Matisyahu's Blog

So there have been a parade of articles come out regarding ‘Project Titan’, an rumoured electric car from Apple, has been shut down (link). I can’t help but get a sense that the whole ‘Project Titan’ has been getting slowly wound down over the last several years with the next generation of CarPlay being announced at WWDC 2022 being an example of something that came out of a project where the focus wasn’t about building a car but instead starting with a car then investigating what can be replaced with Apple hardware and software. In other words I don’t think there was an electric vehicle project but rather the car was a means to an end – the focus was on selling solutions that car companies can integrate into their product then possible build services that the car can be integrated into.

Why am I sceptical of Apple getting into building their own cars? there is a massive upfront capital expenditure and the margins are wafer thin – GM for example has margins sitting at 4.89%, Toyota sitting 11.28% etc. the risk reward just isn’t there when there is plenty of profit to be made by selling ready made solutions car companies whose expertise isn’t in the area of good user interface design, integration between devices, delivering services such as iCloud etc. As for the $10 billion spent, I would say that a lot of what we’re hearing today regarding AI is due in part to the work that was done and future features in Apple devices will have their origins back in ‘Project Titan’ so the investment will eventually pay off in the long run.

My Snakehive iPhone 15 Pro Max wallet case arrived today – a few days ahead of schedule:

I can now stop being paranoid – I’ve been carrying my phone around in the cardboard box it came in, worried that I’d end up dropping it and breaking the screen. I’ve now got it all sorted out and I also tested my Samsung USBC earphones and everything is working well – actually they work better with my iPhone than they did with my Android phone which is kind of strange but I’ll take a win when I get one. I was going to get a Twelvesouth but they’ve moved to this weird one where the phone sits in a plastic case which sticks to the leather case using a magnet – na, I’d sooner have the plastic case stuck to the leather case, either sown, glued or both.

I’m reading through articles talking about how Mozilla is planning for the future in terms of generating revenue and growing Firefox market share. The thing is, if you want to grow market share then you need to win over the tech enthusiasts, the family member who is ‘good with computers’, the van guard of early adopters who then have a halo effect. What is the halo effect? when the iPod was launched and made available on on Windows the half effect was how the iPod introduced customers to an Apple product which enticed them to investigate what other products they sell.

In the case of Firefox, if they wish to increase market share then they need to win over the group of people I mentioned earlier – part of that is the work that they’ve been doing around extensions but refusing to cripple it to the extent that Google is doing with Chrome but that will only go so far. The other area where they need to work on is closing the functionality gap (link) (link) promptly so that firstly there compliance with web standards trail by a matter of weeks rather than months and secondly that they address issues of compatibility such as with when suing the Skype web based interface – the below error appears when using Firefox 123:

I have reported it however they’ve closed it off as a duplicate which is true but it is frustrating that something that was reported 5 years ago (link) with no work being done to address it. When someone reports a website incompatibility and the best you can do is “well, sucks to be you” then do nothing then don’t be surprised that your browser is promptly uninstalled and the user goes back to using Chrome. This is the same issue that Microsoft found when they had the EdgeHTML based Edge browser where their telemetry showed customer’s gave it a chance but when they had their first negative experience of the website not working properly they gave up and went for Chrome. If the person who would provide the halo effect has a negative experience then is that person going to suggest it to friends and family – to encourage them to move over?

At the moment I’m running Firefox 123 with uBlock Origin 1.56.0 and things are going well – there is a slight performance boost over Firefox 122 but overall everything is fairly reliable. I’m happy that Mozilla developers are fighting the good fight because a monoculture isn’t healthy for the technology sector so I hope that the Mozilla developers take on board my two points I made regarding web standards compliance and and website compatibility.

I’ve been powering through having a sore throat and coughing because I didn’t have any sick leave left and I’ve used my annual leave for my trip overseas at the end of May so I’ve decided to take two days off to properly recover rather than pushing through and find it hangs around for longer. It’s one of those things that you’re better off taking that time off from work to recover properly then you end up being more productive and enjoy work a lot more.

I’ve done a clean install of macOS on my MacBook Air and Mac Studio – I’ve been putting it off for ages and because I experiment with lots of different software, tweaking, changing etc. that I want to set it back to it’s original state. So far everything is working well, slight bump in the responsiveness. This is part of a larger project I am working on – more will be revealed soon.

I’m still following along with the work being done regarding Interop (link) (link) and things are advancing pretty good. On both my devices at the moment I’m using Safari at the moment (it’s the only browser I have installed) and so far things are going well but I always look forward to the improvements currently in the Safari Technology Preview making their way back into the mainstream release of Safari. It’ll be interesting to see whether the EU forcing Apple to open up iOS to third party web engines will result in Apple putting more resources into Safari to catch up on compliance and web extension functionality to close the gap between Safari and Chrome/Firefox.

