I’m not saying you should ignore PageSpeed Insights, but maybe don’t judge the effectiveness of your website — let alone your business — on it.
I decided just for the heck of it to run PageSpeed on Apple’s store page. You can try it yourself if you doubt me. The results were… illuminating.
Being deeply immersed in the Apple ecosystem, a couple of years ago I made a decision:
I’ll move all of my work files onto iCloud Drive!
I work (as in, write code and edit image files) mainly on my Mac. But I was seduced by the possibility of accessing all of my work files in a pinch on my iPad (which I still had at the time) or even my iPhone. Plus, since my files would be in “The Cloud”, I could even access them from another computer (or from my Mac when booted into Windows) if I needed to, by logging into my iCloud account from a web browser.
It seemed… so obvious. So perfect.
Umm… maybe not.
For the past two years, I have been constantly fighting with iCloud Drive. One of its signature features is that it can manage disk use on your Mac automatically, so as your hard drive fills up, it deletes files you haven’t used in a while, keeping them safely in the cloud while freeing up disk space on your Mac. And with my MacBook Pro sporting a (meager?) 256 GB hard drive, with 40-odd GB allocated for a Windows partition, and over 60 GB occupied by Logic Pro X sound samples, my drive is filling up constantly.
While this is great in principle, it is completely unworkable in practice for three interrelated reasons:
.icloud filename extension… as you’ll find if you ever try to perform Finder actions inside another program, such as syncing files to a web server using Transmit.All of this might be tolerable if Apple gave you any control whatsoever over which files get deleted locally. But they don’t.
What’s worse than getting stuck in this situation? Trying to get out of it. It’s like quicksand… the more you struggle against it, the faster and deeper you sink into it.
I made the decision earlier this week to extricate myself from the iCloud Drive nightmare, by buying a 250 GB SanDisk external SSD. First off, a little unpaid plug for this drive… it is awesome. It’s super light and small, seemingly at least as fast as the internal SSD in my MacBook Pro (in that I am able to transfer multiple gigabytes of data in seconds), and it even looks cool. I’m going to be using it all the time, so I’m actually considering putting adhesive Velcro on both it and the top of my MacBook Pro so I can keep it permanently attached. (Which says a lot about how much my regard for Apple has fallen lately — in the past I would never have sullied the exterior of an Apple laptop with something adhesive.)
So anyway, external SSD acquired, my goal was to start transferring my files from iCloud Drive over to the SSD.
Uh… good luck with that.
Because I’m now at a point where I have more than double the amount of data stored on iCloud Drive as I have available space locally, a majority of my files are now only in “The Cloud.” Ugh. Which means waiting for all of that data transfer stuff to happen. If only I could, somehow, bypass this broken process, I thought.
tl;dr Nope.
So, here’s the thing. I’ve been using iCloud Drive for the bulk of my cloud-based file storage, but I do use other services as well. I have Google Drive. I have Dropbox. I know how they work.
Specifically, I know that you can, y’know, like, select a folder and download the entire thing as a zip file.
So I thought to myself, I’ll just go to iCloud in a web browser and do that! Download the whole friggin’ thing as a big zip file, or maybe a few zip files, and be done with it.
Nope.
For whatever reason, iCloud doesn’t let you do that. Probably because of the whole seamless “It just works” Kool-Aid drinking song everyone in Apple land has been singing. (Myself included, mostly.)
You can only download individual files, not folders, from the iCloud web interface. It does let you select multiple files at once, but only within one folder.
Check out this delightful thread full of know-it-all asshats whose response to a legitimate question — why doesn’t Apple allow this thing that every competing service does? — is to challenge the validity of the question and the intelligence of the questioner. (That thread is now closed so I’ve just opened my own new thread on the topic. Watch this space for trolls!)
There. Are. Plenty. Of. Reasons. A. Person. Might. Have. For. Needing. To. Do. Something. That. You. Have. Not. Previously. Considered. Stop challenging their premises and answer their question, or shut the hell up.
Whew.
