¶ Apple Finally Fixed the MacBook Keyboard

Back in 2015 Apple released the 12-inch MacBook with a new keyboard mechanism they called the Butterfly Keyboard. One of the advantages of this design was it provided a great deal of stability to the key caps. It also allowed for extremely shallow key travel, which enabled Apple to push its obsession with thinness even further.

But there were disadvantages, too. While this is subjective, the extremely shallow key travel was probably swinging the pendulum too far. While initially excited by the purported awesomeness of the MacBook’s butterfly keyboard, I remember feeling slightly repulsed by the minimal 0.5mm travel when I first tried it out in the Apple Store. I wasn’t confident that I had actually pressed the keys.

And it didn’t take long for reports to start coming out from MacBook owners about reliability issues. It seemed the slightest particulate could wreak havoc on the butterfly mechanism and break it. And, beyond all expectations, Apple went all-in with the flawed design. In 2016 it spread like a cancer to the MacBook Pro line, and then to the beloved MacBook Air line in 2018. All the while, Apple kept revising the butterfly keyboard with new generations to try to mitigate the reliability issues.

In June 2018 Apple began a Keyboard Service Program for any and all notebooks that had the butterfly mechanism, covering repairs for 4 years after the date of purchase. Perhaps most embarrassingly, every new release of a MacBook/Pro/Air was automatically added to the Service Program day and date. This was probably the closest we will ever get to an admission from Apple that the butterfly keyboard was incredibly, deeply flawed.

I have been so cautious about this keyboard that I am still clinging onto my 2012 MacBook Air, hoping it will last until the butterfly keyboard is phased out of a future MacBook Air.

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Enough history. I’ve done enough burying of the lede. This morning Apple unveiled the new 16-inch MacBook Pro with all sorts of great specs that I’m sure many pro users will care about, but most importantly they fixed the keyboard!

Apple has returned to traditional scissor switches, and they say they took inspiration from another keyboard that was introduced in 2015 — the Magic Keyboard. I have owned a Magic Keyboard since it was introduced and have used it without issue for years. It feels great to type on and has adequate travel. It’s honestly the best keyboard I have ever used. And I’ve long been a proponent that Apple should just stick that in the MacBook line. I couldn’t be happier at the news.

The new Magic Keyboard adapted for the MacBook Pro has a full 1mm of key travel, increased key stability, backlighting — the works. Apple also eschewed the full-height left and right arrow keys and returned to half-height keys in an inverted-T layout, which should make it easier for many people to quickly orient their fingers for directional navigation. I personally haven’t had an issue with the full-height keys on my external Magic Keyboard or my iPad Smart Keyboard cover, but undoubtedly the inverted-T layout is the better choice for mass appeal.

I enjoyed this particular take from John Gruber’s review over at Daring Fireball:

Calling it the “Magic Keyboard” threads the impossible marketing needle they needed to thread: it concedes everything while confessing nothing. Apple has always had a great keyboard that could fit in a MacBook — it just hasn’t been in a MacBook the last three years.

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I have been very grateful for the Apple of 2012 designing the MacBook Air of that era for the long haul. For most of my purposes, my MacBook Air continues to do most of the I need it to, albeit slowly, and despite my eyeballs bleeding on the chunkiness of its non-retina display.

I honestly would have replaced it with the Retina MacBook Air in 2018 if that computer had not come equipped with the butterfly keyboard. I just didn’t (and still don’t) trust that design. The butterfly keyboard tarnished the reputation of the entire MacBook product line.

Marco Arment said it perfectly in his review today:

Following in the footsteps of the fantastic iMac Pro, updated Mac Mini, and upcoming Mac Pro, the release of the 16-inch MacBook Pro ends a painful chapter of neglect and hubristic design of the Mac. Apple has finally turned the ship around.

I fully expect that in 2020 Apple will bring this new Magic Keyboard design to the smaller MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. And I honestly can’t wait.

