Time to move on from bootable backups, whether you like it or not

December 31, 2024
by Riccardo Mori
Handpicked

Or: Another instalment of the series The more we progress, the more we regress

Adam Engst, writing at TidBITS:

The latest installment in the story of how bootable Mac backups will eventually disappear started with a blog post by Shirt Pocket Software’s Dave Nanian. In it, he explained why SuperDuper could no longer make bootable duplicates on M‑series Macs running under macOS 15.2 Sequoia, blaming Apple’s asr (Apple Software Restore) utility. This tool is the only way to create a bootable backup. […]

First, I confirmed that the problem was real but limited to M‑series Macs. On my Intel-based 27-inch iMac, SuperDuper had no problem completing a backup, and I was easily able to boot my iMac from that backup. 

He then tried two other similar tools, ChronoSync and Carbon Copy Cloner, to no avail.

Regardless of whether asr caused these problems, such uncertainty is problematic when it comes to backups. I feel terrible for Shirt Pocket Software, Econ Technologies, and Bombich Software because they’re trying to provide a longstanding feature that users want—bootable backups—and they’re entirely at the mercy of Apple’s asr tool to do so. As we’ll see, Apple has relatively little interest in supporting bootable backups. 

This gradual move away from bootable backups is part of Apple’s Mac OS lockdown procedure, as I’d like to call it. It’s all disguised as providing users with hardened security for their Macs, while effectively limiting their choices when it comes to managing machines they purchased and own.

I’ll be quoting a lot in this piece, so bear with me.

From Apple’s perspective, allowing system files to be copied inherently introduces opportunities for attackers to modify system components. Since macOS 10.15 Catalina, the separate system volume is immutable, locked, and validated using cryptography—what Apple calls the “signed system volume.” Any method that allows it to be copied onto a bootable drive must preserve the same verification to ensure nothing has changed. 

As I was reading this paragraph, I was thinking of all the typical regular users of Apple computers who use their Macs at home or in their home office or studio, and how real, how reasonably likely, could be the threat of a hacker penetrating their Macs and modifying their systems. But sure, I’ll concede that this security measure — locking and encrypting the system volume — is sound. Particularly useful against a type of computer user who invariably annoyed me back in a previous life when I used to freelance as IT support: the user who tinkered a bit too much with their production machine (or with their only machine) without really knowing what they were doing, but attempting it anyway because “my tech-savvy friend told me I could try this to optimise this stuff”, or because “I read on the Internet that I could speed up downloading files from websites with this [shady] utility”, or because “someone said in a forum that with this Terminal command you could double your free memory”. And so forth. You’ve certainly met this kind of user more than once in your life. They’re their computer’s worst enemy. Protecting all the critical components of the operating system against this type of user is a good idea. Their Macs will never get as messed up as some Macs I had to laboriously un-mess back in the era of Classic Mac OS and older Mac OS X versions.

Back to Engst:

To mitigate this move away from easily making bootable backups, Apple has invested a lot of effort into macOS Recovery and Migration Assistant. It is now trivial and streamlined to boot a Mac into macOS Recovery, install macOS, and restore user files using Migration Assistant. With a separate system volume, a reinstallation just creates a new, secured, immutable volume and then copies your user files to the data volume. Because Apple controls every part of that process, there’s no worry about the security of the system being compromised. 

Uh, no, it’s not that trivial. I only have anecdata, but several people in my circle of friends and acquaintances have told me their experience with Migration Assistant — especially with recent Macs — hasn’t been smooth at all, citing freezes and failure to transfer all the expected data. And it’s not as fast as having a bootable cloned disk at hand in case of catastrophic failures. Well, in case of a catastrophic failure, like your Mac’s internal SSD dying, you obviously can’t transfer anything. Unless you have some backup lying around, you’re done.

Oh, and there’s another fun thing that happens when your Mac’s internal SSD is toast: you can’t boot from an external drive. I completely forgot about this. Engst references this great 2021 article by Glenn Fleishman: An M1 Mac Can’t Boot from an External Drive if its Internal Drive is Dead.

But why would Apple do this? — asks Fleishman in that article, and his answer is, To increase security. And, maybe, to reduce its tech support costs. “Security, again,” I repeat out loud, rolling my eyes.

Look, I’m not arguing against security; I’m not downplaying possible security risks, especially in today’s world, which is certainly worse than the world of two decades ago; I’m not even arguing that this is all security theatre, because it’s not. I’m simply arguing that this degree of security-driven Mac OS lockdown is overkill and it’s certainly been implemented by Apple to make their lives easier, not the end users’. 

There are many interesting comments to Engst’s article. An example of users having more limited choices is provided by reader Michael Schmitt:

But still… let’s say you have an Apple Silicon MacBook Pro which came with Ventura (like mine), and is currently on Sonoma (like mine). Your internal SSD dies, so you take it to the Apple Store and get it replaced.

A week later you have your computer back, but it is on Sequoia. You want it to be on Sonoma. What to do?