I ended up “solving” the problem by resigning myself to the fact that it wouldn’t be completely solved. So instead I took the drastic approach of temporarily logging out of iCloud completely, just so I could strand the files I did have saved locally, and copied them to the SSD.
Then I logged back into iCloud Drive and tried to get it to stop syncing my files by unchecking the Desktop and Documents Folders option.
The only problem is, I didn’t have my work files in those folders. I had them in a separate top-level folder in the iCloud Drive that I created myself. Because, you know, you can do that and it didn’t seem like a crazy idea or anything.
It was.
I discovered this morning that even though I had done all of this and tried to purge the nightmare of constant iCloud Drive syncing from my Mac life, once I had logged back into iCloud, the Mac went right back to quietly, constantly, syncing that iCloud Drive data on my Mac. As I type this, I have a Finder window open to my iCloud Drive and in the status bar it says “downloading 120,079 items (36.14 GB of 48.66 GB)”. Fun!
So, my new plan for today is to watch that window, and as the little cloud icons next to individual folders goes away, I’m copying those folders to my SSD and then deleting them from iCloud. My assumption is that as I do this, I am freeing up more local space and iCloud will continue to download the remaining items, and eventually I’ll have everything transferred over.
But please… do yourself a favor and don’t do what I did. iCloud Drive is not suitable for professional use.
Here’s my early review of Super Mario Run, less than a day after it was released.
I think I like it.
I have been waiting forever for Nintendo to finally accept the reality of modern mobile devices and make games for the iPhone. (No, Miitomo doesn’t count. And Pokémon Go doesn’t really, either, especially since Nintendo didn’t actually make it.)
There have been a ton of Mario-inspired platform games for iOS over the years, and while many have been of very high quality and creativity, none has stuck for me.
What makes the top-tier Nintendo franchises (and here I am thinking Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and maybe Pokémon) so great? These are the criteria:
Every would-be Mario surrogate on iOS has failed at least one of these criteria. And I expected that, if Nintendo ever did make an iOS game, especially a Mario game, when it finally did arrive it would be an unmistakably “Nintendo” experience because it would nail them all… and most likely differ from what I thought I wanted about the experience, because what I thought I wanted wouldn’t really work, and what I actually wanted was something I couldn’t quite imagine.
People have been saying it for years, but yes: this is how Nintendo and Apple are alike, and why I expected to be surprised, if not amazed, by what Nintendo came up with, even if it didn’t seem at first glance like it would be successful.
The biggest surprises for me about Super Mario Run when it was announced were a) how slow Mario seems to run, and b) that it’s essentially an endless runner with one control: tap-to-jump. It’s like the old joke before the iPhone came out that, if Apple ever released a phone, it would only have one button. Guess what: it did, and it changed everything.
Let’s explore the criteria, one by one:
Engaging concept. It’s classic Mario. The basic formula that has existed since Super Mario Bros. in 1985. More specifically, this game, visually and structurally, fits very much into the mold of the New Super Mario Bros. series that debuted about a decade ago on the Nintendo DS. Check.
Attention to detail. This feels like a Nintendo game, in all of ways, both good and bad. The good is where it counts — the actual game experience. The bad is the surrounding stuff, showing that Nintendo is still out-of-step in the online world. First, the bad: this game requires an always-on Internet connection, which seems a bit ludicrous. Apparently the primary reason is to prevent piracy, which I really don’t get. The only way to pirate iOS games is to jailbreak the device, and it seems like there would be easy enough ways for the game to detect that without an Internet connection.
Besides the Internet connection issue, there’s also the fact that the initial setup process requires selecting your country from a huge list (again, this is something the game should be able to detect automatically, especially since it has to be online to function) and a distracting Nintendo Account step. Then after a brief gameplay tutorial, you’re thrust into a black screen with a progress bar as the full game content is downloaded. I’m not sure if my experience was just due to peak interest at the launch, but it took forever to download… in fact, I tried over four sessions as I was out-and-about, jumping between LTE and WiFi in various locations, until I finally got the last 5% to download when I was at home several hours later.
