The things I like #30daysofApple

I’m a little more than 1/2 way done with my 30 days of Apple, and after much switching pains. I think I’ve turned the corner and started appreciating the little things that apple has done to their applesphere. Don’t worry Team Android and Windows, I haven’t converted… or have I? Just joking, read on to see my relatively short list of things I like.

One of the things that apple prides itself on, and apple fanatics endless talk about is how well all the apple products are integrated with each other. To which I admit, it’s a pretty tightly integrated system. I do like how iMessage in MacOS, seamlessly connects with Messages on iOS. It works as advertised, you can view your SMS text messages on your phone on your computer, cool. In fact this whole continuity stuff is freaking awesome, something Microsoft and Google could learn a trick or two from. Being able to place/receive calls using your cell number from you computer, is nice. Not entirely sure the universaly clipboard sync is that useful, but at least it’s there. I also really like the instant hotspot, and while I know there are apps you can use on the windows/android side, it is really convenient having it built directly in the OS(es). It’s a little hard to explain just what continuity is, so watch this video from Appleinsider. Yes I know it’s a copout but tough.

As before when I was using OSX for my daily driver, I really do like having a built in ssh/scp/sftp clients (& servers) built in to the operating system, putty is great, but if I tried doing that raspberry pi tor server thing from the previous post (Secure yourself, before you wreck yourself), I’d have gone batty. It’s of course doable but just so much easier on a native UNIX platform. I was scp’ing config files back and forth between the macbook and raspberry pi, editing locally and then scp’ing back up to the raspberry pi. Very convenient, very quick.

The next feature I really liked, is airdrop, yes i know, security people will scream their heads off about how insecure it. However, damn it, it’s easy to use. There are severe limitations true, but compared to running a SSH/SFTP server on your android device and using the corresponding applications to upload files to your devices. Nothing else compares in terms of ease of use, although, yah loading MP3s disappears into the iDevice ether, but move a movie/pic taken on your phone over to your laptop? Simple! Want to move a file between your iDevices? Again simple! Here’s a guide on how to use airdrop if you haven’t used airdrop yet. Microsoft, Google, dupe this function! MS, workgroup/homegroup sharing is crap compared to this.

Now on the iOS side, I really like the messaging app, because google hasn’t been able to decide what it wants to do with SMS/MMS messaging (see the whole, google hangouts, messages, allo, provider built sms apps fiasco) to be honest, simple mobile messaging on android is weird. On iOS however, handwritten notes, stickers, higher quality pictures and video messages, and all the cutesy stuff apple has added to their messages app is great. Nothing to complain about, wish Apple would learn to play better with others in this particular case. I don’t know if Apple has some kind of patent on this, but I do like the notification badges that apple has. I’ve had it on various launchers on Android, but they’re always a bit wonky and I have to think because it’s built in at system level on iOS it just seems to work better.

While I absolutely loathe forcetouch/3d touch on the macbook/macOS on iOS it makes sense. It for all intents and purposes, functions as a right click in iOS and as a windows user who’s had access to the right mouse button since day 1, the idea of “right clicking” for a context menu makes sense. I’m glad that my Pixel XL has some force touch capabilities but not everything has it yet, and not even all of google apps support force touching, so the way it’s so pervasive in iOS is cool. Here’s a video for those of you who are confused what I’m talking about with regards to force touching.

I touched on stickers in an earlier paragraph, but I really like stickers. I think I’ve spent $10 at this point on various sticker packs. I also like having an emoji keyboard being a key combo away in MacOS, I think there’s a way to do it in windows but I can’t find it. Yah I’m that Asian. 

Apple Pay just works better/faster than Android Pay, not sure why, seems like the technology would be the same but for whatever reason the 3 times I’ve used apple pay, it just worked. Android pay, has always a bit of a gamble, one day I’ll tell  you about how because of android pay, MacDonald’s, and stupid; my $12 lunch ended up costing me $36, (thank you Bank of America for helping me resolve that).

Facetime, how can i forget facetime? Facetime is by far the easiest video conferencing platform I’ve ever used. Yes I’ve used skype, and even built h.323/SIP based enterprise level video conferencing system. They all required (until recently) either required some kind of gateway, firewall config, or in one horrible case needed to be place OUTSIDE the firewall to work. Facetime, just works, which is awesome. My nieces know how to use facetime, that’s how easy it is to use.

iMovie, another remnant from the time when Apple prefixed “i” to everything, is still incredibly fun to use, and makes incredibly fun video (iMovie pro/FCPx just don’t talk to me about that). It’s also pretty neat how now I can start the edit in iMovie on my iDevice and then continue editing it in MacOS. Nice feature, nothing comparable on Android. Adobe, you need to step up with a premiere essentials for Android. Here’s my latest iMovie “creation” using footage from when I flew my DJI Mavic out at magic island.

The screen and touchpad on the macbook (as with all of apple’s laptops/displays) is bar none, the best you can get. I forgot how little I needed a mouse back when I used a macbook/powerbook daily, and now when I switch back to my XPS 13 to do the random windows thing while I’m not near my desktop. The trackpad irks me, I mean it’s bad, really bad. I don’t know why windows laptop makers are so crap when it comes to trackpads.

The last set of features I like are the little things like, system wide spell checking (although it can be irritating when you’re trying to convince your spell checker that Ala Moana is thing and to stop changing it to All Moans). Some how even though windows 10 also has a notification system, I think the one on MacOS is better, not sure why but I don’t seem to miss/ignore the MacOS ones where as the windows one I keep missing it. Sound quality on the iPhone via the headphone jack (I know RIP headphone jack) sounds better than my android device. 

So see? I wrote something nice about my #30daysofApple now can you please get off my case about just being an apple hater?