Lock Screen widgets launched with iOS 16 and I haven’t touched them at all until just a few days ago. I remember the good old days when I would update to the latest version of iOS on day one and had thoroughly explored every new feature within a week.

But times have changed. I have some additional responsibility that has a much higher priority and the features included in Apple’s software updates haven’t been a massive draw for me lately. I can’t remember the last time I felt compelled to try a new feature.

I finally started tinkering with Lock Screen widgets, though, and I have some observations that I’m sure everyone else already found their way to.

The thin widget area above the time will always display the day of the week followed by the date. It’s added by the system. So when you build a widget for that area, the developer is only able to add the section following the day and date.

This seems unnecessarily limiting. It discourages developers from building widgets that display the date because, no matter what you do, the system will always show it to you. Any third-party widget that displays the date — regardless of how cleverly it’s depicted — will feel redundant.

This also artificially limits how much screen real estate developers have available to them in that widget area. If you want to use the Things widget there, you’re lucky if you get more than a few words of your top to do list item before it’s truncated.

Apple should offer the option to hide the day and date in that area and allow users to select no widget for that area as well, if they prefer a more minimalist look or would rather utilize a third-party widget to display that information below the time instead.

The widget area below the time feels much more useful to me than the other. You can fit up to four widgets and can choose between two different widget sizes — square or rectangular.

But this comes with its own set of limitations, unfortunately. If you place a single square widget in this section, it will display centered on your device. Great. But if you choose a single rectangular widget, it will display left-aligned. Why?

If you add one or two square widgets to sit next to your rectangular widget, the rectangle can only be placed on the left, and the square widgets will always show in the right. Why can’t I adjust the order of those to my liking?

Perhaps even more maddening, if you select a single rectangular widget and a single square widget, you’re left with a gap in-between. Why can’t I eliminate this gap and have the two widgets right up next to one-another, centered on the display?

You could say that this is a first iteration and they’ll fix these limitations over time, but again, this feature shipped in iOS 16. iOS 17 released two months ago and these limitations remain.

I have found a setup that I’m fond of. I’ve placed Hello Weather above the time with three battery widgets below showing the charge of my headphones — Sony WH-1000XM5, AirPods, and AirPods case. But I suspect I would have come to a much different setup if Apple removed the annoying and completely unnecessary limitations on this feature.

And for anyone curious, I’m using the Aqueux Aqua wallpaper.

From the website:

Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files. With ventoy, you don’t need to format the disk over and over, you just need to copy the ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files to the USB drive and boot them directly. You can copy many files at a time and ventoy will give you a boot menu to select them

I have an old MacBook Air that has been a bit finicky to get working with some Linux distributions — I suspect the machine’s WiFi and the associated drivers are to blame. I wanted to test out a bunch of distributions and Ventoy made it drop-dead simple.

I didn’t have to flash a half dozen installer images to a USB drive one at a time, I just created a Ventoy drive, transferred all of the installer images to it, and was able to test them from there.

➝ Source: ventoy.net

Manuel Moreale:

Am I scamming YouTube because I block their awful ads? Would I be scamming YouTube if I muted the video and looked at something else while ads were playing? What’s the scam here? Who is getting scammed?

If using an ad blocker is scamming publishers that rely on advertising revenue, then I expect everyone making this argument to have the pop-up blocker feature disabled in their web browser.

➝ Source: manuelmoreale.com

I completely agree with Ryan Daniels on this — unless you have a very specific reason to get a Raspberry Pi, you will almost certainly be better served with a used Mac Mini or an inexpensive mini PC from someone like Beelink.

➝ Source: ryandaniels.ca

David Sparks:

I have received many emails and messages from listeners and Labs members wanting to get a large iMac and asking how long they will have to wait. Based on this reporting, my answer will be, “Don’t wait; it’s not coming.”

I used to be a large iMac guy. I owned several of them over the years. If they released one today, I would not be interested. I’ve found I prefer the new world of separate computers and displays. My current display (a Pro Display XDR) has now worked with three different Macs. While there’s a higher cost going in, I think the math works out over time. Moreover, you can avoid that higher cost if you buy a non-Apple display.

My second Mac ever was a 20-inch iMac purchased in 2008. I loved it. And since then I’ve convinced two family members to purchase iMacs as well. But today, I wouldn’t recommend them. They just don’t have the versatility long-term when compared to the alternatives.

My recommendation for almost anyone that wants a desktop Mac now is to get a Mac Mini and an external display. You could get a Mac Studio or a Mac Pro, but if you’re the kind of person that needs the additional performance or connectivity, you already know that the Mac Mini isn’t enough for you.

In terms of displays, the Studio Display is an excellent option, but I think it’s far too expensive for most users. And I’m the oddball that doesn’t think larger displays are all they’re cracked up to be. My first thought would be to look at Dell’s offerings for displays. They tend to have decent specs for the price and generally rank well in reviews. But I’d have to do a bit more research to know for sure if that’s still a safe bet.

The beauty of a setup like this, though, is that you can continue to use the display for many years longer than Apple would support the iMac. When it’s time to upgrade you can just buy another Mac Mini and drop it into your existing setup.

And on the other side you’ll have a Mac Mini that you can use as a home server, hand down to a family member, or resell. It can be connected to a TV, used as a headless computer, or just about anything you can think of. Mac Minis take up almost no room and can be used in environments where an iMac just wouldn’t work.