So, that’s the bad, and it really kind of sucks. But the good is, once the game is actually loaded up on your device, it has all of the polish you expect in a top-tier Nintendo title. The design is flawless, the UI interactions are smooth as can be, and everything about it shows the same level of care that Nintendo puts into the best Mario games for their own systems. And because the iPhone screen resolution is so much better than on a DS/3DS, this looks much more like a Wii U game than a mobile game.
Playability. This is where I was really surprised. At first I was disappointed. Mario runs continuously, which makes sense for the one-hand — really, one-finger — control scheme, but he seems slow. This is not the “hold down the B button” running we’re used to in a Mario game. It’s about halfway between his usual walking and running speeds. But you quickly realize the speed was carefully calibrated for optimal playability. When you don’t have the ability to make Mario stop, you need just a fraction of a second longer to figure out how best to react to what’s going on in his environment. Before long you realize this speed feels perfect in conjunction with timing jumps, interacting with special blocks and avoiding enemies.
Speaking of enemies, when Mario is running and approaches an enemy, he automatically vaults over it. It’s a cute effect, but initially it made me wonder… is there any way to die in this game? Especially since it seems like even when Mario would die, such as falling down a hole, he instead goes into a bubble (as in New Super Mario Bros. U) and gradually floats backwards on the course? Well, yes. I didn’t immediately realize that you have to earn those bubbles, and they eventually run out. Plus, Mario only vaults over enemies if he’s running. If you’re mid-jump and he touches an enemy (other than landing square on its head), he dies just like in any other Mario game.
After a couple of easy screens, the complexity of the courses quickly catches up with you, and before you know it you feel like you’re just playing a regular Super Mario title, not a streamlined “endless runner” version.
Platform-optimized experience. Speaking of that streamlined “one-finger” control: one of the most irritating problems with any iOS game, aside from the difficulty of using a simulated, on-screen D-pad for movement, is the fact that your fingers obscure part of the screen. Nintendo, of course, solved this perfectly. When you’re navigating the game interface, the full screen is used as in any other game. But during a run, the bottom 1/4 or so of the screen has no action… only a generic background design matching the style of the current course. That way, you can keep your thumb poised at the bottom of the screen ready to tap (or tap-and-hold for a longer jump) without covering up any of the action.
I would never have expected a one-control, endless-runner style Mario game to work as a real Mario game, but it does, and is probably the only way to make this work on an iOS device. But Nintendo not only defied most fans’ logic with this control scheme, they perfectly tailored the elements of the game to work with it. They removed standard elements of Super Mario games (like Fire Flowers) that simply wouldn’t work with this control scheme, and they added things that — while they maybe would work with a traditional control scheme — are only logical with an endless runner, like special blocks that make you change direction when you jump on them, and others that pause the action to give you an extra moment to decide how to proceed.
A couple of other realities of mobile devices that Nintendo acknowledged with this game’s design are the brevity of play sessions and the interest in online competitive play. The levels here are shorter than typical Mario levels, although they don’t feel especially short, but they work well if you only have a minute or two to play. And the Toad Rally mode is a great way to do online competitive play. You’re not actually competing in real time, but the game makes it feel like you are, by matching you up with actual previous runs by other players.
There’s also a reward system for daily play, unlocking both useful features like additional playable characters as well as more frivolous prizes like decorations for your Mushroom Kingdom, similar to some of the features in Miitomo. And of course, you can tie in your Nintendo Account so your Mii shows up throughout the game. (I assume some of what you do here feeds back into the Miitomo experience as well, but to be honest I deleted Miitomo off my iPhone months ago.)
Overall… yes, I do think I like it. This is not the perfect classic Super Mario experience I always thought I wanted on my iPhone, but… let’s be honest. There are enough other, really well-done iOS platform games out there that I have tried for a day or two and then abandoned that I realize a perfect classic Super Mario experience is impossible on a touchscreen device with no physical controls. What Nintendo has delivered is a new kind of Super Mario experience that feels 100% “Mario” but actually works on an iPhone.
