Tag Archives: upgrade

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. New iPhone season. Yes, it’s new iPhone season. Once upon a time that would have filled my heart with excitement. I’d have even gotten up far earlier than normal to schlep over to my nearest Apple Store for the chance to buy their new wonder. For the last three or four years, though, I’ve basically just been leasing my phone from Apple. I’m about two weeks away from my scheduled upgrade window – and sure, I’ll do it – but the thrill is gone. It’s hard not to see the miniature computer in my pocket as just another electronic commodity, with this year’s having marginally better cameras, marginally more speed, and marginally improved battery life. I’m sure I’ll be duly impressed to have a freshly upgraded bit of kit once it’s in my hands, of course. Even so, no matter how many emails they send me offering to let me swap out early for the low, low price of $60, I’m in no great rush.

2. Consistency. If I have to take a stupid walk for my dumb health, I want to get it knocked out as early in the day as possible. For the last bunch of months, that’s meant schlepping out just at the beginning of dawn’s early light and often getting home before the sun was even properly up. Now that autumn is here, though, to stay on schedule, I’m leaving the house and getting most of the walk done before the promise of a rising sun has even turned the horizon gray. One of the many things I’ve noticed while most of the rest of the world sleeps is how many people illuminate their houses with mismatched exterior lighting.  Some houses are consistent, but the number that mix harsh blue, soft white, and the occasional other colored hue surprises me. I’m not a designer by any stretch, but from where I’m walking, the mash up of mixed color “temperature” scattered across the front of the average house looks awful. It probably shouldn’t annoy me, but it does.

3. Physical therapy. I’ve been in physical therapy several times over the last ten years, but this morning reminded me that there’s one aspect of the experience I can never seem to get over… that would be the general indignity of being laid out, bent, twisted, folded, spindled, and mutilated right there with seven or eight other people getting the same treatment for their own maladies. It feels like there should, somehow, be a more discrete or dignified way of getting treated. I know I’m not looking around or trying to take in a show during these sessions, but the whole experience leaves me feeling intensely vulnerable and that’s just unpleasant.

Not the present I expected…

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My decade old first generation iPad Air finally gave up the ghost. Right up until it fell off the cliff, it was still mostly serviceable as a platform for streaming podcasts, or television, or generally schmucking around on the internet. Sure, it was sluggish and with just 16 GB storage, I had to offload all non-essential apps and files years ago, but what finally killed it was the elderly OS no longer supporting a number of apps I use on a regular basis. First Xfinity dropped out. Then it was Twitter. Last week a bunch of others fell off.

Increasingly I was limping along, trying to use an outdated version of Safari as my access point to every function. It finally got to be too slow and too much of a damned bloody nuisance to continue finding ways to work around the limitations imposed by elderly tech.

Anyway, now I have a spanking new iPad Air that’s easily capable of doing 100x more than I’m expecting of it. It’s more than a match for keeping up with any content consumption I’m going to throw at it. A shiny new iPad wasn’t the birthday present I planned to give myself this year, but it’s the one I ended up getting.  I wonder what the chances are this one will still be streaming my media in 2033.

The regrettable iPad death spiral… 

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My venerable old iPad Air was released and most likely purchased in November of 2013. For the last year or two I’ve been limping along with its pretty rotten battery and a few quirky, but mostly ignorable behavioral issues.

Apple stopped supporting this first generation Air back in 2019 and still it trundled along doing most of what I wanted from it. Without iOS updates and the associated app updates, I knew its days were numbered. That it kept going for three years with no upgrades or support is probably a testament to Apple having developed a pretty bulletproof bit of kit way back then.

Over the last couple of days, though, I’ve noticed a fair number of my go to apps have stopped working – or have started demanding that I upgrade to versions of iOS that my device doesn’t support. Every few days it looks like a new app becomes unusable. Even though the iPad itself keeps defying expectations by plugging along, it’s a vicious downwards spiral into the end of its service life.  

For the first time in nine years, I’m back in the market for a tablet. I should probably do some kind of market survey to figure out how the landscape there has changed in the last decade, but it feels more likely that I’ll just walk into the local Apple store and point at the shiny new version of what I already have. That original Air has been an absolute workhorse.  Hopefully the next one will last me as long.

Now the only real question is will I brave the mall during the week before Christmas or suffer through it sometime the week after the holiday. It’s a classic no-win situation, even if it is for a good cause.

They’re always self-inflicted…

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One of the tasks that more or less defines my job was impossible to do this week until around 10:00 this morning thanks to a bit of software that had been migrated to a new and improved flavor last week and then promptly shit the bed.

Look, I don’t personally care. If Uncle wants me to do the work, he’ll make sure the systems and software all function. I can sit around twiddling my thumbs with the best of them. I am, after all, a highly seasoned bureaucrat. It’s the sort of thing that comes with the territory. 

The only catch is when systems are down for days on end, it tends to create a backlog and then when the boffins over in the IT office get sorted, the whole log falls directly on your head. That’s where we ended up on today – with at least three days of backlogged work in the queue plus whatever extra came in over the side before close of business. 

