Maybe it’s just because my own opinions have been changing recently, but I get the feeling that there seems to be a general resurgence of analogue over digital. Film photography is having a moment, so are mechanical watches it seems, and the act of writing in a physical notebook also seems to be growing in recent years. That’s in no way a definitive list, but it’s just a few things I’ve noticed.

This may sound weird, but it feels to me like it’s in some way related to the current period of nostalgia that we seem to be going through as a society. In a lot of ways, it’s like people are trying to bring back the 90s¹.

Technology is always going to be massively affected by feelings of nostalgia, simply because of the rate of change that it goes through. However, while there has always been the divide between analogue and digital, there now seems to be a new divide² in digital technology, offline vs online.

Matt Birchler wrote about this when talking about using 100% offline technology:

There’s no WiFi or Bluetooth, so it’s just out here on its own. It never has updates to install, so it’s never going to get better, but it’s also not going to change in ways I don’t like. It’s also going to work just as well in 20 years as it does today.

As he mentions in his post, while completely offline technology won’t improve, it also won’t get any worse. Which definitely happens to more recently technology that requires a connection to the internet.

I don’t think we’re at some major turning point in society where we’re all going to start writing in paper notebooks, switching to a dumb phone, etc. But it’s worth at least noticing the new era of always needing to be connected³. And at the same time, celebrating the good sides of having technology that can exist on its own, in the same state, for as long as the hardware still works correctly.

Written: In my dimly lit living room, listening to music from Isenseven videos.

Humane:

The connected and intelligent clothing-based wearable device uses a range of sensors that enable contextual and ambient compute interactions.

Even though we’ve only come across very minimal press releases, and a short TED Talk, this device has already peaked my curiosity in a way that no other product has.

Sure, this product could a total disaster. But it could also be the next step in personal computers. The range of potential is huge.

I have so many questions about it, but for once I’m just allowing myself to be a little excited.

I was browsing Hacker News just now, and I came across an interesting question asked by user l2silver:

[What is the] most interesting tech you built for just yourself? - Hacker News

It’s an interesting question, and I’m sure a lot of tech people could some up with something interesting. But probably none as delightful as this answer from sriram_malhar:

My MIL is 93, and the only tech she can really deal with is turning on the radio and TV and changing channels.She is fond of music from old classics (from the 60’s and earlier), so I hooked up a Raspberry PI with an FM transmitter and created her own private radio station. She tells me what songs she likes and I create different playlists that get broadcast on her station. It preserves the surprise element of radio, and there is nothing in there she doesn’t like.The tiny FM transmitter is surprisingly powerful. Her neighbours (of similar vintage) are very happy too, so their requests have also started coming in :)

Now, that’s personal tech. My favourite part of it is that it still preserves the feeling and spontaneity of listening to radio. Perfect solution, and requires no extra learning at all!

Lenovo have announced that they are releasing a new phone, the ThinkPhone, which will be made by Motorola.

From the official announcement, it seems as if this will be aimed more at the enterprise market, and especially at users of ThinkPad laptops. Users of a ThinkPad look to gain the bigger advantage of the ThinkPhone, as there various integrations, similar to what you would find in the Apple ecosystem, which they call “Think 2 Think”. Here are a few that interested me:

• Unified clipboard between devices
• Unified notifications.
• File sharing between devices, similar to AirDrop.
• Stream Android apps from the phone to a PC.
• Using your phone camera as a webcam on a PC.

Not a bad list! And being a fan of the ThinkPad myself, I certainly appreciate the design of the ThinkPhone. Although, even though I am starting to appreciate more Android phones, such as the Pixel and the Nothing Phone, I can’t say I have any intention of trying this one out. Although, like I said about the Nothing Phone, I still hope this does well.

When I first saw the headline about Lenovo releasing a ThinkPhone, I was partially hoping that it was based on a new OS, not iOS or Android, just to offer another competitor to the market. I guess the wait for that continues.

Nothing Ear (stick) #

6 December 2022

A few weeks ago, I got myself a pair of the new Nothing Ear (stick) earphones. They’re an intriguing product, and they’re certainly a breath of fresh air compared to the competition. So since I’ve now used them for a while, and in quite a few scenarios, I thought I’d share my feelings on them.