Now, what I really want them to do is an iOS Zelda game. There are Zelda DS games that rely almost entirely on the touchscreen and stylus for all movement and action. It seems like a no-brainer that this experience would translate well to a mobile phone. But then, what do I know?
Just remember… If you see a stylus, they blew it.
Now you have to do a stuff-in-my-bag photo too. That’s the rule. It’s better than working, right? Of course it is, you daft sod.
— Matt Gemmell (@mattgemmell) May 5, 2016
Sounds like a dare to me. How can I resist?
First, the bag itself. I love Tom Bihn bags. In addition to this backpack and its clip-in accessory pouches, I own two messenger bags and an assortment of other pouches. They are super high-quality and supremely functional. As you’ll see when I show you how much stuff I can cram into this bag and still have plenty of room to spare!
Let’s look at the contents of the red pouch. That’s where I keep adapters and thumb drives.
Oh, and an iPod nano, for some reason.
I need napkins (and/or paper towels) a lot. I can’t stand having a runny nose, or spilling things. Whatever the reason, I carry a few around with me all the time. I know it’s probably not the best for the environment, but I do buy recycled as much as possible. Anyway, that’s what the black pouch is for. And the large black thing is a padded sleeve perfectly sized for the 11-inch MacBook Air.
Next up, another bag-within-a-bag. This is the one non-Tom Bihn case I use. It’s a Roocase for the iPad mini. The iPad mini actually just barely fits in it, which is fine. I take my iPad mini with me to meetings, especially first-time meetings with new clients, because it doesn’t create a wall like having a laptop on the desk does. I have also stopped carrying my laptop when I travel for pleasure, so the iPad in the Roocase is all I bring. In addition to protecting the iPad, the Roocase has a side pocket into which I manage to shove a Field Notes notebook, Space Pen, headphones and some business cards.
And finally… everything else. This is the entirety of what I had in my backpack when I came to work this morning, aside from some running clothes I had also shoved in but don’t really feel I need to show here.
Look at all that stuff! From top left to bottom right, we have:
P.S. Sorry for the quality of the photos… I hastily snapped these on the studio conference table under harsh fluorescent lighting.
Over at The Loop, Dave Mark commented on Apple’s list of enhancements in El Capitan.
It’s an impressive list. I guess. But it really brought something into sharp relief for me: I don’t use any of the new features in recent Mac OS X updates. I was really tired of Lucida Grande and I prefer flatter design, so the interface improvements in Yosemite and now El Capitan are worth the update alone, as far as I’m concerned.
But it’s kind of sad for me. I’ve realized that my passion for computers and technology has really moved past the “computers” part. I am still a loyal Mac user, and will continue to be for the following reasons:
1. I’m heavily invested in Apple’s “ecosystem” by this point, which is fine with me.
2. Windows sucks. As much as I think Microsoft is trying to improve, and as much as I appreciate Microsoft’s newfound scrappiness as the underdog, Windows still sucks. Especially the licensing process that assumes everyone is a criminal.
3. Linux on the desktop is still half baked, and if anything seems to be getting worse as it becomes clear that it’s never really going to catch on. (That said, I am as devoted to Linux on servers as I am to the Mac on the desktop. But it’s all command line for me.)
As iOS has taken over, I find my Mac is more and more relegated to its “truck” role for me. I still use my Mac almost every day, but only for two things:
1. Work.
2. Music production.
I never play games on my Mac. (Though that might change.) I no longer browse the web on my Mac, except at work. As much as I love the portability of my 11-inch MacBook Air, I might as well just have an iMac at my desk at work, for how often my MacBook Air is ever out of its bag at home.
I no longer even bring my Mac along when I travel for “emergencies”, because there are no work-related emergencies I can’t fix with my iPad, thanks to a trio of awesome apps from Panic. And using the iPad for work is just awkward enough to ensure that I only use it in emergencies, which improves my travel experience.