➝ Source: macsparky.com

Merging the apps makes sense from a business standpoint — it will give them more opportunities to promote the subscriptions to users that only have one or the other.

But I suspect they will go beyond that — I’d take this as an early signal that Disney+ and Hulu’s existence as separate subscriptions isn’t long for this world. It seems inevitable that they’ll eventually be merged.

If you’re still paying for subscriptions like this, I’d suggest setting up a Plex server and spending the equivalent of a streaming subscription each month on purchased media — be it DVDs and Blu-rays to rip or digital downloads that you can strip the DRM from.

Start building up a library of content that you own to eventually opt out of this whole subscription nonsense.

➝ Source: macrumors.com

Jan Boddez:

Some things to consider when enabling ActivityPub on a self-hosted WordPress install.

Rather than, say, RSS feeds, ActivityPub is push-based, at least in part. (Yes, I know about WebSub, but let’s continue.)

As a result, your server will be reaching out to, possibly, a whole lot of other servers whenever you publish new content.

On top of that, whenever one of your posts gets “boosted,” a whole lot of other servers may try and fetch (or GET) that post’s JSON representation.

If, like me, you’re on a smallish VPS or shared hosting package, you will almost certainly see a performance hit (or worse).

I’ve considered implementing ActivityPub here on Initial Charge, but don’t want to worry about the performance implications and am unsure of whether it would be a hinderance to discoverability.

I’m just cross-posting headlines to a Mastodon account for now. But if I decide to go the native ActivityPub route in WordPress, I’m sure these suggestions from Jan will be helpful.

➝ Source: jan.boddez.net

Joe Rosensteel:

I was warned that the application was downloaded from the internet (I downloaded) and asked “Are you sure you want to open it?” because I had double-clicked on it to open it. Both of those things were definitely true, so what does the little gray text mean? Oh, it wants to tell me the time it was downloaded by Safari, which I guess I could put in my personal journal, but most importantly that Apple checked it for malicious software and none was detected.

Are you sure you wanted to do the thing that you told the computer to do even though it’s safe?!

macOS feels more restrictive and more annoying to use with each release. Despite having the best hardware in the industry, the operating system is starting to push me toward alternatives.

Outside of my day job, I spend more time in Linux than I do in macOS. And that’s a radical change that occurred just within the past year.

➝ Source: joe-steel.com

Matthias Pfefferle:

The revolutionary ActivityPub feature is now available across all WordPress.com plans, unlocking a world of engagement and interaction for your blog. Your blogs can now be part of the rapidly expanding fediverse, which enables you to connect with a broader audience and attract more followers. […]

ActivityPub is a WordPress plugin that facilitates seamless integration between your blog and a host of federated platforms, including Mastodon, Pleroma, Friendica, and more. This plugin empowers your readers to follow your blog posts on these platforms.

In addition, replies to your posts from these platforms are automatically turned into comments on your WordPress blog, creating a more interactive and dynamic conversation around your content.

I’m very happy to see this launch. It feels more and more like ActivityPub is going to be the social protocol of choice going forward.

➝ Source: wordpress.com

Posting your default apps has become the trendy thing among a certain group of cool people. Obviously, I’m equally as cool and am, therefore, compelled to join in the fun.

• Backup Service: iCloud, Time Machine, Backblaze
• Bookmarks: Homer and my browser’s built-in bookmark manager
• Budgeting and Personal Finance: Simplifi
• Calendar: Fantastical, Gnome Calendar, Calendar 366 II
• Calendar Syncing: iCloud
• Camera: Apple Camera
• Chat: Apple Messages
• Clipboard Manager: Alfred
• Cloud File Storage: iCloud and Nextcloud
• Code Editor: Neovim and Panic’s Code Editor
• Contacts: Phone, Apple Contacts, and Thunderbird
• Contacts Syncing: Fastmail
• Gaming: Steam Link with Razer Kishi V2
• Homepage: Homer
• Launcher: Alfred and Ulauncher
• Linux Distro: Ubuntu and Nobara
• Mail Client: Thunderbird, Apple Mail
• Mail Server: Fastmail
• Music: Plex, Prism, Pandora, Broadcasts, YouTube
• Notes: Simplenote
• Package Tracking: Parcel
• Password Management: 1Password
• Photo Management: Apple Photos and Google Photos
• Podcasts: Pocket Casts
• RSS: Miniflux and Reeder
• Read It Later: Wallabag
• Reading: Prologue with Plex
• Screenshots: Cleanshot X
• Search Engine: Brave
• Shopping Lists: Apple Notes and Wegmans
• Social Networking: Mastodon with Ivory and Pixelfed
• Terminal: Apple Terminal, Gnome Terminal, Prompt
• Text Editor: Textmate, Neovim
• Task Manager: Things
• VPN: NordVPN
• Weather: Hello Weather, Gnome Weather, Weather or Not
• Web Browser: Brave
• Word Processing: Ulysses, LibreOffice

I’m at an odd point where I’m trying to make my apps and services a bit more platform-agnostic. On the desktop, I still use macOS quite a bit, but I’m trying to move as much as I can to Linux.

On the mobile side of things, though, I expect I’ll be on iPhone or iPad indefinitely, but if I ever felt the urge to move elsewhere, I’d prefer to have my apps and services ready to do so.