There are two main reasons why I bought them. The first being that I wanted an upgrade from the original AirPods, ideally with better sound quality and battery life. But I didn’t want to get AirPods Pro, because I’m really not a fan of in-ear earphones at all.

Secondly, the Nothing brand, and its recent products, are making me think differently about technology. They’re making fun products, with slightly quirky designs, and not forcing themselves into being yet another bland tech company, obsessed with specifications and just one number being higher than another. I’ve been getting bored of technology recently, both hardware and software, but these seemed to stick out, so I thought I’d give them a go.

Design

First off, I’m a big fan of the design. Both the individual buds and the case. I like how they’re not just the most minimal design and colour, but instead feature transparent sections, and a bit of colour. I also appreciate how the case isn’t just a flip-up container like the rest. It has personality.

That’s not to say the design is perfect. Because the design isn’t just how it looks, it’s also how it works. And I have felt at some points that they weren’t sitting securely in my ears. That may be due to my ear shape, or maybe I just needed to get used to the feel of them. But I’d say they feel slightly less secure than the original AirPods, which fit perfectly for me.

I did have one of the buds fall out of my ear once. But I’m not quite sure if I had put them in properly because this was only a few days after getting them. Nevertheless, I still don’t think I would ever do something like running with them. (Not that I plan on doing that any time soon anyway)

Once you get past the slight feeling that they may not sit as snugly as other earphones, they are quite comfortable to wear. I’m hoping it was just an adjustment period, and that they won’t fall out again. But I’ll wait and see.

Sound

I’m not a sound expert, so I can’t offer any technical expertise. But I am a person with ears. So for what that’s worth, I have found the sound quality to be very good. As in, they sound better than the original AirPods to me, and I’ve never noticed a problem with any kind of audio.

I’ve used them in my home, while walking, on the train, and in a busy office. All have been fine. Although from what I’ve heard, in a quiet environment, any volume over 50% starts to become audible to people nearby. (Not that this is a problem, these things can get pretty loud.)

I’ve had to go on quite a few work video calls as well during the past few weeks, which have all sounded fine. The microphone is also good enough that no one on the calls ever seemed to have any issues hearing me.

If you want more control of the equaliser, there is an app that you can download. From there you can boost the bass, treble, or highlight voices. I haven’t played with this much myself, as the default settings have been fine in every circumstance for me.

Battery

I didn’t actually know the official battery life of these until just now, which is earbuds having 3 hours of playback on their own, and the case holding another 12 hours. I didn’t know this, simply because, they’ve never gone flat.

I remember one time I had used them for multiple days in a row, listening to music on my commute, video calls at work, etc. Then when I next picked them up, I checked the battery, the buds were at 100%, and the case was at 50%. That may sound useless to some people because I can’t say exactly how long I used them. But, I remember thinking “surely they’re nearly flat by now”, but nope!

It’s definitely helped by the fact that it charges by USB C. So while I’m at my desk, whether at home or in the office, I can either find a dedicated cable or just quickly unplug my Mac for 10 minutes and top them up.

I think the fact that I hadn’t needed to know about the battery life until now is a very good sign. I wanted earphones that lasted long enough so that I didn’t need to think about it. I give them 10 minutes or so when I can, and that seems enough to keep them around fully charged most of the time.

Misc

A few small things that I noticed:

• The buds have similar gestures for playback and volume control to AirPods. They also have a few cool sounds when you press them.
• They sync via Bluetooth, but you don’t need to forget/connect them to new devices as you switch between them. Just put them in your ear, and connect to them from the new device. This may not be revolutionary, but I’ve had a few Bluetooth devices that weren’t this easy in the past/
• The cylindrical design makes it easier to fit in the same trouser pocket as my iPhone.
• It’s fun to fiddle with the case.
• Because the case is white, it can get dirty easily.

Overall

After a few weeks of using the Nothing Ear (stick), I can definitely say that I will be keeping them and that I will continue to use them as my primary earphones.

There are some minor downsides, like any product, but the benefits outweigh them personally. I love the design, the battery life, and also just that they’re not the standard earphone design that the AirPods introduced. And at £99, I think they’re an absolute bargain.

