A new up- and download icon in iPadOS 18.4

Last night I updated my devices to iOS and iPadOS 18.4. 

This morning I used cobalt.tools to download an interesting video about the oldest known trousers in existence (don't ask). 

Anyway, as safari was slurping up the 500mb of this video, I noticed a new icon in the top-right corner of my iPad screen. 

This icon stayed visible all while my download was active. 

Then, it stayed visible as my upload was active. I uploaded this file to a folder on my iCloud. 

Now, both the up and downloading of the video file are complete, and the icon is still visible. Maybe this is a safety feature? Like the GPS 'arrow' that stays visible for some minutes after the location services where used to signal the user that one on my apps asked for my location? 

I found this list of 71 new features that are part of iOS/iPadOS 18.4 but this one isn't on the list. Maybe they missed something, or am I misunderstanding this icon? Please let me know your thoughts 😅 

Addendum: some more Kagi kungfu revealed that this icon means something completely different than what I guesses at: "this icon is an icon indicator that the iPad is on the process of syncing and finalizing the software update."

Kagi search and Orion Browser



Like Manton, I'm a happy Kagi user too. And like him, this gives me the right to talk about the stuff I don't like about them 😂 

I'm enjoying Kagi instead of Google, but it's still not quite right. For a paid search engine, there should be no clutter. If the query is an actual question with an answer, give me a ChatGPT-style UI, free of distractions. If the query is to find a web page, give me 10 blue links and nothing else.

Last month I decided to give their browser Orion a try on my phone, tablet and Laptop. One of the boons of it should be support for Chrome and Firefox (but not Safari) extensions like UBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and Consent-o-Matic. The lack of Safari extensions meant I wasn't able to use MapSwitch, which forces Google Maps links to be opened with Apple Maps. 

But even with these plugins installed, the EFF Cover Your Tracks test shows that the standard out of the box Safari browser gives me more privacy then Orion with these extensions. 😥. 

I also found the UX hard to get used to. I guess I'll check Orion out again a year or two from now. For now, I'm back to Safari. 

Please hesitate to call. 

Greetings,

Jan

Modern Font Stacks

Maybe you've noticed that a lot of websites these days will not just show you text, but they will do so in a fancy font. 

That font is probably not on your device, but needs to be downloaded from Google (or another "free" provider of font hosting). So even without installing any cookies, Google now knows you're visiting that website. Spyware galore. 

Anyways, why do we need these hosted fonts? Why not use the ones that are on any modern device already?

Maybe because we don't really know what we already have. 

This website, 
https://modernfontstacks.com/#font-stacks, helps to change that. It just shows you the fonts that a user probably already has, and it shows these fonts in an appealing way too 😊 

Happy writing ✌️ 

DeepSeek R1: A major update to Perplexity

From the Perplexity team:

the new DeepSeek R1 model is now available across every Perplexity platform. You can experience the latest breakthrough in AI by turning on Pro Search with R1 on web, mobile, or MacOS. I highly recommend you try it out today — the experience is truly remarkable.

I have yet to try it out in a meaningful way, but everyone I read is optimistic. This model is hosted in the EU or US and not censored. 

The free plan gives you 5 pro queries per day. 

Have fun 🤩 

AI in 2025

The "arms race" for who will build the best AI is still dominating the news in the new years 2025. 

An interesting article I read discussed, among other things, the new Google Gemini:

A nice example of that is Google's Gemini with Deep Research (accessible to everyone who subscribes to Gemini), which is really a specialized research agent. I gave it a topic like "research a comparison of ways of funding startup companies, from the perspective of founders, for high growth ventures." And the agentic system came up with a plan, read through 173(!) websites and compiled a report for me with the answer a few minutes later.

The result was a 17 page paper with 118 references! But is it any good? I have taught the introductory entrepreneurship class at Wharton for over a decade, published on the topic, started companies myself, and even wrote a book on entrepreneurship, and I think this is pretty solid. I didn't spot any obvious errors, but you can read it yourself if you would like here. The biggest issue is not accuracy, but that the agent is limited to public non-paywalled websites, and not scholarly or premium publications. It also is a bit shallow and does not make strong arguments in the face of conflicting evidence. So not as good as the best humans, but better than a lot of reports that I see.