And at work, I’m set in my ways. I use the Adobe apps, because I have to. I use BBEdit and Transmit. I use Pages and Numbers for documents and spreadsheets, about once a week each. And I use web browsers, for testing my work. I don’t even listen to music on my computer anymore, because I have a Raspberry Pi at the studio running as a “jukebox”.
I hate almost every email interface. They’re so ugly and confusing and useless. I’ve actually taken to using the iPad interface for Gmail in a web browser to check my email, because it’s the least awful. (Want to do that too? Here’s the “secret” link.)
The only built-in features of Mac OS X that I actually use on a regular basis are Safari, Calendar, and Notes. Ah, my beloved Notes. More on that in a minute.
OK, so that brings me back to Apple’s big list of enhancements in El Capitan. Let’s take a look:
Automation
I like Automation in principle, and have used it once or twice, but honestly either I’m just clueless or too limited in my use of the computer, but I don’t really see anything I do on a regular basis that could be improved by Automation.
Calendar
Yeah, I use this, but the new features they’re promoting are really not interesting to me. I guess I lead a boring life. The one thing I do want in Calendar is something they took away… an easy way to enter the time on a new event without having to use the mouse! [Update (10/2/2015): I’ve just discovered the final release version of Calendar does support entering the time when you’re typing the name of the event, the way earlier versions did. Strike this complaint from the record!]
Chinese Features
International
Japanese Features
Nope. I can respect why these are in the OS and I think they’re important, but they are not applicable to me.
Mail
I used the Mac Mail app for years, until it finally got too buggy for me to tolerate anymore a few versions back. Maybe it’s fixed now. I may never find out, because I’m satisfied enough that the iPad interface for Gmail I mentioned above is the least-sucky option available.
Maps
Seriously? I tell you what: try printing out a map this app generates. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
…
See what I mean? Seriously?
Hey, you didn’t actually do it, did you? OK, I’ll show you. If you’re looking at this (already sparsely marked) map on your screen and you hit Print, this PDF shows the absolute non-existent level of detail you get in the printed version. (I especially like the label at the top: “near United States”. Thanks.)
Maybe you’re saying, “That’s not the point… why would you even print maps anymore?” Well, by that reasoning, why would you even look at maps on your computer anymore? As it happens, I had a very specific reason for printing maps. I’m going on a road trip to Utah next week, and I learned the last time I was there that there are huge swaths of the state where you can’t get a data signal. And I didn’t have any printed maps.
This time I want to be prepared. So I was printing out several maps from Google Maps, but their text was small, and the thin gray lines they use for minor highways almost completely vanish when printed. So I thought I would at least try Apple’s Maps app instead. Not only are they inferior, the printed version you get is completely different from what you’re looking at on the screen, with the majority of the text labels entirely missing. What the hell, Apple?! How is this useful to anyone except a 4th grade geography student? (Come to think of it, I have a 4th grade geography student living in my house. Maybe she can fill it in for me.)
Mission Control
I haven’t even taken the time to figure out what this is. I’ll admit I’m still stuck in System 7 when it comes to my approach to window management, but I just can’t fathom why I would need this. It would just add confusion.
Notes
Now we’re talking. OK, Notes is one app I genuinely love from Apple. Don’t laugh. I tried Evernote. I tried it for nearly a year. I found it over-designed and slow compared to Notes. I just need a place where I can store whatever random pieces of information come along, and an easy way to search through them to find what I need. Notes does that perfectly. And what’s even better, it syncs flawlessly between my Mac, my iPhone and my iPad. Apple can do whatever other weird crap they want to Mac OS X, just please don’t take away Notes.
Photos
I use this to store my photos, by default. But I hate using the app. It seems to be designed for people who have taken less than 100 photos and never plan to take more. Same goes for iCloud Photo Library or whatever it’s called. I find both cumbersome and unusable given that I take probably a dozen photos a day. I just want a place off my iPhone where I can keep my photos, so I can clear room on it for more photos. Now I can’t seem to do that anymore. It sucks.