The problem is that macOS Recovery doesn’t let you pick which macOS version it will install. On Intel Macs you have limited options: macOS computer came with, macOS it is currently on, or most recent macOS. None of those will work.

On Apple Silicon, as far as I can tell, you have no choice at all. So if it installs Sequoia, you’re stuck, because the macOS installer won’t let you downgrade. You can’t even use it to installer a lower version of macOS on an external drive(*). 

(*) Another reader, down in the thread, notes that it is technically possible to perform such a downgrade, but it’s not exactly an intuitive, ‘Mac-like’ procedure.

Note that this can happen (and has happened to a friend of mine) even if you take the Mac to the Apple Store for other motherboard issues and not just because the internal SSD has died. In my friend’s case, his MacBook had developed power issues. I don’t know whether it was an intermittent failure at powering up, a failure in detecting a connected power cable (so the battery couldn’t be charged either), or both, but they performed a motherboard replacement and he found himself with a fresh installation of what was the latest Mac OS version at the time. And he was, I think, two versions behind because a couple of software applications he relied upon either weren’t working well or at all under the latest Mac OS.

Back when my iMac G3 broke down in 2001 (analogue board failure), the repair shop told me I could have my Mac back in 2–3 weeks, a downtime I simply could not afford. So they put the iMac’s hard drive in an external FireWire enclosure, and I was able to continue working by connecting the drive to my iBook G3 SE straight away. My downtime that day was about 2 hours (the time it took me to bring the iMac to the shop and return home). 

Reader ‘trilo’ writes the comment that resonates with me the most:

The past few posts from Michael and Doug explain the issue perfectly. It has made what used to be quick and easy, extremely hard or impossible.

Having a securely locked OS is a great concept but it clearly comes with significant consequences. Bricking a machine is unacceptable for people who need their machines to make a living and where time is critical. There are dozens of times over the past 10 years where booting from a clone kept our production running and deadlines met, and there’s now circumstances where this can’t happen.

For mine the biggest concern of Michael Schmitt’s scenario is the statement “A week later you have your computer back”. From past experience I’d be very surprised if it only took a week.

As for OS versions, some people simply prefer to run older versions of an OS whether it be for practical reasons or personal choice. Forced upgrades aren’t cool.

Finally, I realise no amount of complaining or explaining will change Apple’s mind — but it doesn’t mean it’s not a bone-headed decision done for Apple’s convenience rather than the users’. 

In a reply to ‘trilo’, reader Doug Miller says:

My last ten to fifteen years of computer use on Macs have been the most stable of my life — they are the most reliable they have ever been for me… Generally the only times my Macs restart are when OS upgrades get delivered (there are also restarts of course for the desktops when we have power outages). I’m reminded a bit of the Louis CK “everything is amazing and nobody is happy” sometimes.

I’ll also note that I once did Mac cloned backups and I always found issues — every time I booted the clone to check if it was ok, things were just a bit messed up. The boot took longer; performance was poorer. Dropbox required authentication (that’s just the one app/service that I remember having issues — there may have been more.) It generally worked, but it didn’t “just work”. 

I’ll say this: ever since SSD technology matured, it has increased stability and reliability exponentially, both in my newer and older Macs. It’s too bad that this stability on the hardware side is paired with a worsened experience on the operating system software side. For a UI enthusiast and long-time Mac user such as myself, watching Mac OS gradually become a shell of its former self — more locked down, more simplified and iOS-ified — is a painful spectacle. Have I had any problem with my M2 Pro Mac mini running Ventura since I purchased it in June 2023? No. Not an issue, and not a crippling bug either. That’s great, don’t get me wrong. But also: am I happy every time I interact with this Mac OS? No. Not as happy as when I switch to another of my Macs running older Mac OS versions like High Sierra, Mojave, El Capitan, Snow Leopard, Tiger. I use this Mac mainly for work. But it feels just like when I used a Windows PC for work. I tolerate it, I can work with it; but the fun is elsewhere.

Oh, and unlike Miller I never had an issue with bootable cloned drives in the past. There was one occasion when SuperDuper threw an error when the cloning process was finished, so I asked Dave Nanian for clarifications, but in practice everything went smoothly and the cloning was successful. All the contents of my 2017 iMac 4K were copied on an external SSD, and I’ve been using that SSD as main volume ever since (that iMac still came with a spinning hard drive, and I didn’t want to open the computer to replace the HD with the SSD, preferring to leave the hard drive inside and use it as a data backup volume).

‘trilo’ replies to Doug Miller, and in their reply there’s another bit where we strongly agree, and it’s that last paragraph:

My work is deadline driven publishing and Apple has removed the safety net we enjoyed. Maybe the Apple market is now just Instagram and tiktok viewers but some of us still do real work where we can’t afford hours, days or weeks without a functional machine.

I’d like the choice to do it. I’m happy to shoulder the risks — just don’t prevent me from doing it. Some users don’t want to be dictated to by the lowest common denominator. 

