iOS Update

So, this would be the first of series software updates to tag along the launch if both the iPhone 7 and the Apple Watch Series 2. First the iOS 10, next would be the Watch OS 3 and next week, the new Mac OS Sierra.

The download was bigger than I expected. 1.1 Gb. Luckily it was a doddle with my bandwidth but I would imagine that it would've taken ages on my old speed.

The update process was smooth. It did render my Squarespace app useless. From now on in would have to update the blog only from the computer. No more mobile upload, at least for my main blog. Harisrahman.com was still running the legacy Squarespace version 5 engine and I liked to leave it that way. They were more predictable and stable.

My phones, I pads and watch had had their update. Time to wait for the Sierra.

No Lightroom Gel

With almost everything in life, I believe at love at first sight. No, I wasn't talking about Anita here although truth be told it was like that. I was talking about my photography here.

I always had to try and use a camera before I buy it. And the same goes with my photography work post capture. I had been using Lightroom since version 1 but was never completely happy with it.

When Apple Aperture came into the picture, I gave that a go but in found the first iteration of that software very sluggish and almost unusable. I persevered Lightroom. Grudgingly.

Then came the later versions of Aperture and I never looked back. I loved the white balance control and the skin tones I was getting from it. I couldn't even replicate it consistently in Photoshop. And it was blazingly fast.

Imagine my disappointment when Apple decided to discontinue the development of Aperture and concentrate on a more consumer orientated product instead - Apple Photo. It hasn't have half the control of the old Aperture.

So, I had a choice to make. Shall I relearn and tolerate Lightroom. Or shall I cross my fingers and toes, stick to Aperture and pray that whatever support left that Apple put in on maintaining Aperture would carry me through. Or better still, Apple might change their minds and reinvest in what was otherwise a superb software.

In the meantime, I have decided to stick to Aperture. I had tried my level best in the last couple of weeks to tweak my workflow, but it looked that there was too much hassle for the change. Hopefully I would be able to get a third party RAW converted to my future cameras while I learn to use Lightroom. But that's not going to be any time soon.

HK Apple Store

The last Apple Store I went was in London, and it was quite an experience. So, when I arrived in Hong Kong, I was really glad to learn that the local store was only a ten minutes walk away. Two right turns and I was there.

However, the experience was not as grand. Maybe because Apple had become ubiquitous and the local dealers in Malaysia did well in replicating some of the experience. The streamlined catalogue and lack of diversity also helped matters.

The main reason why I was there was to get new straps for the Apple Watch, something which were yet to be available back home. Yup! There were choices alright, from the basic to the ridiculously expensive. I got what I wanted quite easily. Paying for the goods was also quite an experience. You just handed your credit card to your personal "Genius" and he would swipe it on his iPhone-sized device, you sign on the screen and that was it. Even the receipts were emailed to your inbox.

The knock-off merchants come early in these partsApart from that, there was nothing else fancy. The new Apple TV had yet to be released. No iPad Pro of course. Not really anything much else to look at. Nothing that I wouldn't be able to get hold of back home. The price? At least 10% more expensive there than back home. Hence no reason to actually by anything ...

However, the irony there was there were people in small tents right outside the store selling iPhones. I was sure that those were knock-offs but to be honest I wouldn't be able to tell. They were doing it cheap, but not that much cheaper ...

More write-up on the trip here.

A Morning of Updates

Thursday is a no clinic day for me. And with the traveling tomorrow, I decided to get some paperwork sorted out as well as doing a bit of reading. Since I spent half the morning at the apartment, I ended up doing some software updating as well. My iPhone, Apple Watch plus the Mac Pro.

So far, the update went on without a hitch. El Capitan had been blazingly fast so far and the update did not cause any issues. The iOS 9.1 was supposed to improve the "Live Photos". I hardly used that anyway. So, I hope that the update would offer some security upgrade in the background.

And then lunch with Anita at the restaurant just down the hill from the apartment.

The boys were having their sixth straight days without school and had started to get cranky. The plan would be to have a quick outing after my afternoon rounds later. It did get a bit boring after a while being cooked up at the apartment.

El Capitan!

Apple makes major update to their main Operating System every year, and for the past few years, it came as a free update. It didn't use to be so before.

When Leopard was introduced, I remembered having a meet-up at an Apple shop in Great Eastern Mall when it was released. Since it was released at midnight an San Francisco, the shop were only able to hand the disc - yes, disc - to us at around 3 pm Malaysia time. And there was a group of about 20 of us turned up, having a quick drink and snack which the shop provided.

It used to be a big thing since Apple and Mac was not mainstream back then. That didn't stop me from staying up to watch the Apple keynote, something that Anita was wondering about until years later she learned who Steve Jobs was.

Time have moved on. Even the shop at Great Eastern Mall has since closed - although a new dealer came in recently. Nowadays, the OS is free and one just downloaded it through broadband.

6Gb was the size of the file and since today was the first day of the release of El Capitan, the server had been really slow. I left the download on when I left for work this morning and when I reached home, only 1.2 Gb was on my disc. It would probably be tomorrow morning before I would be ready for the install. Hopefully it would be worth the wait!

And we are good!