. Perhaps by winning 300 electoral votes. That’s big in terms of a traditional presidential election. But there are still over 69 million people in this country that lived through the past four years of this mess, and still said “yes, more of that please.” I have trouble wrapping my head around that.

Yesterday I was walking around our neighborhood trying to stay calm and I tried to tune in to a conservative media radio show. I wanted to hear the perspective and get a balance of opinions on what was going on. It was shocking. The host was livid, talking about votes that are being manufactured out of thin air to steal the presidency away. I lasted about a minute before I had to switch it off. I understand these shows are entertainment-based and they need to cater to their audience for ratings and continued relevance. But this is a dangerous precedent. Votes are not being manufactured. They are being counted. There is no evidence of any widespread fraud. There is no conspiracy here. This is a system, however broken and biased as it is, that’s working.

I’m not sure where this country goes from here. I’m still optimistic that good people will prevail and that we’re going to be able to come together again despite our differences. I still have hope.

Some Election Week Quick Hits

A few other observations and notes from this week:

• John King from CNN is a national treasure. He's been so calm, clear, and informative this week. This election has been incredibly complicated and he walks through it with ease. Bravo.
• Polling: Is polling dead? For the past two presidential elections (2016, and now in 2020) the mainstream polling efforts have been completely wrong. I know these folks are working hard and doing their best, but is this the time to rethink everything?
• Georgia: Wow. I did not see that one coming. And it seems much of the credit in some areas is due to Stacey Abrams who helped motive and register almost 800,000 new voters. Incredible work.
• Arizona: A traditionally republican state, and the home of the late John McCain, is on the brink of turning blue for Biden. I love the fact that traditional strongholds for one party are suddenly in play. It's a good thing for our democracy that more places are up for grabs.
• Pennsylvania: I've never been more proud of Pennsylvania, a state that I called home for four years. It looks like, perhaps as early as today, PA could be the deciding factor. Cheers to my old friends in Philadelphia and around the state.
• The Daily: The podcast from the NY Times has been very informative and helpful to have a daily recap of everything going on with the election. The Times' coverage of everything has been very good this year, and The Daily is at the top of my list.
• Lastly, Texas. We almost did it. Strangely it seems that one of the major reasons Texas stayed red was a surge of Hispanic voters in southern counties voting for Trump. I wouldn't have predicted that one.

Here’s hoping we get some resolution and can move on from the election this weekend.

It’s here. It’s finally election day. It’s finally time once again to let the American people weigh in on the direction of this country and who is going to lead it. This should normally be an encouraging and exciting day, but this year is anything but normal. I’m anxious and worried about not only who will win the big races, but how it will all go down.

My hope and wish is that when the dust settles, we will be through this national disgrace that has been the Trump presidency. It’s time to move forward as a nation and heal the wounds together.

Joe Biden is not our savior. He’s not perfect. He wasn’t many of our first, second, or even third choice for this position. But here we are in our two party system. To me, Joe Biden represents a giant step forward to return the presidency and our country to a position of respect and leadership. I think he’s a good man who generally cares about people and this country. That used to be a given about most politicians, but not anymore.

We need a president that is rooted in basic morals, decency, and respect for the office, and for the American people as a whole. The longer we continue to normalize deception, lies, divisiveness, and selfish gains over the public good, the further our country fails into disrepair. It will take multiple presidents and perhaps an entire generation to repair the damage that has been done to our political system but we have to start somewhere. I think Joe can be the start.

If Trump is defeated, my hope is that the Republicans who claim to be men-of-character and decency will realize that hitching their wagon to him is no longer a positive political choice. I hope they embrace a new reality where working together with Democrats to compromise and find a working model of government is a priority. I hope we can go back to peacefully and respectfully disagreeing on policy decisions. It’s perfectly acceptable for us to have disagreements but it should be on the basis of facts and perspectives instead of fears, hate, and lies. I remain, perhaps foolishly, optimistic that politics can return to being boring and uninteresting in pursuit of the greater public good again.