I’m sure it’s technically possible to provide the option of making bootable cloned volumes in an easy, user-comprehensible fashion while preserving a layer of underlying security, but I’m also sure it would be more work for Apple behind the scenes. It’s more cost-effective for Apple to follow the principle that the fewer moving parts, the fewer the chances of a machine breaking down. To the point that Macs are basically black boxes.

Whatever your opinion on this whole matter, there’s an unescapable fact — recovering from a serious hardware failure or data loss used to be faster and simpler than it is now. Did it involve a lesser degree of security? Theoretically, yes. In practice, we accepted the security trade-off of being able to use a quicker, more ‘open’ procedure to get back on track instead of having to jump through largely overkill security loops that ultimately create a lot of friction and encumbrance for the end user. A user who’s simply dealing with data loss or hardware failures, with reasonably near-zero risk that ‘some attacker’ may target their machine or information. 

As a coda to all this, there’s one last observation I’d like to make. In Engst’s comments, in Fleishman’s afore-linked article, and in the comments to Engst’s piece, it is repeatedly pointed out that the internal SSDs in today’s Macs are extremely reliable, making the actual need for bootable backups rather redundant and irrelevant. And while I don’t necessarily disagree with this, such reliability has led to a fascinating side effect: people don’t make backups of their data like they used to.

Every once in a while, I conduct private surveys and polls with a fair amount of volunteers. Statistically, the sample isn’t very large (we’re talking 100–120 people), but it’s diverse enough to have a modicum of relevance for me. My volunteers are people with varying degrees of tech expertise (from none to a lot), different age ranges, different jobs and incomes, and hail from different countries within and outside the EU.

A few months ago, I had the idea of writing a piece about how we’re doing backups today, so I sent out a few questions via email to my volunteers. I wanted to know which platform they were using, which backup solutions they had in place (if any), and whether their backup strategy had significantly changed in recent times. 

I received 106 replies, 75 from Mac users. Of these Mac users, only 11 are still actively, routinely backing up their data. Of the remaining 64, 21 told me they’ve never backed up anything. In the remaining group of 43 users, a few of them relied solely on Time Machine backups (without even verifying them), but the majority was simply using some cloud service (Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, Google Drive) to save selected critical data and nothing else. After a few follow-up enquiries, an interesting trend emerged: every person in my sample who was using an Apple Silicon Mac didn’t bother with any particular backup solution, and a lot of them specifically told me that they had stopped bothering with backups since Apple stopped including spinning hard drives in their computers, and especially since transitioning to the Apple Silicon architecture. They told me the reliable hardware makes them feel secure enough to skip backups altogether. Some of them keep a few important documents in iCloud, but they haven’t even bothered purchasing more iCloud storage for that.

A couple of responses were fascinating, and they were along the lines of, “My Mac feels like an iPad now, and I certainly don’t spend time backing up my iPad. If something happens, I just do a restore”. I don’t know what kind of ‘restore’ they’re thinking of, but I perfectly got the overall attitude. 

(By the way, of the 31 Windows users who submitted their replies, the vast majority used OneDrive as main backup solution, while 5 people told me they relied on local NAS solutions to preserve their data. Even among them, SSDs inside their main computers meant a general sense of increased reliability and security).

I ended up not writing that article about backup strategies, but the information I collected with my survey had got me thinking. Now, maybe these results don’t align with your personal experience, but I’m curious to know whether you, too, have relaxed or entirely neglected your backup practices since switching to SSD-powered machines and specifically Apple Silicon Macs.

All this to me feels like a double-edged sword. On the one hand, having faster and more reliable storage technologies is very welcome, as catastrophic data losses become less frequent and less likely. On the other hand, people getting progressively careless about backup strategies, to the point of ditching them entirely, is a bit worrying. Sure, disasters are less likely to strike, but when they do strike, it’s going to hit harder than before. SSDs are not infallible, neither are they everlasting. Also, in my experience, SSD failures can happen without warning and be immediately, entirely devastating. Hard drive failures can be gradual and not utterly destructive straight away. A hard drive can start failing but still remain operational long enough to allow you to make an emergency backup in case you’re caught unawares (as it happened to me in 2006 with my 12-inch PowerBook G4’s drive — I was able to copy everything on a second drive with only 0.3% of data corruption before the drive failed completely). An SSD just fails and there’s basically nothing you can do about it. 

So, while SSD failures are still way less common than hard drive failures, I’d still call this almost unconditional reliance on them a false sense of security. And no, of course I’m not saying it’s Apple’s fault — I’ve been criticising the company more and more often, but I’m not a moron. Yet, it’s somehow ironic to see a more secure, locked-down Mac OS, and users feeling so much safer that they’re willing to forgo backup solutions almost entirely. Thank goodness I’m not doing IT support anymore.