George Lucas Needs to Keep His Filthy Paws Off Star Wars

The Verge:

Disney+ arrived with seven chapters of the Skywalker saga, but people have started to notice something strange about the first Star Wars film, A New Hope: it has an entirely different edit than the ones fans have seen before.

The change was “made by George made prior to the Disney acquisition,” a Disney representative told The Verge. […] The famous scene, which depicted the two characters having a tense conversation about the money Solo owned, was originally filmed and edited to feature Solo shooting Greedo first. The Special Edition release of A New Hope in 1997 was edited to feature Greedo shooting first. The edit became one of the most controversial moments in Star Wars history.

Any respectable Star Wars fan knows that Han shot first.

In the newly edited scene, Greedo says something to Han before shooting (Maclunkey!), although no subtitle appears at the bottom of the screen. Han proceeds to shoot once. This is followed by “a new explosion [that] covers a transition from them shooting to Greedo hitting the table, removing the Greedo dummy altogether.”

Just…someone please keep George Lucas away from these films. Jiminy.

The Best Time to Start a Blog

I’m 11 days into my goal of blogging every day for a month, and I’ll admit it’s been challenging. If anything, it is proving to me that writing and publishing is a muscle — one I’ve let atrophy.

And then there are people like Brent Simmons, who celebrated 20 years of his blog inessential a few days ago.

It‘s tempting to think that The Thing of my career has been NetNewsWire. And that’s kinda true. But the thing I’ve done the longest, love the most, and am most proud of is this blog.

I’m not sure what my “Thing” will be in 20 years, but I hope to look back on my writing as something I am proud of. I started this blog a number of years ago, and I’ve had a lot of fits & spurts with it. I endeavor to write regularly, and maybe getting a solid month in will be the beginning of a writing habit.

All I know is I agree fully with Brent’s parting wisdom:

Old proverb: “The best time to start a blog is 20 years ago. The second-best time is today.” :)

¶ Serving Requires Sacrifice

It’s been a long day, and as the final twenty minutes of it approach I found myself having not yet written today. And honestly, I wasn’t sure what to even write about. So let’s talk about why my day was long.

It’s because my day was spent serving. And while that made for a long day, it has been a rewarding day. This morning began with heading to church two and a half hours early. See, there was a training event for some of the leaders in our adult Sunday school ministry at 8:00 AM. As part of that, breakfast is included, and my wife volunteered to cook the breakfast. I acted as her sous chef before I needed to also attend said training. So we were there at 7:00 to begin making biscuits & gravy, eggs, and bacon. (Yes, my wife is an awesome cook).

After that we had our worship service and Sunday school hour as usual, but then we needed to stay and clean dishes from making that breakfast. A few others stayed and helped us, and that was very much appreciated. We left the church close to 1:00 PM, I think.

We went home where I needed to prepare the recording of today’s sermon for the podcast feed, along with a few other church-rated tasks.

And then at 5:00 PM I had the privilege as a Deacon to participate in examining a couple candidates for Pastor Ordination for church plants. It’s a task I take joy in and take seriously, and we didn’t finish until 9:00.

At this point, I’m truly exhausted. But it was energy well spent. There is sacrifice involved in serving. I’ve barely seen my son today. I’ve seen my dog even less. And while I have been around Karen for large parts of the day, it has felt like we mainly only existed around each other.

In the end, it’s one day. It’s not too much to be asked. And the time invested will likely pay off dividends for others. What I’m saying is this: you’ll have to sacrifice to serve. And it is worth it.

¶ The AirPods Pro In-Store Demo

I was in Omaha today for a fun event today, and on my way back towards Lincoln I decided to stop in the Apple Store at Village Pointe to check out the AirPods Pro. I walked in and it was extremely crowded and noisy in the store, which is a little bittersweet — on one hand, this is exactly why I loathe going to the Apple Store unless I must; on the other hand, this is a really great environment to test out AirPods Pro.