Still, this is a genuinely disruptive example of an agent with real value. Researching and report writing is a major task of many jobs.

If you work with your head more then with your hands I guess your job is in some danger in the next 3-7 years. 

Read the whole article here: Prophecies of the Flood. 

How to disable Microsoft365 payments for AI but continue paying for Windows.

I ran into this interesting "Toot" on Mastodon from @timixretroplays@digipres.club today, about Microsoft raising the subscription for Microsoft 365 with about 50% to recuperate some of the costs of their LLM/AI adventures.

There is a way to only pay for windows and not pay for the AI stuff, but it's hidden away under the "Turn off recurring billing" feature. 

I am not very active on Mastodon, but thanks to OpenVibe I am still able to follow Nostr, Mastodon, Bluesky and now Threads (but I don't use that). 

I am noticing the most of the interesting stuff that I find is either on Nostr or Mastodon. Bluesky seems to be more political, which I don't really care about.  I know this is a feature of who I follow and not just the platforms as a whole, but still…

Anyway, I hope this saves you all some money, as, no doubt, 2025 is going to be another expensive year. 

Is Apple ready to deprecate Music.app?

There used to be a time when you could use iTunes to upload your own music collection, and have it ready to play on all your Apple devices, whether the music was purchased through the iTunes Store or not.  Back then, you could also use iTunes to rip a music CD and save the music files in AAC or MP3 format. Nowaday's it's still possible to import your own music in the Music.app on your Mac, but somehow these songs are no-longer synced between devices. So you have to do this on every Mac separately, and also your other iDevices (iWatch, iPhone and iPad) don't see anything of this music at all. 

I weep for it becoming increasingly hard to buy and own your own music. 

All subscriptions for streaming music services are around $10-$20. If you want to listen to new music often, then this is a great deal. If, however, you are like me and want to listen to the same 1000 or so songs often, then this is a horrible deal. Better to buy these songs outright and just pay for them once. 

I bought my first iPhone (model 4) in 2010, and from that moment onwards I started buying music in the iTunes Store that came installed on the phone. That means that I've now had 14 years to buy music at Apple's. I have 4.33 GB of songs downloaded on my iPhone right now, so that is about 866 songs (assuming 5 MB per song), or 5,15 songs bought per month over a 14 year period. If we assume every song was priced at $1,29 (the most expensive price option), then I would have payed $6,64 per month over this 14 year period. That's quite cheaper than the $10,99 per month that Apple is now charging for their unlimited music streaming service. And this is precisely the reason why Apple is doing all it can to undermine the buying and playing of songs on their iDevices.

I don't know of any official statements to the effect that they want to stop the buying and owning of music, but the UX in the Music.app makes this very clear:

• As mentioned above, the Music.app no longer syncs your own imported songs.
• Since a few iOS versions back now, the playlists that you make on one iDevice no longer sync with the other iDevices. More specifically I see all my playlists on my Mac, most of my playlists on my iPhone, none of my playlists on my iPad and most of my playlists on my iWatch (I assume the iWatch sees what the iPhone sees?). 
• To make matters worse, 1/4 off all the UX real estate in the iPhone Music.app is now dedicated to advertisements to push you to the subscription model.
• And, just today, I found out that a song I once "bought" is no longer playing on my devices. The song in question is "Diamond Heart - Single" by Alan Walker and Sophia Somajo. I don't know if is simply a strange bug or that these artists have received their royalty payments from Apple years ago and now have found a way to deprecate music that I payed for from my devices?  

I remember finding on Hacker News some years ago an article by the BBC about the deprecated Microsoft book service. It was called "The e-books stopped working".  I remember bemoaning the fact that a book can "stop working" back then. I always assumed that the Roman Empire fell because of the increase in complexity making it harder and harder to do the simple and sensible thing to do. Is this how all empires fall?

I don't know, but for now I am gloomy on the prospect of us ever having a simple and affordable way to buy, play and own our own music. Maybe this is the reason why I usually buy my books in the dead-tree version and only my pulp holiday reading in ebook format.