As for software and security, thankfully it’s still possible to run any application you want on Mac OS, but it’s increasingly clear to me how Apple would prefer an iOS/iPadOS scenario, where the only apps you can install and execute would come from the App Store, and only from the App Store. For now, we simply have to deal with additional mouse clicks and granting permissions to apps that aren’t from the App Store or from ‘Identified developers’. But I routinely find myself wondering how long this software freedom will last before Apple initiates another lockdown. 

I assume it’s because at the moment Apple still fears the inevitable backlash from users (and especially power users), but I’m starting to wonder how much of a backlash it will really be after a few Mac OS cycles. Judging by the utter lack of interest from regular users when it comes to UI-related matters — and I’ve noticed that every time I’ve raised some issues regarding Mac OS’s worsened user interface and first-party apps. Judging by the fact that an increasing number of Apple users are utterly unfazed by atrocious design choices like putting notches on iPhone and MacBook displays, or by Apple’s almost complete disregard of their own Human Interface Guidelines in their own operating system, I’m afraid that when Apple decides to pull the ‘App Store only’ card for Mac OS apps, most users will just accept that with a shrug and move on. In case something like this eventually materialises, my hope is that the European Commission will regulate against such practice and will save Mac OS from its dumbed-down, locked-down fate.

Switching to Android? - First follow-up

December 6, 2024
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

First and foremost: if you haven’t read my previous piece, Switching to Android? it’s better if you do so before proceeding.

The initial feedback

In that post I wrote: 

Digital entrenchment is silly, and it’s wiser to have a more open-minded approach. Big tech companies aren’t your friends or even allies. ‘Rooting’ for one is naïve and cringe.

Unsurprisingly, 90% of the feedback emails I got about my post were from digitally entrenched people and Apple fans. I explained clearly enough what this transition means for me and the way it’s going to play out, but still the majority of comments assumed I’m going to ditch all my Apple stuff and do a hard switch.

I don’t have the time and the patience to write back to each of these people explaining what I have already said in my piece, so my general, public reply is simply, re-read the damn article.

Some other feedback I received, while not being openly hostile, insinuated that I’m going to regret the switch, suggesting that using an Android device is like tinkering with volatile machinery, while the iPhone and iOS ‘just work’.

Finally, a small percentage of readers and followers either welcomed me ‘to the other side’ or manifested genuine interest in my platform transition. Some gave me a few tips. And some, like Peter and Jeffrey pointed me to Asus’s Zenfone line as one good example of current compact Android phones. I actually remember looking into Asus and OnePlus as possible brands to consider when I started pondering Android as an ‘exit strategy’ some time ago; I even remember a very positive review of the Zenfone 9 by Marques Brownlee, but I hadn’t realised how relatively compact Asus’s phones are. The Zenfone 10’s dimensions are fairly similar to the iPhone SE 3’s, for instance.

What tinkering?

Back to those foreseeing I’ll have a hard time adapting to an Android device because, unlike the iPhone, it involves more ‘tinkering’, let me give you a brief update about that. 

I still haven’t removed my SIM card from the iPhone and put it in my Nothing Phone 2a. I’ve been busy these days, and the only things I had time to do were keeping an eye on the 2a’s battery life, searching for Android counterparts of the apps I use most on iOS, and enjoying the Nothing Watch Pro 2 smartwatch. So far, what I can tell you is this:

  • I’ve downloaded 32 apps from the Play Store. Granted, the sheer majority of these are common, popular apps for services and social media, but in terms of look & feel all these Android counterparts appear to behave exactly like the iOS apps I know and love. Combined with the iPhone-like feel of Nothing’s hardware, most of the time while using these apps I had the impression of simply using a bigger iPhone. And while it still feels a bit awkward to be handling a phone with a display that’s 2 inches bigger than what I was used to, I can’t deny that Nothing Phone 2a’s bigger and better-quality display, together with the 120Hz scrolling (and the adaptive scrolling in general), made for a very pleasant experience.
  • The only fiddling involved when using the 2a was the usual fiddling anyone engages with when getting a new device: studying the Settings app, figuring out how to fine-tune Notifications and permissions, browsing and customising widgets, stuff like that — nothing out of the ordinary.
  • Some Apple fans, since they’ve never looked past their ecosystem, appear to be stuck with an outdated idea of how Android looks, feels, works. Their idea involves clunkiness, bloatware, erratic software behaviour, constant bugs, a subpar user experience, inferior hardware, etc. Clunkiness and bugs were definitely a thing on Android, like, ten years ago. My wife used to have an old Sony Xperia running Android 4, and she often complained about the performance and the experience. But when I got a Xiaomi MI A2 in 2019, running Android 9, my opinions (and maybe prejudices) about Android dramatically changed. As for bloatware, sure, it’s still present, but in varying degrees: a lot on phones from Chinese brands, a little on Samsung devices, but there are also handsets with stock or near-stock Android like the Google Pixel line, Asus phones, Motorola Razr, and of course Nothing phones. And you’ll encounter inferior hardware if you look for very cheap phones. The build quality of flagship Android phones is top-notch, and there’s an ever-increasing amount of well-built midrange phones — my 2a being one of them.
  • Even pairing the Watch Pro 2 and using its dedicated CMF Watch app was a seamless experience, comparable to pairing and using AirPods with an iPhone.