Despite how crowded it was, I was helped by a specialist right away, and I said I wanted to check out the AirPods Pro. He led me to another table, waved his iPhone in front of it, and pulled out another iPhone and an AirPods Pro demo unit.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Gross. Why would anyone want to try out earbuds that other people have have already done the same thing with? The specialist told me that every unit is thoroughly cleaned after every demo, and they place a seal on the unit to indicate they have been cleaned and not used since. He showed me the seal, which was a round tamper-evident sticker holding the lid closed. When he started to peel it off, the tamper-evident qualities came to light. Then he handed me the case.

I flicked it open, saw the pairing animation come up on the demo iPhone, and I tapped the button to pair them. Then I removed the bud and squished them into my ears.

And then the loud commotion of the store instantly dulled down to a barely audible hum. It was, for lack of a better word, incredible. I queued up some music and whatever din of my surroundings was left before was overpowered by the music.

And then I switched it to Transparency mode, and some of the commotion came back, but not at full force, and I could still hear the music well. I could carry on a brief conversation with the specialist, and then I switched back to noise cancellation. I toggled back and forth a few times.

Noise cancellation easily drowned out the chaos, and Transparency made music sound like a soundtrack to life happening around me.

In my brief moments with the AirPods Pro, I was impressed. Really impressed.

If you are interested in them and want to try before you commit, I would recommend Apple’s in-store demo if you have a store nearby.

¶ The Wonders of Working Out Wirelessly

For the past several years I have diligently gone to the gym every Tuesday and Thursday evening. It's rare for me to miss. I've become one of the "regulars". The staff know me and I frequently see the same familiar faces working out nearby.

The entire time I've been going to the gym my wrist has been adorned by an Apple Watch. First the original (Series 0), then the Series 2, and nowadays the Series 4. It has been my faithful companion, tracking my calories burned and exercise minutes.

I like to listen to podcasts while I work out, and in the early days I used my iPhone and the wired EarPods that came with them. There's just really no good place to put a phone while you work out, especially when it is tethered to your ears via a 3.5 foot cable. And pockets on gym shorts are a recipe for having your phone slide right out and onto the floor. And as phones have become larger, armbands have become more and more cumbersome.

The advent of the original AirPods nearly three years ago changed everything. Getting rid of the wire brought more freedom and far less worry while working out. I was able to just set my phone down with my towel and do my workout.

And then about a year ago with the Apple Watch Series 4 and watchOS 5’s ability to have full-fledged podcast apps, working out wirelessly finally hit its stride. These days I transfer some podcasts to my Apple Watch using Overcast, then I leave my iPhone in my locker. I pair my AirPods to my Watch, and I don’t have to think about anything else. It’s just my Watch, my AirPods, and me.

What’s really great is that because my gym has Wi-Fi, any text messages I receive relay from my phone to my watch, and I can have Siri read them to me and I can dictate a reply — all while on an elliptical.

The Apple Watch and AirPods are a real dynamic duo when it comes to working out, and every year they keep getting better.

How to Edit and Organize the Shortcuts in Your iPad Home Screen Widget→

The home screen widgets available on iPads running iPadOS 13 are very handy, and if you’ve delved into the Shortcuts app at all, having a selection of those within reach (ha ha) can be extremely helpful.

Shawn Blanc thinks so, too, yet has had the same problem as me with the Shortcuts widget.

Now, by default, the order of the shortcuts that appear on your Shortcuts Widget are the same as those in your primary Shortcuts Library within the Shortcuts app. Showing all the Shortcuts that you’ve ever created and which were toggled to “Show in the Widget”.

If you find that you have too many shortcuts in your Home Screen Widget, it can be a bit overwhelming. You may realize you don’t need all those shortcuts to be right there all the time.

This is something that has bugged me for quite a while, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I just discovered the solution to it yesterday.