I want to return to the days where if someone in public office lies, cheats, or does something illegal, then they are removed from office in a sweeping and bipartisan fashion. No one is above the law. We’ve lost our way here and it’s a dangerous trend that left unchecked will cause more damage than we’ll ever know.

History will not look back fondly upon this time in our country. This has been a time when we squandered our position of integrity and respect in the world. We’ve lost our way when it comes to fairness, reason, and a guiding moral compass. But how we act on this day and the next few weeks will chart our course for the decades to come.

This isn’t a normal election. This is us, planting a flag in the ground, and standing up for what is good, right, and the best for all of us.

I hope.

Matt Birchler’s plausible conversation taking place in Apple stores about the iPhone 12:

“Hello, I’d like to buy one of the new iPhones, please!”

“Sure thing, here’s the new iPhone 12. It’s fast, beautiful, and is generally awesome.”

“Sweet, I’ll take it. This box is really small.”

“Yup, that’s because Apple is making the environmental move to reduce waste and not give you yet another charging brick when you, a loyal Apple customer likely have tons of these already.”

“I have bought a new iPhone every 2 years for as long as iPhones have existed, I’m extremely loyal! So I can use one of the half dozen bricks I have in my house already?”

“Well, no, see the included Lightning cable doesn’t work with any brick we’ve shipped with an iPhone except last year’s iPhone 11 Pro.”

Apple’s reasons for not including the charger in the box this year are the environment and because everyone already has a charger. But the new MagSafe charging is only available with the new adapter this year that no one has.

Speaking of Halide, yesterday they announced a completely new version 2.0, aka “Mark II”. (Nice name.) This update sounds absolutely incredible for camera nerds including yours truly.

Ben Sandofsky, developer of Halide, explains some of the new features:

Mark II is the first camera to capture both classic RAWs and computational photos in one burst with a feature we call Coverage. Now you can take amazing photos that leverage all the advanced photography of the latest iPhones, while having a RAW in your back pocket in case you think you can do better.

Coverage takes a photo with all of Apple’s smartest processing: that is, Smart HDR 3, Deep Fusion, the works — and then also snaps a RAW DNG and saves it all in one file. So you can shoot first, and ask questions (like “Do I want to edit this as a RAW file?”) later.

And later:

We found that there’s two ways to help people take better photos.

The first is creating a button or a filter to magically make images look better. This is great: it makes for instant results, feels empowering and requires little effort from aspiring photographers. In a way, Apple’s Smart HDR and our Instant RAW do this. Unfortunately, this does limit creativity, as you have to make decisions on the photographer’s behalf in how images are taken and rendered.

The second is helping people learn the fundamentals of photography. Our simple interface has already helped many of people learn more about RAW, manual focus, and more. But we can do better. We can be an app that makes people better photographers.

The reviews for the new iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are out this week. The most interesting new models (the Mini and 12 Pro Max) aren’t out yet, so we’ll wait until next month to hear about those.

Austin Mann’s reviews are always beautiful and this year’s is no different, from Glacier National Park in Montana.

The iPhone 12 Pro is a solid camera, and thanks to a bunch of new digital tech I found it to be slightly stronger than the already great iPhone 11 Pro — but if you are serious about photography with your iPhone, wait for the iPhone 12 Pro Max. It looks to be the most significant jump in iPhone camera hardware we’ve experienced in years, and it’s only three weeks away.

Anyone who has followed this blog knows I prefer to carry a smaller iPhone because it fits better in my pocket, it’s easier to hold, and it’s overall more discreet. That said, I definitely want the new camera capabilities of the iPhone 12 Pro Max, so I’m planning to adapt to the slightly larger device to get significantly more hardware horsepower.

On the forthcoming ProRAW:

Traditionally, RAW files themselves can’t be edited. When adjustments are made, they’re stored in a reference file instead of destructively changing the original image file.

With this in mind, many publications require the submission of RAW files for the images sent in by photographers. This allows them to examine the original, untouched data and helps protect their legitimacy as a news source.