Additional observations

I’ve monitored battery life on the Nothing Phone 2a rather closely these days while using it as a secondary device at home and out and about. My phone usage could be considered ‘light to moderate’ by today’s standards. The 2a consistently lasts two full days, sometimes a little more. I charged it to 100% one morning at 10 AM, and it was about 20% at 11 PM of the following day. By turning on Battery Saver (Android’s Low Power mode), I managed to make it last until 9:30 AM of the third day. It’s a respectable performance. My iPhone SE 3 can last one day and a morning if I’m careful, which isn’t bad either considering that I’ve been using it for about one year and a half now. Sure, the Nothing Phone 2a is much newer, has a bigger battery (5,000 mAh versus the 2,018 mAh of the iPhone SE 3), but of course it has a much bigger and brighter display, and I’ve been keeping its Always-on Display feature turned on for the most part of the day. 

Speaking of Always-on Display, I like that it’s not a simple toggle. You can set it so that it’s active only during a certain time of the day, which makes sense as you probably don’t glance at your phone during the night when you’re sleeping.

I still haven’t explored in depth the various things you can do with Nothing’s Glyph interface, but I’ve found the Glyph timer to be rather useful (you set a timer, then flip the phone, and as time passes, the illuminated portion of the ‘glyph’ on the back of the phone recedes, so you can see at a glance roughly how much time is left). Features like the volume indicator or music visualisation aren’t strictly useful or groundbreaking, but are fun to use, and represent the tasteful whimsy side of Nothing’s overall sober and minimalistic æsthetic.

When it comes to camera performance, it’s something that typically doesn’t concern me very much, since I prefer using real cameras to take photos and treat smartphone cameras as tools for instant photography of secondary importance. And coming from the ‘generally okay’ single camera array of the iPhone SE 3, Nothing Phone 2a’s dual camera array and front facing camera are noticeably better, especially in worse lighting conditions. Granted, pro iPhones and flagship Android headsets of the likes of Google, Samsung, OnePlus, etc. certainly outclass the 2a’s cameras, but for my limited needs they’re much more than enough.

One little cool detail when using the 2a’s camera (something the iPhone doesn’t have, as far as I know) is that if there’s some dirt on the lens(es), the phone gives you a warning in the camera app. 

I’m positively impressed by the Nothing Phone 2a’s fingerprint sensor. It uses an in-screen optical scanner, so, instead of being a pseudo-button outside the display like the iPhone’s Home button, it’s a circular area inside the display and right at the bottom where your finger expects it. And it works remarkably well. The detection rate is much better than on the iPhone and, equally importantly, I get asked to use my passcode to unlock the phone less frequently than on the iPhone; which is perhaps the only thing that truly annoys me of Touch ID, because it seems to happen so randomly and often at the most inopportune times (you’re in a shop paying for something with the iPhone, there are people in queue behind you, and instead of the Apple Pay interaction, you get prompted to unlock the iPhone with your passcode first). 

The fingerprint sensor’s haptics are also good. The virtual ‘click’ when the phone recognises your fingerprint is positive and satisfying, and for a split second you’re left with the impression that you’re actually digging your thumb into the display.

The haptic feedback in general really surprised me. Especially when typing with the virtual keyboard. It’s stronger than on the iPhone, and it gives the keyboard a pleasantly tactile feel as you type; which, in my case, also leads to making next to no typing errors. 

What about the CMF Watch Pro 2?

This little smartwatch has perhaps surprised me even more positively than the phone. Nothing claims an 11-day battery life. With normal usage, in my informal tests I’d say it’s closer to 7–8 days actually, but it’s still impressive given that this is a traditional smartwatch with an AMOLED display (and a rather bright one at that). My Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition Hybrid smartwatch has a freakishly long battery life (one month average) because it’s a hybrid smartwatch with real watch hands and an e‑ink display behind them. But the Watch Pro 2 — for being what it is — is very good compared with similar WearOS-based smartwatches. 

What never ceases to amaze me is that it’s a feature-packed smartwatch (it has a step counter, a heart rate monitor, a blood oxygen monitor, it even has GPS), it is well built and looks and feels premium overall, and it only costs $/€69.

As I mentioned in my previous piece, its companion CMF Watch app is well designed and pleasant to use. Data with the smartwatch is exchanged frequently and seamlessly, and the watchface gallery offers a lot of tasteful watchfaces, both in analogue and digital styles, with varying amount of information. Some faces offer further customisation once installed on the watch — for example if a face features a battery meter by default, you can choose to change it into a calorie or activity meter. 