To at least one person, every bit of it was something ranging between “important” and “urgent.” To me, of course, it’s all just something to blast through as quickly as possible while trying to get about 80% of it tucked into the right places. If I’m being perfectly honest, since I read every single item that passed through my hot little hands today, I can tell you none of it was actually important, let alone urgent. It was mostly the living embodiment of the kind of electronic ephemera the bureaucracy passes around to continue justifying its own existence. It’s the kind of morass you really want to take a bit at a time rather than in anything resembling large chunks. 

It’ll get done – mostly because I don’t particularly want to deal with this particular hot mess again on Monday. It’ll get done, but I’ll piss and moan about it the entire time, because it’s just another wound we inflicted on ourselves for no discernable reason. If that doesn’t define government work, I don’t know what does.

Breaking in the new equipment…

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So, I got a fancy new laptop from work last week. Let me lead off by saying overall it’s a tremendous improvement from the five-year-old laptop I was previously saddled with using. That’s not to say, however, that there aren’t a few issues.

The first, which I discovered on my first full day of using the laptop away from its “docking station” on my desk at the office, is that there are only two USB ports. Those ports are arranged in such a way that it’s impossible to simultaneously plug in my removable Wi-Fi adapter and any other USB device. The adapter is slightly wider than a thumb drive… but sufficiently wide that it makes the second port unusable. Fine. A $13 USB hub ordered from Amazon later (plus $2.99 for same day delivery) and I can now use my air card and a mouse simultaneously. I won’t comment on the aesthetics of that whole set up other than saying it looks like absolute trash sitting on my desk at home. 

This morning, a piece of software I use all day every day fired up as expected and a few minutes later promptly disappeared. It’s as if it never existed on my machine at all. No trace of it anywhere. 

This necessitated a call to the obviously misnamed “Enterprise Help Desk.” The gentleman I eventually spoke to was nice enough, going so far as musing that it was strange because the last person he talked to was having the same issue with the same missing program. More people with the same problem might sound like it’s worse, but in fact being part of a big problem is much better, because something that impacts many users is far more likely to get attention than if you’re the odd man out in the wilderness somewhere. If it’s a group problem, it might actually get fixed. If it’s an individual problem there’s a pretty even shot that your ticket will just linger long enough for someone to mark it complete regardless of whether they’ve solved your problem or not.

Here I am, hoping that I really am part of the many rather than the few. In the meantime, I’ve been directed to the web version of the program that I need to use all day. Honestly, if there’s anything more problematic than not having the software you need, relying on its underpowered web version is it. As always, my standard disclaimer applies… if Uncle wants me to be able to do something, I’ll be given the resource to do it. Otherwise, I’ll cheerfully report that there’s nothing significant to report or that we just can’t get there from here.

On the up side, at the rate we upgrade our office technology, I could have as few as one more new computer to go before I call it a full career. So, I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

Dodging a brick…

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I’ve been vaguely aware that 2022 was the year 3G wireless service was going to be discontinued here in the US for a while now. Other than being aware, I really didn’t put much intellectual rigor into wanting to know more about it. That was true until I glanced at an article yesterday warning that some cellular-based home security systems among other “background” services could be impacted.

After a quick check, it turns out that my system is going to be one that dropped offline sooner rather than later. Turns out, thanks to AT&T taking their network offline later this month, I was about a week away to losing my system. 

I’m not mad at them. Technology marches on and needs to be upgraded from time to time. I’m am, however, pissed as hell that I didn’t even get a warning notice from the monitoring company I’ve been paying every month for the last seven years to keep any eye out for home intrusion, flood, and fire. 

They were quick to confirm that I was about to have a problem when I called last night. If I hadn’t noticed that article and then taken the initiative to call them, though, there’s no telling how many monthly fees I’d have paid for them to monitor dead air. In all likelihood, I’d have never known it until the point when an alarm should have triggered but didn’t. 

That’s aggravating on any number of levels. 

To their credit, the company in question was quick to offer me an upgraded base station at no cost (as long as I was willing to sign a new one-year contract). No big deal there, as I’ve been going month to month with them for at least the last four years and don’t have any interest in building a new system from the ground up. Aside from this one pretty glaring issue, their customer service and equipment has been just about flawless. 

I should be at least temporarily future proofed by the end of the week, but if you rely on cellular as a primary or backup link for your alarm system and it’s of a certain age, you might want to give your provider a call and make sure you’re not about to be bricked.

New phone day…

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It’s new iPhone delivery day. I’m fairly sure I’ve owned every “flagship” version of Apple’s now-venerable iPhone. The annual swap out is just kind of part of the tempo of the year now. The days when I felt compelled to get up early and stand in the dark to get one of the first out of the gate are pretty much finished. The era where new phones come with incredible new “must have” features seems to be over.

Still, I’m always just a little bit excited to get a new bit of hardware in my hands. I emphasize the hardware aspect because this morning, as I have for the last five or six upgrades, I spent some time completing a full backup of my old phone… so I could drop it wholesale into the new device. 

