Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

Somewhat FOMO

It was a weird feeling being at the Apple Store this past Friday. For the first time in eight years, I won’t be getting the latest iPhone. So to be at the Apple Store on iPhone launch day, then, gave me some modicum of FOMO. It was bittersweet to be amongst the eager revelers standing in line for their pickup appointment, minutes away from getting their hands on that new titanium. That could have been me also! Honestly, if money was no objection, I’d be standing right in line with them. But, as the saying goes: “Not in this economy!”

I was there on iPhone launch day because it was also the launch day of this year’s latest Apple Watch. The 9th iteration of the Apple smartwatch proved to be the right amount of waiting for me to get my first ever (smartwatch of any kind, that is). I’m not a watch person at all; it’s been years since I’ve worn a “dumb” watch. I stopped wearing that Hamilton watch soon as the battery died. I was too lazy to take it to a watch repair shop to get it serviced. That’s how unenthusiastic I am about watches.

And that’s also why it took me - a huge fan of all things Apple - so long to get an Apple Watch. I reckon nine years is a decent enough length for the Apple Watch to mature into a well-rounded product. The Series 9 receives a processor and screen upgrade over the Series 8, which is just lovely. A smartwatch can never be too fast, and its screen can never be too bright in battling the outdoor sun. I bought the cheapest model: the aluminum 41mm. Well, count ourselves lucky if we can refer to $399 anything as “cheap”.

More so than telling time (I’ve got an iPhone for that), I bought the Apple Watch for its health tracking capabilities. Already I am learning quite a lot from just the heart-rate monitoring function. The data (so far) says my resting hear-rate is 49 BPM, which is apparently quite good. When I’m walking, the average BPM is 90. I’ve yet to do a run with the Apple Watch (air quality was horrendous this past weekend), so I’m very excited to see what my vitals are during workouts.

And those hourly reminders to get up and stand for one minute is pretty effective. Got to close those activity rings!

Get active.

Emergency cash

It was an unceremoniously start to this week of vacation. The latest macOS update - 13.5 - released on Tuesday, and it utterly broke my M1 MacBook Pro. You know the part where an update asks you to restart the device? Well, my Mac laptop did not restart, could not be restarted, and generally become unresponsive. The sucky thing about modern Macs is that there aren’t much buttons to press, no secret reset handshakes. Just about the only thing to do is hold down the power button for 10 seconds, and then press it again. That’s all an end user can do if their MacBook Pro is dead.

Well, not exactly all. If you happen to have another Mac lying around (few seldom do, I would reckon), you can connect that to the “dead” Mac via the included USB-C charging cable. Download and fire up Apple Configurator, press a sequence of buttons on the dead Mac to put it in DFU mode, then maybe there’s a chance the unresponsive computer can be revived.

Fortunately for me, I do have another MacBook Air lying around. Unfortunately for me, reviving the MacBook Pro using Apple Configurator did not work. The macOS 13.5 release so completely broke the machine it necessitated a visit to the local Apple Store. Good thing I live two blocks from one.

Bad thing my nearly two-years old MacBook Pro is out of warranty. When a Mac laptop is dead like it is, it usually means a logic board (otherwise known as the motherboard on PCs) replacement. For a 16-inch MacBook Pro, that means a flat charge of $850. Not an insignificant sum, though for a laptop that costs $3,600 new (I had opted for some upgrades), it’s not really that bad. What sucks is that I am now out the $850, all because of a faulty OS update. Negotiation with the head Genius Bar person did not net me any monetary sympathies, just some personal ones.

Funny enough, the same person asked me if I needed a moment to think about the $850 charge. While I recognize it’s a hefty sum for some people, ultimately I need a working computer! Unceremoniously forking over that money hurts, sure, but it’s not going to wreck my finances one bit. I mean, you’re able to come up with $850 easily in an emergency, right?

Now kiss!

I was wrong

I have in my hands the brand-new iPhone 14 Pro. Getting my annual iPhone upgrade could not have been easier, if you discount the fact I had to wake up at 5:00 AM two Fridays ago to preorder. I am lucky to live only a few blocks away from an Apple Store. That is precisely where I chose to pickup the new phone last Friday. No need to play the UPS waiting game for shipping.

I chose a 5:15 PM pickup time so that I can go after work. I am not too rabid a fan that I cannot wait a few more hours to get the new product. In fact, I didn’t even activate the iPhone 14 Pro until the next day. As expected, there was a significant queue outside the Apple Store. I however had an advantage: my appointment was purely picking up. I’m not trading in a device (at that time, anyways), nor am I setting up the new iPhone at the store. Just hand me the device and I can get out of there.

So I bypassed a bunch of people in line with more complicated transactions. Perfect.

Not sure why people want to trade-in a device at the store without first transferring data to the new phone. Apple makes it absolutely easy with “Quick Start”: put the old iPhone next to the new one, follow the prompts, and about an hour or so (depend on how much stuff you have), I was done. In Apple parlance, it is indeed magic how effortless this data transfer method is. No more restore from iCloud backups for me, henceforth.

Also surprisingly easy was the transition from physical SIM card to eSIM. I had reservations when I found out the entire iPhone 14 lineup in the United States will feature eSIM only. I feared that the new activation procedure won’t be as simple as taking the SIM card out of the old iPhone and put into the new. Worse, it read like a perfect opportunity for Verizon to play games and force customers to pay the extortionate $30 upgrade fee. Want to transition to eSIM? Pay up, sucker!

I was wrong! Switching to eSIM is super easy. The Quick Start process transferred the data from the physical SIM inside my iPhone 13 Pro right onto the new iPhone 14 Pro. It was done in matter of minutes. No need to call Verizon or go to the Verizon website. Apple have really thought this process through to make it as seamless as possible for the customer. Bravo.

Red for the cause.

Pro Display blemish

A week ago just after Christmas, I noticed a tiny dark splotch at the bottom center of my Pro Display XDR. No matter what is being displayed, the screen blemish is constant. Probably a malfunctioning LED, one out of the 576 in the backlight array. I’ve had the monitor for about six weeks before I even caught this defect, likely one of those things where you don’t see it, but once you do, you can never unsee it.

I likely would have let it go if the display had cost $500. But since the Pro Display XDR famously starts at $5,000, the screen had better be as close to perfect as possible! The panel has a one year warranty, so off to the Apple store I went. Carrying a display worth that much from the mall parking lot to the store was rather stressful. The box indicated exactly what’s inside, ripe for enterprising robbers to have an easy payday.

My local Apple store did not even have the requisite power and data cables (nor the $1,000 Pro Stand to prop up the monitor) on hand to test at the Genius Bar. All they could do is check for exterior damage, then intake the display for further testing. I figured once the tech verify the splotch, Apple would simply ship an entire replacement unit. The Pro Display XDR doesn’t look to be a product that can be serviced readily. Take off the front glass to repair a single LED? No way.

A replacement display is exactly what Apple sent to the store some five days later. Quite a quick turnaround, given the globe chip shortage still ongoing. The staff there was curiously surprised Apple didn’t send parts instead, though I’m not sure I would want a display that’s been fettled with internally by a store-level tech. No offense: not for a $5,000 monitor.

After suffering another stressful journey from the Apple store to the parking lot, carrying an effectively brand-new Pro Display XDR, I’m happy to report the replacement screen is as clean as can be. Hopefully I won’t have to do this again.

Can you see it?