You also have the option of creating a customised watch face. The layouts are pretty basic, but you can spice things up by using a recently-introduced ‘AI’ tool that can create custom face backgrounds by mixing and matching choices you specify. In general, I’d say that the watchface gallery offered by Nothing is a good middle ground between the somewhat limited choices you have on the Apple Watch, and the dizzying selection provided by apps like Facer.

Preliminary conclusions

I don’t know if this is a consequence of playing with new devices after favouring one platform and one type of smartphone for so long, but this experience with the Nothing ecosystem feels refreshingly good and appears to have — at least for now — put a stop to a long period of tech fatigue and lack of enthusiasm. It’s not easy to explain why exactly. Nothing’s hardware and software aren’t especially groundbreaking. They’re well designed, decently built, and without doubt reflect a distinct personality and vision emanating from within the company and its founder and CEO Carl Pei.

If this reminds you of a certain company that used to make machines which were both powerful and whimsy, paired with good software and a solid UI and UX foundation, that’s exactly it; that’s the je ne sais quoi element I’m talking about. Not only do this phone and this watch just work, they’re also just nice.

Switching to Android?

November 27, 2024
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

Last week, for my birthday, my wife got me a Nothing Phone (2a). No, it wasn’t an attempt on her part to turn me into an Android user (she uses an iPhone herself); two weeks earlier she asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and since I had recently shown her just how I liked the design of Nothing’s products and Nothing as a company, she said something like, Maybe you’d like a Nothing phone?

“I’d love to have a Nothing Phone (2), but I also like the (2a), and it’s even more affordable”, I replied. We had a deal.

The phone arrived via courier exactly on the day of my birthday; she got me the phone, an additional screen protector, and the transparent Nothing phone case. The unboxing was quick and fun.

Nothing Phone (2a) unboxing

I’m glad I chose the Milk colour variant. I think it makes the peculiar design of the phone’s back stand out more. It gives more of a ‘space age’ NASA vibe than the Black variant.

Also, as I was checking something on Amazon, I noticed they were already offering Black Friday deals, so as a little birthday gift to myself I purchased the Nothing CMF Watch Pro 2 (in orange). This smartwatch, already quite affordable at €69, was on sale at €55. I couldn’t resist.

Nothing CMF Watch Pro 2

So I have had the Nothing Phone (2a) for a week and the Watch Pro 2 for four days now. The general impression is that both these devices really punch above their weight. They may not be made of ‘premium’ materials, but neither feels cheap, either. Every time I look at the Watch Pro 2, and every time I consider just how seamless it was to pair with the phone, and to use the very good companion app, it boggles the mind that this is a €70 accessory.

Same with the (2a). It has a great display, decent cameras, great performance and responsiveness, and a long-lasting battery. One reviewer on the Nothing UK site said it well: It feels like a flagship, handles like an iPhone, but with a great battery life and a splash of personality. It also has two things I wish Apple gave to at least one iPhone model: a simple punch-hole front camera, and a fingerprint sensor using an in-screen optical scanner. These two features allow the (2a) to have a truly ‘all-screen’ experience — where the display doesn’t have an intrusive black area at the top like the notch or dynamic island on the iPhone — and I still can use a fingerprint reader to unlock the phone biometrically without being forced to enable an authentication method I don’t like. (By the way, the (2a) also features Face Unlock, in case you were wondering).

It’s still too early to write a proper review of this device, but first impressions do matter, and the (2a) so far has impressed me. My current smartphone is an iPhone SE 3, so the bump in performance when using the (2a) was expected. But sheer performance isn’t everything. There’s the UI too. And I really, really like what Nothing is doing with their Nothing OS. Visually, we can consider their apps and UI to be flat, minimalist design. But it’s done with intent, it’s mostly cohesive, and I feel it has the right balance between starkness/austerity and fun/whimsy to appear charming rather than bland. It certainly is distinctive.

Nothing Phone lockscreen and weather app

Left: Nothing Phone (2a) lock screen, with the characteristic fluted glass effect applied to the wallpaper image. Right: Nothing OS Weather app.

Switching

Ever since I started talking about the Nothing Phone (2a) and the Watch Pro 2 on social media, a few have reached out asking me the predictable question — So, are you switching to Android? and the answer is: That’s happening, let me explain.

You see, with me and my kind of constant multi-platform curiosity, things are never black or white. While my main computing platform remains the Mac, I do own and use Windows PCs of various vintages, and even a ThinkPad with a Linux distro on it. While my main smartphone has been the iPhone since 2008, over time I have acquired and enjoyed Android phones, Symbian, Windows Phone, and MeeGo devices. My primary tablet is an iPad, but I also have an older Surface Pro, and I prefer reading ebooks on Kindle devices. Especially since the mid-2010s, I’ve always had a secondary device from another platform. Ecosystems are convenient, but they also trap you. And these aren’t the times to limit ourselves to just one platform, one ecosystem. Digital entrenchment is silly, and it’s wiser to have a more open-minded approach. Big tech companies aren’t your friends or even allies. ‘Rooting’ for one is naïve and cringe.