Got in contact with mechanic working on my scooter – looks like it is almost ready except the battery needs to be replaced so they were waiting on me to give it the go ahead where they will order it on an overnight courier down from Auckland. I’m not surprised that the battery needs to be replaced given that I’ve been dependent on the kick start although on occasionally the ignition will work at random times for no obvious reason. Another good piece of news is the arrival of my vehicle licence, I paid for a 6 month vehicle licence but once that is up I’ll go for a 12 month licence.

One thing to alway remember, one may get frustrated with a piece of software and/or service then look longingly at the alternatives out there, those platforms too had their downsides, there is no perfect platform. I had a quick Google and it appears that the issue ‘Something went wrong on our end. Please try again.’ isn’t something new, there are quite a few people experiencing this issue which gives me hope that maybe it’ll put a rocket up Google’s backside. If you are wondering ‘how can I avoid this issue’, when you uninstall the app don’t delete it from the Play Store, it appears that if you delete it from your Play Store account a certain number of times then then the error ‘Something went wrong on our end. Please try again.’ will appear.

I’ve been keeping quiet regarding the recent politics in New Zealand because having warned what would happen I am now sitting back and watching it all unfold. As much as many New Zealanders like to crow about how we’re ‘not like those Americans’ it appears that we too have short memories and will have to learn the hard way as it appears, based on recent poll numbers, that the American voter will have to learn the hard way too. Unfortunately I am not optimistic that the lessons learnt will translate to a long lasting change in how people vote so at this point it I’ve decided to sit on the sidelines.

Just to round it up, got pay day this week so I’m looking forward to picking up some stuff at the supermarket on special – Pepsi Max 1.5L for NZ$1.99 so I’ll pick up a couple of boxes and put them aside. At the moment I’m looking at getting a bike trailer similar to this (link) which would enable me to have a big shopping trip once a fortnight rather than either balancing it on my bike or get a friend/family member to help out. I’ll have a chat with the guy at the local motorcycle repair place to see whether they are aware of something suitable for a 50cc because it would be a huge improvement over the current situation.

Well, hopefully on Monday I’ll be able to pick up my scooter after having it in the repair shop for the week, I haven’t heard anything back but I hope that means its ready to be picked up but with that being said I haven’t received my vehicle licence yet so I’m going to have to follow that up on Monday to find out what is happening (maybe I’ll be lucky and it arrives on that day).

I bought a Tile bluetooth tracker and got it all setup although I later realised that I bought the one with the non-user replaceable battery but if I do get another one I’ll remember to get the pro version which includes a user replaceable battery. With all that being said, there is still work being done on bluetooth trackers that integrate into Google’s ‘find my’ network but there is no time line other than at the moment Google is working with Apple about dealing with those who are using trackers for nefarious purposes.

So how is my Firefox experience, on the desktop going great but, on the phone, not so much – I deleted it and tried to reinstall but ended up getting this message:

Google support has been about as useful as a screen door on a submarine, so I question why I pay for Google Workspace when all Play Store support keep sending me emails with step-by-step instructions to do what I have already attempted. As the error message implies, the issue is with them not me given that I can download and install any number of random applications without problem – the problem only occurs if I try to download and install Firefox from the Play Store, it is the only app that is impacted by the issue. As a result of this glorious experience, I am evaluating whether I should keep paying Google for a Workspace account given that they cannot fix something that should be a matter of flicking a switch on Play Store or whether I should look at alternatives such as Microsoft’s own Office 365 – for half the price I can get the completely web based service for NZ$9.70 per month or pay slightly less than what I am paying today which gives me access to desktop applications as well.

I’ve installed Microsoft Edge on my computer, and it is amazing how much faster it is, how much better the spell checker is plus it also has grammar checking as well. I have to admit, I’ve been a long time Microsoft basher, but Microsoft have definitively improved over the last few years with the improvement to their online services with copilot showing that they still have some spring in their step. Maybe what I need to do is use my Gmail account for the basics then use Office 365 for all my ‘serious stuff’ that I need to get done. I also wonder how Microsoft has made Microsoft Edge (which is based on Chromium) so much more light weight when compared to Chrome given that they both share the same code base – anyway I guess I’m enjoying the honeymoon period and I’m sure I’ll come across some rough edges but so far, I’m pretty happy with how things are working at the moment. On a side note: my contacts are synchronising to the Microsoft cloud without any issues.