I’ll certainly be looking forward to more products from Nothing in the future. Maybe I’ll even switch to their phone at some point. Either way, I hope more companies start to act like Nothing and add a bit more personality to their products. Because there’s no rule that says technology needs to be boring.

A thought popped into my head the other day, about the apps I use on my iPhone. So I gave it some thought, and I didn’t think the list was that long. I know I have a ton of apps installed on my phone (I checked, it’s 208), but as for day to day use, I barely touch most of them.

I seemed to pique my own interest, so I went through the list of apps I have installed on my phone, and took a note of each app that I have used in the last week or two. Even when I was being a bit generous, I could only find 27 apps that I’ve used.

The majority of them are core phone apps like Camera, Mail, Photos, etc, then the rest are mainly entertainment, social, and football related.

That may seem like a relatively long list, but for most of them, I use them for a maximum of a few minutes at a time, and only a few times a week. I just went through them again, and I could probably drop 10 of them, and barely notice it.

This doesn’t mean that I can now delete the other 181 apps that I haven’t used this past week. (Although I should probably go through and clean some up.) Because there’s a certain type of app that will only ever be used sporadically, like apps for flights or restaurants. So I’m not going full minimalist of anyone. But I did just look at my home screen, and of the 22 apps that are there, I haven’t used 6 of them in ages.

I’m not writing this to say to everyone “hey, everyone, look at me, I use less apps than you”. I just wanted to share something I noticed in my own behaviour, and maybe put a little thought into the possible reasons behind it.

One thought that entered my mind, was that maybe this is just how normal people use their phone? Maybe before, I was an iPhone “power user” but now I’m not? That does seem to match up with my current feelings about technology, and tech products in general.

In general, my interest in computing has dropped slightly, although to be honest, the biggest drop is my interest in Apple. And maybe this is because I’ve reached 30, but I just want things to work now. Sure, I can sit inside a command line for hours, and play around with silly customisations and tools, but when I’m doing a task like programming or writing, I don’t care about the frills anymore.

Now I think about it more, that does seem to match up with a few more things I’ve noticed recently:

• I’m really enjoying using my minimal Arch installation on my ThinkPad.
• The iPad is starting to feel clunky and restrictive.
• I haven’t been too interested in updating my iOS apps.
• I’m not interested in the latest and greatest technology anymore.

Even when I’m using my Mac, for both work and personal use, I rarely use anything other than a browser, text editor, terminal, chat app (for work), or email client.

It’s fascinating to me to see how much my interests and feelings have seemingly changed so much recently. For quite some time, I was the “Apple guy” to my friends and family. Anything Apple did, I liked, anything Apple sold, I purchased. Maybe this is part of becoming older? If so, hopefully, that means I’m getting wiser.

Fortunately, I didn’t build this blog around a niche, so I guess as I work out my new feelings on technology, and possibly my new interests, I’ll keep on writing here.

If you haven’t heard, there’s a company called “Nothing”, and they’re very close to releasing their second product, the phone (1). It’s a company that seemingly loves hype. And I think it’s worked well for them, as they’ve been getting a decent amount of press.

As far as I can tell, it’s an Android device (with a custom launcher), that looks a bit (from the front) like an iPhone 12, but with a whole new back design that I haven’t seen anywhere else.

They call it the Glyph Interface, as you can see, it’s full of lights. The one near the power connector will show the current charge when plugged in, and you can also assign various light patterns to ringtones, which Marques Brownlee made a great video showing off. Maybe that sounds a bit useless to you. But to me, it just seems fun, a bit quirky, but overall definitely something different.

The problem I’ve already started to see with this phone (that isn’t even released yet), is that some are already asking “Is this the iPhone killer?”. Let’s not beat around the bush. The Nothing phone (1) is not the iPhone killer. Nor will it kill any popular current major smartphone. And it doesn’t need to.

I want this phone to exist in a wide marketplace of different offerings from various companies. I want devices that exist to have a bit of character, not just be a minimal slab of glass with a generic camera square at the back. I think there should be loads of smaller niche devices that cater more towards certain markets or tastes. Because if everything is the same, then it’s just boring.