In the end, for me, ‘switching’ to Android doesn’t mean going all-in on it, ditching my iPhones and iOS and obliterating any other platform. Currently, and more mundanely, it means taking out the SIM card from my iPhone SE and putting it in the Nothing Phone (2a). It’s a literal switch, not a move. It’s a switch between my primary and secondary platforms.

But why, and why now?

After 16 years of iPhones, I’m feeling a bit fatigued, to be honest. When Apple introduced the iPhone X in 2017, it was the first time I actively disliked the device’s design. Every iPhone that has come after has kept doubling down on that absurd design decision that started as a notch and has become a slightly-reduced notch (that’s how I see the Dynamic Island, sorry). This has severely reduced the appeal of the iPhone for me. (And of MacBooks too since they received the notch treatment).

I’ve also preferred Touch ID as a method of biometric authentication, and it’s also the method I prefer in user-interaction workflows. Paying with my iPhone is faster, and authenticating by placing my finger on the sensor feels more like a purposeful gesture than just glancing at the device. Face ID still feels too abstract and feedback-less for me. Clicking the Home button to quit an app feels less error-prone than a swipe. Having a Home button means I can swipe to scroll inside an app without worrying that I may accidentally quit it or switch to another with a miscalculated swipe.

And I still maintain that all the gestures to invoke Notification Centre, Control Centre, and the multitasking UI are better implemented on the traditional, pre-iPhone X design with the Home button.

But Apple has moved away from it. If it weren’t for the iPhone SE line, I would have already looked elsewhere. And given that it’s highly likely that the iPhone SE 4 will embrace the newer, notched design, it does really feel like the end of the line for me as an iPhone user.

And if I’m finding the iPhone hardware design increasingly off-putting, on the software side things aren’t getting better either. I still have a couple of devices on iOS 12, and I can’t really tell the difference between iOS versions after that one. Yes, on iOS 18 you can finally customise your iPhone screen the way you want. That and Apple Intelligence are what’s going to make this iOS version somewhat distinctive. That’s not something I find especially appealing or groundbreaking.

To be perfectly clear, while I find iOS increasingly stagnant and underwhelming as a platform, that doesn’t necessarily mean I find Android to be more innovative or attractive. But we have indeed reached a point of close similarity and feature parity. Yes, there are better-designed third-party apps on iOS; but most of the ones I keep returning to have equally good Android counterparts. One thing I’ve always loved about iOS, especially in the App Store golden era, has been the sheer amount of good-quality camera and photo editing apps. But I won’t miss those, as I’ll be taking my iPhone SE with me as a secondary device anyway.

There are, however, a couple of things in this personal transition (that’s how I prefer to call it, rather than a switch) from my iPhone to the Nothing Phone and the Android platform that make me feel a little bit hesitant:

Firstly, from a mere hardware standpoint, there’s no way around it: the Nothing Phone (2a) is decidedly bigger and bulkier than the iPhone SE 3. Here are their respective dimensions:

iPhone SE 3 Nothing Phone (2a)
Display 4.7 inches 6.7 inches
Height 138.4 mm 161.74 mm
Width 67.3 mm 76.32 mm
Depth 7.3 mm 8.55 mm
Weight 144 grams 190 grams

In other words, size-wise, the (2a) sits roughly between an iPhone 15 Pro Max and an iPhone 16 Pro Max, while being fractionally thicker. But since it’s made of lighter materials, it’s a bit lighter (31 grams less than the iPhone 15 Pro Max, 37 grams less than the 16 Pro Max). Still, it’s a big phone — made even slightly bigger when enclosed in its protective case. I’ve been complaining for a while now that smartphones are getting more and more cumbersome and that Apple is happily following the trend. I really like the more compact size of the iPhone SE 3, which by now I can operate almost one-handed.

However, at least at the moment, if you’re looking to upgrade your smartphone, good luck finding one with the iPhone SE’s size. It seems that the only viable option to get a decently specced compact smartphone is to get a horizontally foldable device like the Motorola Razr or the Samsung Z Flip. Even if I liked the design of the current iPhones, and decided to get the regular iPhone 16, for example, it would still be a big phone for my hands.

So, if I have no choice but to get accustomed to a big phone, at least I now have one with an interesting and distinctive design and without those huge, unwieldy, and awful camera arrays a lot of other Android phones and the pro iPhones have.

Secondly and more importantly, there’s the privacy angle. Despite my growing disenchantment with Apple and my continued criticisms, privacy is something where Apple undeniably excels at. While I couldn’t wait to set up Apple Pay to easily pay with my iPhone when my bank finally decided to make their services available through Apple Pay, I’m still torn about enabling Google Pay on the Nothing Phone.

As for the rest, I don’t think this transition is going to be particularly rocky. I’m still at the first stages, where I’m familiarising with the new smartphone and looking for familiar apps in the Play Store. I’ve already found all the essentials, and now I’m mostly looking for ‘nice to have’ apps (I strongly encourage the Android power users in my audience to reach out with suggestions for great apps, especially in the photo and RSS feed reader categories).

