When rumours started to appear that Meta, of all companies, were working on an ActivityPub based social network, I was sceptical. I’m a massive fan of the protocol since retreating to micro.blog as my only social interaction in the middle of last year. Meta putting its stamp on some IndieWeb underpinnings could mean so much for networks such as Mastodon, and could mean that social media companies were finally being more open.
Meta rushed out its Twitter competitor come rip off due to the current rate limit disaster going on over there, and everyone rushed to try it out. The combination of a vast number of people using it, increased moderation efforts and hype around ActivityPub integration met in a perfect storm of interest that meant tens of millions of users flooded in. I was one of them that jumped on the Zuck bandwagon, and I’ve got some conflicting thoughts.
One of the biggest complaints I had at the time I chose to remove the iPad from my workflow was the constantly changing nature of it. Each time Apple updated the OS they slightly changed, or completely revamped, the way multitasking and other things worked. When you use and rely on something as much as I did my iPad, it gets frustrating quickly. Unfortunately, they have now done it to the Apple Watch, and I’m pulling out what little hair I have.
It is pushing on for a year since I wrote about my all in use of Apple notes. That was about a year into my journey that started with numerous moving backwards and forwards in note apps, and ended with the realisation that the app that was built ring into my phone was the best one. It was the one I used the most, the one I relied on, and the one that delivered the most consistent experience.
I’ve started reading Jason Sinek book Start With Why and like most books of this ilk it’s tough getting through all the repetitive cherry peaked examples and struggles to get to the point. It suffers from the modern problem of a book that could and should have been a blog post.
The idea it covers do help with loss of things though. It talks through the importance of communicating why you do something or why you have created the things you do, first.
It has taken me decades on this earth to realise that I need to spend more time processing the trauma that I experienced. No one did anything bad to me or anything, but I think everyone has this period when growing up where you realise that life in the real-world hurts quite a bit. It’s a natural progression, and the worst thing you can do is run away from it.
When I sat down to watch this year’s WWDC, Yes I am that sad it’s a bit of an event I sat down to specifically watch, I was already expecting the worst. Very few details had leaked about exciting updates to iOS or macOS, but there were leaks aplenty about the upcoming headset. I don’t like computers on peoples faces, and Apple did nothing to persuade me otherwise.
What it did do is create a buzz around VR again, and make sure that Apple didn’t miss the boat.
In modern times we have grown to rely on them, but starting with the first device to run them we’ve had a strange relationship to apps. No more so in the world of iOS, that for many years clung so rigidly it the ‘tap square, open app’ mentality that every single facet was sandboxed away from the other. A strange way to deal with things given that our whole lives are now on smart devices.