I realize I’m an edge case here. Any photo I take that I think is worth remembering, I post to Instagram. The rest, I don’t want to trash, but I will probably never look at again. So I don’t need a photo feed on my devices. That’s Instagram. Just take all of the rest away and store them in the vault, please. I have a feeling this is something where I should really seek out an alternative solution, but I haven’t found the time. Suggestions are welcome, but it has to be drop-dead simple or I won’t bother with it.
Reminders
Ack. I wanted to like Reminders when it was first introduced, but I found it unreliable and more effort than just sending myself an email. I hate email too, but it’s a reliable catch-all place to dump any “action items” that are in front of me. Having to put those into Reminders is extra work, and if Reminders doesn’t reliably, you know, remind me, then what’s the point?
Safari
I like Safari. I go back and forth between using it and Chrome as my default browser. Presently I’m in a “Safari phase.” I suppose some of these new features are nice, but honestly it’s only the developer tools I really care about. Fortunately, those are pretty good and getting better.
Split View
This is a new feature that, in theory, I like. But I’m not yet convinced I’ll actually like the implementation, or ever really use it on a regular basis.
Spotlight
Ack. Again. Get this away from me. I never use it. The only times I even interact with it are by accident. I finally took the time to figure out how to disable the keyboard shortcut so I’d stop accidentally calling it up by pressing Command-Space when I’m typing too fast (like right now).
Worse, I have a Mac mini at the studio that is kind of the hub of our network. It’s a file server, VPN server, powers our projector for client meetings, and also runs Parallels Desktop for Windows testing. And it is slow. Really. Unbearably. Slow. I have tried several times to diagnose the problem, without success, until yesterday, I think. It seems the culprit was the system process that scans and indexes file contents for Spotlight. I’m not sure if it was the huge number of files, the handful of huge individual files (Parallels disk images), the server’s Time Machine backup drive, the slow processor, or some kind of genuine hardware defect at work, but so far the system seems much faster since I completely disabled Spotlight on it yesterday.
Which is not straightforward in any way.
Other
OK, so now that I’ve largely crapped all over El Capitan’s marquee features, let’s see if there’s anything interesting left in the grab bag.
New system font: I do like the new system font, a lot.
Find your cursor: this is a great idea, but I find it’s a little inconsistent.
AirPlay video from QuickTime Player: not interested.
Peer-to-peer migration: meh.
Rename from context menu: great, a harder way to do something that’s been around for as long as I’ve used a Mac.
Auto-hide menu bar: do not want.
Copy file path in Finder: oh… hmmm… yeah, I suppose this will be helpful. If I can ever remember that it exists and how to do it. (Hold down Option after opening the context menu? How intuitive!)
Redesigned Disk Utility: sounds good. I’ll have to check it out. Which I will do the next time I am panicked about a hard drive dying and then I’ll hate it because I’m already frustrated about something and I’m not expecting something else new.
Color picker: I suppose.
Rotate annotations: ???
Find My Friends widget: I may use this, but I’m not sure why I’d need to have it on my computer vs. just taking out my phone. The same could be said of Messages, I suppose, but I can type way faster on a real keyboard, so it’s actually useful to get those on my Mac. What benefit does Find My Friends on a Mac offer over the iPhone version?
While we’re on this topic, I’m sure I was not alone when Find My Friends was introduced in saying, “What’s with the rich Corintian leather?” I mean, “When would I ever use this?” I think it’s really the name. Change it to “Find My Family” and suddenly it makes perfect sense. I don’t use it daily, but I do use it at least once or twice a week, and it has proven incredibly handy.
So that brings us to the end of the list, and of my rant. Maybe this has ended up being more of a psychological profile of me than a valuable assessment of the state of the Mac in 2015. OK, it’s definitely that. But I wonder how common I am as a long-time Mac user (bought my first Mac in 1994) who has mostly become disillusioned with the direction of Apple’s software.
Full disclosure: I own a small amount of Apple stock as part of a retirement account I can’t touch until I’m in my 60s. Clearly I am trying to drive up their stock price.