It turns out there is a hidden-in-plain-sight way to organize the Shortcuts widget, but unless you’re a master at escape rooms, finding the clues to access the feature is not at all obvious.

To edit and organize your Shortcuts Widget:

1. Tap the top-right carrot arrow in the Shortcuts widget to expand it completely.
2. Then, at the bottom, you’ll see the option to “Customize in Shortcuts”.

Tap the “Customize in Shortcuts” button and you’ll be taken to the Shortcuts app with a special settings window that is specifically for the Shortcuts Widget.

From here you can now rearrange the order of the Shortcuts that are displayed in the Home Screen Widget and you can quickly select the check marks for which Shortcuts you do and do not want to show up in the widget.

This helped me prioritize which of my Shortcuts I want to be at the top of the list, without having to resort to a lot of frustrating rearranging via the main grid view in Shortcuts.

US Veterans Can Now Access VA Health Records with iPhone Health App→

Apple Newsroom:

Apple and the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today announced that veterans across the nation and surrounding territories now have access to the Health Records feature in the Health app on iPhone. The VA gradually launched Health Records to select patients this summer, and now veterans who are iOS users and receive their care through the Veterans Health Administration can see a fuller, more comprehensive picture of their health that includes information from multiple providers.

The Health Records feature of the Health app on iPhone isn’t new, but it is interesting and still gaining traction. For instance, there are a few specialty clinics in my city that offer access, but none of the major healthcare providers do. Go an hour northeast to Omaha and some of the larger healthcare providers there have embraced Health Records integration.

Partnering with the VA is a big leap in bringing this feature to more people, and hopefully this move will get even more providers moving toward offering this as an option to their patients.

Getting it set up looks to be very straightforward, too.

By signing into their providers’ patient portals in the Health app, veterans can see all of their health records in one place, including medications, immunizations, lab results and more. The Health app continually updates these records giving VA patients access to a single, integrated snapshot of their health profile whenever they want, quickly and privately.

Preliminary Reports Suggest iOS 13.3 Fixes Multitasking Problems→

MacRumors:

Apple today released the first beta of iOS 13.3 to developers, and based on early reports from those who have downloaded the new update, it fixes the frustrating multitasking bug that is impacting many iOS 13.2 users.

While iOS/iPadOS 13.2 fixed a number of frustrating issues for me, this multitasking bug has been driving me crazy. In short, iOS/iPadOS has been so aggressive in closing down background multitasking that it effectively feels like iOS/iPadOS doesn't have multitasking anymore.

It's not unusual for me to close Safari to switch momentarily to another app, then come back to Safari to see any open tabs reloading from scratch, which loses my place on the page and/or loses any progress I was doing in a web app.

So while I am ecstatic to hear this problem may be solved with the developer beta of iOS/iPadOS 13.3, today's release is the first beta, and there are typically 4 or more before release.

Apple, is it too much to ask for a quick 13.2.1 update to address this issue?

¶ The Solo Stove Bonfire

For my birthday this past summer my parents gifted me a Solo Stove Bonfire to serve as a fire pit for our backyard. It's a really nice sized pit that works well for our concrete patio space out back. I've gotten a lot of use out of it, including a crisp fall evening like tonight.

One of the advantages about the Solo Stove is it is portable. The next day, after the embers are all cooled off, I can empty it out and store it in my garage. Even though it is stainless steel, I don't want to risk it getting sitting water in it and rusting.

By far my favorite thing about it is when you get the fire roaring. When it does that, there are these vents around the circumference of the top that push more air in and the effect is really cool. See the photos below to see what I mean.

And while the party trick with the vents is my favorite thing about the Solo Stove itself, my most favorite thing about having a backyard fire pit is the time spent and stories shared with family and friends.

If you have a quaint space that needs a fire pit that can literally go anywhere, you should look at a Solo Stove. I can't recommend it enough.

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It should go without saying on this site that this post is not an ad. I'm just a happy customer.