If the ProRAW format really does work this way, it marks an important step forward in the validation of the iPhone camera as a tool photographers can rely on to deliver client work, particularly in the editorial space.

Interesting, I didn’t know this.

John Gruber focused quite a bit of his review on the size and the feel of the new models:

If I had my druthers, I would prefer the matte aluminum band and glossy back of the regular iPhone 12 and the three-lens-plus-lidar camera system of the 12 Pro. Of this, I am dead certain about preferring the glossy glass back over matte. I’m less certain about preferring the look and feel of the matte aluminum band and buttons. Saving a bit of weight, though, is a sure-fire advantage for aluminum over steel. So if I had the opportunity right now, as I type this sentence, to configure my ideal iPhone 12, that’s what I’d specify: the glossy back and aluminum sides of the regular 12 and the camera system from the 12 Pro.

Matthew Panzarino on the size and weight too:

One thing worth mentioning here too is that the iPhone 12 Pro is 189 grams where the iPhone 12 is 164 grams. While it may seem silly to note a 25 gram difference, I can say that in practice it does feel quite a bit lighter

Overall, the iPhone 12 feels like the Timex to the iPhone 12 Pro’s Rolex. It’s a great daily driver that feels light and fun. The iPhone 12 Pro leverages refinement as a category differentiator projecting a solidity that plays into the “Pro” posturing.

I have seen a few fine scratches crop up on my iPhone 12’s screen. I am not particularly careful with my review units, as I think it is my duty to treat these things as utility items that will get intense daily usage. Which is what they are. Nothing insanely noticeable, mind you, but whatever the improvements to overall hardness the new Corning Ceramic Shield process brings to the table it is not and will not be invincible to wear and tear.

Joanna Stern’s review has a great video from MetLife Stadium too which focuses on the 5G radios:

Despite being marketed as our technological savior, 5G—the next generation of cellular connectivity—is not a killer feature for the new iPhone 12 models. At least not in the U.S., not yet.

Sturgill Simpson announcing his new bluegrass album last week:

So on one of many boring days in quarantine, I made some goofy post in character as a backwoods badass named “Dick Daddy” running a fictitious survival school looking for new recruits, and somebody commented, “If you put that on a t-shirt, I’d buy it.” So I thought, what if I put it on 30,000 t-shirts and give that money to charity? Having been personally affected by this virus, I was trying to think of some way to help and to use the platform for something other than narcissism or toxicity. The response was amazing and hilarious. I received some pretty far-out recruit application videos in those weeks from people stuck at home trying to “live above Hell.”

In an effort to raise more money, I told my fans that if they hit a certain number by a deadline, I would put on a livestream concert, and if we reached a second goal, I’d put a record out this year. Well, they blew those goals completely out of the water, so really it was the fans made this album happen. Otherwise I may have just as easily spent all summer fishing and changing diapers. I called up my engineer/co-producer/partner in crime, David Ferguson and said, “Get all the best players in town,” and we went in and banged this record out in about three days, with no planning or preparation.

Great album. The live stream earlier this year is really great as well. Given everything going on this month, I needed this. Listen on Apple Music or Spotify.

Sebastiaan de With, designer of my favorite iOS camera app Halide, with a few excellent notes about the iPhone 12’s camera changes:

But if you like large phones, this is your year. The iPhone 12 Pro Max has the real goods.

In addition to a better lens, the 12 Pro Max has the room to pack a new, 47% larger sensor. That means bigger pixels, and bigger pixels that capture more light simply means better photos. More detail in the day, more light at night. That combines with the lens to result in almost twice as much light captured: Apple claims an 87% improvement in light capture from the 11 Pro. That’s huge.

But that’s not its only trick: the 12 Pro Max’s Wide system also gets a new sensor-shift OIS system. OIS, or Optical Image Stabilization, lets your iPhone move the camera around a bit to compensate for your decidedly unsteady human trembly hands. That results in smoother video captures and sharp shots at night, when the iPhone has to take in light over a longer amount of time.

I really don’t want a giant phone, but these improvements are noteworthy.