I really want this phone to succeed because I think it will encourage other companies to do something similar. To me, it seems like the big phone manufacturers are just trying their hardest to reach the phone design singularity, where you can have the smallest bezels, the thinnest body, and the best camera. But they don’t seem to make anything fun, or unique, or even just plain interesting.

There’s a big chance I won’t end up purchasing a phone (1) when it’s released. I just hope enough people do, so that the smartphone market starts to become a bit more diverse.

I’ve had enough thoughts on this idea to span a short book, but I had a moment today where I was just occupied with my thoughts, and I started contemplating using an iPhone 5 again.

A quick bit of a context: the iPhone 5 is my favourite phone to have existed, and I’m also a fan (nostalgically) of older technology.

Whenever I think about an older product like the iPhone 5, or whatever old product or service that I used in the past, I always end up watching YouTube videos like “Does X work in 2022?”.

After going through a moment of nostalgia, I’m always left with the thought that “of course it should work”. Older products don’t magically stop working when newer versions come out. In the same way that if you buy a Game Boy Colour now, and Pokémon Yellow, you’ll have the same experience as you would have done 20 years ago.

Surely as long as the hardware of a product remains functional, and any software updates keep the product working as expected, then technology should theoretically last forever?

When the question whether an older product or technology is still viable in a certain moment, if the need/purpose is still the same, then it is as suitable and capable as it was originally.

Of course, there are more specific arguments that could be made against this. For example, if you have an old iPhone and update it to the most modern version of iOS, while you may have newer features, your device is most likely going to run slower.

There’s a potential argument here that keeping software updates isn’t always the best way to keep something working for a long period of time. But I’ll save that thought for another day.

All I’m trying to say, is that when you think about older products, their capabilities aren’t usually what has changed. They can most likely perform the same function as they did originally. But what has changed is your expectations of what a certain product should provide.

My answer to every “Can you still use X in 2022?” question, is that if your needs have not changed and there aren’t any software compatibility issues, then of course you can.

There’s certainly a lot of opinions about TikTok, and technology that originates from China in general. But putting aside cultural and political differences, I’ve been reading about the rules that Douyin (China’s version of TikTok) have put in place for its younger users, and to be honest, I’m a fan.

I’ve got a pretty strong opinion that in general, social media isn’t a good thing for children. But I’d have to admit that it does have its benefits. Especially given how intertwined social media is with the modern world.

According to Kerry Allen, a BBC China media analyst, these restrictions have been coming for a while:

For the last three years, official media has been warning that the growing amount of time young Chinese people are spending on the internet is having an impact on their physical and mental health.

I’m sure it isn’t a surprise to most people that young people’s physical and mental health can be affected by the internet, and in particular, social media. But I can’t think of any other platform that has actively tried to combat the effects.

As for the rules and differences that apply to Douyin’s younger users, here are a few:

• Under 18s require consent from a legal guardian to use the platform.
• More educational content is being produced, which will target younger users.
• Under 14s can only access the platform between 06:00 and 22:00.
• Under 14s can only use the platform for a maximum of 40 minutes per day.

The restrictions for under 14 year olds is known as “Youth Mode”, and it requires what they call “real-name authentication”, so I’m assuming that some form of identification is necessary, which would certainly be a controversial topic in the west.

However, I still think it’s good to see that at least one social media platform is putting the health of its younger users before engagement metrics.

Louise Guillot, writing for Politico:

The European Commission is set to present a legislative proposal on Thursday to force manufacturers to use a common charger for electronic devices, according to a Commission official closely involved in the file.

The proposal will require all manufacturers to harmonize the charging points on devices — using a USB-C charging point — and to make their software protocol for fast charging interoperable between brands and devices.

The main target of the new legislation is U.S. tech giant Apple, which has pushed back against EU attempts to standardize chargers through binding requirements, arguing that it will hamper innovation.

This is such a fundamentally stupid proposal.

How can you enforce all phone manufactures to use the same charging port?

What happens when USB-C isn’t good enough anymore?

What about the massive number of lightning cables that would be unusable by the current iPhone users? Does that waste not matter?

What if a manufacturer wants to only support wireless charging?

John Gruber echoed my feelings in the last sentence of his post¹:

And people in the E.U. wonder why England wanted out, and why nearly all the major tech companies are from the U.S. and Asia.