A Lovely 10C Site!

@matigo I have been tempted to replace it with a Mac Mini, but I spent a lot of money on the Mac Pro and I simply have no use for a secondary desktop.

I do very much want to convert my entire setup to USB C (just for uniformity more than anything, at the moment) and buy a Synergy NAS. The NAS will probably happen before the conversion to USB C: I'm just waiting for the LaCie to fail.

A lot of the frustrations are better now:

• I did a massive cleanup a few months ago, so on the software side things are relatively smooth.
• I've also put it on a wire shelf [shelving.com] under my desk, so it's no longer on the floor — hopefully that will help with the dust issue. It'll certainly make it easier to vacuum the floor anyway.

The only thing I really struggle with is internal storage on the Mac Pro: 512GB is not enough now and I'm constantly on 10GB available. That's almost entirely due to my syncing my music library (all flac) to Dropbox. And the Adobe apps are huge. If I could upgrade to 1TB, I'd be fine for another few years — probably until some other hardware failed.

matigo.ca.

@matigo as for why I bought the Pro and not the regular iPad:

• USB C and all the associated possibilities. My next computer will doubtless be USB C-dominant and I seriously hope the iPhone will also soon be USB C. Then I can stop carrying so many cables around.
• The fact that I use my devices for so many years means it's the sensible decision to get the best I can. My Mac Pro and MacBook Air both turn 6 this year and I am still not yet tempted to replace them.
• I still don't take iOS/iPadOS very seriously in terms of productivity. I hope that impression will change in the coming years and I believe to some extent that the iPad Pro will enjoy OS improvements to a greater extent than the regular iPads. Since I don't want to be upgrading all the time, I need to start off right.

matigo.ca.

@matigo My last iPad was the iPad 2, and its resolution is simply too low to read anything comfortably on — least of all scans of older publications.

I bought the 11". Was very, very tempted by the 12.9" for reading comfort — and just more if that beautiful screen in general — but figured it'd be so bulky that I'd never take it out of the house, which would be a real shame. It'd be too hard to hold in my hands on the train or bus, for example.

My other main application for the iPad is reading books. The Kindle (hardware) is great but the slow processor and screen refresh make it intolerable for foreign-language books where I'm consulting the dictionary all the time.

matigo.ca.

On a less grumpy note, the iPad Pro has been magical for reading sheet music. Once I buy the AirTurn (or similar), my setup will be awesome.

So I finally managed to get my iPad. By going to the store physically.

Still had to order the (engraved) Pencil online, as well as the Otterbox. That credit card triggered a cancelled order again so I used a second card.

The error was probably because the first card was a joint account in my family and the bank couldn’t verify the ownership of the order, or something silly. Second card only had 1 owner and Apple managed to call and verify the authenticity of the order.

Funny they couldn’t call me when I used the first card. Maybe the priority banking status showed up and they got scared. That’d be ironic for the company issuing titanium credit cards.

@matigo Checked online statement, the charge does not show.

matigo.ca.

@matigo

• I ordered online using credit card and gift card (issued from another iPad trade-in). The submission went through. I never got an email notification, but I logged into my Apple account and it showed as a confirmed order.
• Out of curiosity this morning and for lack of email notifications regarding anything, I went to check the order status just to see shipping date. All 3 items (iPad Pro, engraved Pencil, Otterbox case) were marked as cancelled.
• Called Apple support and they blamed it on the credit card company — something about "the credit card number was valid so the order went through, but then got cancelled afterwards because the charge failed." — despite me having received the SMS from the bank confirming the charge.
• They suggested I try again and possibly use another card, or buy at the store and pay in cash (ha!), not acknowledging that you can't have products engraved if you buy at a store.
• I'd thrown the gift card away after using it but they said I'd have to go back to the same store physically, since it was a physical gift card and not an electronic one; she could confirm that the gift card hadn't been charged so I still have the full value, but she had no ability to issue an electronic replacement — which is kind of mind-boggling considering Apple's overall approach to a seamless experience.

So next steps are to go to the Apple store, (hopefully?) get the gift card reissued, then try purchasing again…and again…and again…and ideally not end up with 3 more iPads than I need.

matigo.ca.

Do I have to go yell at Apple?

My iPad Pro order is marked as "cancelled" without any email notification.

I get the impression Amazon US has cut off shipping to Hong Kong.

This is rather inconvenient.

@matigo et tu?

matigo.ca.