If I’m honest, I these upgrades are mostly just a matter of picking up a little bit of speed between clicks and a slightly better camera. I’m using the newest version of apps I’ve been using for years. I don’t know what the cool new apps are – and I mostly don’t care. This mini-computer I’ll carry around in my pocket is almost completely a platform for text messages, keeping to do lists, and taking (fairly) decent pictures of the critters to post on the “big three” social media platforms. Apollo ran on a system far less powerful, but I sheepishly confess I probably don’t use one tenth of what the thing is capable of doing. 

It turns out I’ve turned into that guy… The one who wants the latest toy because it’s the latest toy rather than anything to do with what it’s capable of doing. It feels like after all these years there must be some whiz bang function that would change my life if I only knew it existed. Maybe I should read a review or something. I probably should, but I think we all know what’s really going to happen. I’m going to go right back to using this fancy new phone the way I’ve used all its predecessors for half a decade.

Personal growth or something…

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I’ve got two months left on my current iPhone Upgrade Program replacement cycle. I could buy my way out of those last two months for about $60 and sign up Friday morning for a spanking new iPhone 11 in hopes of getting it on launch day. It’s tempting… and there was a time it would have been an absolute no brainer. I’d have been one of the first 50 through the door on release day to make sure I got the one I wanted.

The days of me wanting anything badly enough to stand in line in the middle of the night, though, seem to be well over. I still like new and shiny, but I prefer to acquire it during normal business hours. I guess you could call that personal growth or something.

Of course it’s not so much growth that’s going to keep me from walking in to the local Apple Store sometime around the end of October and swapping out the 10 for the 11… and another year of renting the latest iPhone. Even if all they did was make the camera even better, it’s worth the price of admission as far as I’m concerned. Even if it’s not also worth the $60 premium to buy my way into the upgrade on release weekend.

Why I didn’t upgrade…

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The chance to pre-order the iPhone X for delivery on release has come and gone. It’s a fact only remarkable because it was the first time I willingly took a pass on trying to snag the latest miracle from Cupertino on day one. There are a couple of reasons for that – and at least one of them has to do with the phone itself, although Apple is largely to blame for the other reasons as well.

1. $1149 is a tough, tough price point to swallow for someone who remembers $200 cell phones and offers of “free phone with contract.” Sure those were old school dumb phones or “feature” phones of the past, but it’s still a memory fresh enough to trigger thoughts of “what the actual fuck” when it comes time to fork over a grand.

2. My Late 2014 Mac Mini is slowing down under the weight of everything I’m asking it to do as a primary computer and mini-server for the house. It’s going to need replacement sooner or later and that likely means stepping up to the iMac and swallowing another $2400 bill from Apple.

3. My first generation iPad Air, now 4 years old doesn’t quite have a battery problem… yet. It’s still burning through a full charge fast enough that it’s days are numbered. There’s $950 more allocated for tech refresh either this year or next.

4. Pre-ordering is tied to my home address in Maryland… and the state will happily charge me $68.94 for the privilege of ordering a new iPhone and having it shipped to my door. If I’m patient enough to wait until the phone is widely available, I can walk into the Apple Store in Delaware and take delivery and only pay the standard Apple Tax instead of getting hit by Maryland too.

5. AT&T and I have been together for a long time – closing in on 20 years now. The problem with that relationship is that when I’m sitting in my living room I hover somewhere between zero and one bar of service. During the great ice storm of 2017, with my internet connection down I ended up with no cell connection at all… while neighbors running on the Verizon network were still able to call out. Having minimal voice and data coverage at home during an emergency situation is kind of a priority, so it’s likely time for a switch. As an Apple Upgrade Program member there isn’t a clear way for me to change carriers during a pre-order purchase.

So there it is, five distinct and fairly reasonably assessed reasons why I couldn’t bring myself to upgrade right away this time. It’s the right decisions, but I still don’t feel any better about it.

Upgrade me…

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I’ve given up on try talking myself out of having the latest, greatest iteration of Apple’s phones and tablets. That sooner rather than later I’ll end up with one of the two new iPads announced this afternoon is a foregone conclusion. Now it’s a simple question of which one I’ll bring home with me.

I’ve really come to like the size of the current Mini as opposed to the “full sized” original iPads. My only disappointment from my Mini is the non-retina display. It’s been sort of like going back to standard definition television after watching everything in HD. Sure, you can do it and it’s perfectly serviceable, but it’s well off the mark from being optimal. The new Mini resolves that issue and adds a whole lot of added horsepower to boot. Of course with the new full sized model being a slimmed down version of its former self, it’s a tossup which one is going to end up being my go-to tablet for the next year.

The only thing I know for sure is after last month’s fiasco of waking long before the crack of dawn and standing in line for four hours to be met with “sorry, sold out.” I won’t be lining up for this launch. I don’t mind standing in line when I know I’m going to have something to show for the trouble, but with Apple product launches I no longer have that old warm fuzzy that they’re going to fill their own supply chain first before making units available for other retailers. Whenever they can ship it to me from China is just going to have to be fast enough this time around.