All in all, choosing the Nothing brand at the moment feels right; the company seems like a little Apple in the Android universe, back when Apple was the underdog and not the giant it is today. There’s a strong sense of community, and the people at Nothing seem rather open, both in discussing their hardware and software design ideas, and in taking customer feedback into consideration. I think they’re doing a good job at presenting the brand identity and philosophy via their YouTube channel. They’re certainly being successful at making their customers (and me now) not feel like just another bunch of Android users, if you know what I mean.

That’s it for now. I plan to keep you all posted about this personal transition as it unfolds, and to speak more at length about the Nothing Phone (2a), the Watch Pro 2, and Nothing OS (especially after the big upcoming update to version 3.0) in the following weeks. Meanwhile, I really welcome any kind of feedback from iPhone users who switched to Android in recent times. I’d love to know more about your experience and if you have thoughts you want to share. Check my Contact page for ways to get in touch.

Spotify and logins

November 14, 2024
by Riccardo Mori
Software

I have been a very happy Spotify Premium subscriber since 2010. While I don’t necessarily like or agree with certain decisions and stances the company took in the past, from a mere customer experience standpoint, I have had nothing to complain about. Last year I took advantage of a coupon I got at a local electronics store and tried Apple Music free for three months. But I only lasted four weeks before cancelling and keep using Spotify. While I think Spotify’s app UI could be improved, the music selection, the seamless experience of streaming what I’m listening to any other connected device, and especially the fact that Spotify doesn’t mess with my iTunes libraries, all this makes Spotify the superior choice for me.

The only, truly irritating thing with Spotify has happened to me three times in the past few months.

So, when you log into your Spotify account from a new device or a modern-enough device you’ve just installed the Spotify app on, the login is usually successful, but Spotify sends you an email message that looks like this:

This kind of practice is rather common today. Steam, Dropbox, Box, other cloud services and other companies do this — and it’s good. It’s a good approach to security. You’re told that a new login happened, and if it was you, all is fine, proceed as usual. If it wasn’t you, here’s a link to secure your account.

But back in October I was checking a few things on my fourth-generation iPod touch running iOS 6, and since I wanted to take some screenshots of Spotify’s older interface, I opened the app and (predictably, I’ll admit) I couldn’t log in or load anything. Apparently, Spotify took this as some kind of ‘suspicious activity’ and unilaterally decided to reset my account password and force me to create a new one.

I hate changing passwords for no reason. Especially when I have Spotify installed on several different devices and I have to update the login credentials on all of them. What I just don’t understand is, why not send me the same kind of email reserved for logins on ‘new’ devices, as seen above? Or send a similar message but with a slightly different wording, like: We noticed you tried to log in from an unsupported app or device. If it was you… etc.

Of course, having no other choice, I begrudgingly changed the password. Only to have the same exact thing happen again earlier this month. I was using my 2008 black MacBook running Snow Leopard, and in late 2023 or early 2024 I managed to download and install a version of the Spotify app that could be used on Macs running Snow Leopard and Lion, and I remembered using it successfully as recently as maybe March or April 2024. So I launched it, and everything seemed normal; it of course prompted me for my account credentials because I had changed the password in October. But after entering my credentials, I got a login error and — you guessed it — an email message telling me my password had been reset due to ‘suspicious activities’ and I had to change it. Again.

One thing I’ve always praised Spotify for is their fairly extended app support, giving me the ability of listening to music even from older Macs and iOS devices. For example, I just logged in from my 2017 iMac running High Sierra and the operation was successful. When opening the app, I did get a warning that “my operating system is out of date”, but the app technically still works. But at this point, it’s a guessing game. One day I might open the app on this Mac again, or on my old iPhone 5s running iOS 12, and the app might not work, and I will have to change my password yet again, against my will, just because Spotify considers this ‘suspicious activity’.

There’s nothing else to do here except venting my frustration, I know. But I wish these kinds of processes failed more elegantly.

The new iPad mini and the new Kindles

October 20, 2024
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

On October 15, via press release, Apple announced the introduction of the new, 7th-generation iPad mini. The following day, Amazon announced the new Kindle lineup, comprised of:

  • the new Kindle Colorsoft, the first Kindle in colour. 7‑inch display. $280;
  • the new iteration of the Kindle Scribe. 10.2‑inch display. $400;
  • the new iteration of the Kindle Paperwhite. 7‑inch display. Regular edition: $160, Signature edition (32GB of storage, double the Regular edition; auto-adjusting front light sensor; wireless charging capability): $200;
  • the new iteration of the regular Kindle. 6‑inch display. $110.

Saying that I was ‘in the market’ for a new iPad mini and a new Kindle is stretching it a bit, because these aren’t primary or even secondary devices for me. I have an 8th-generation iPad, which is almost overkill for what I use it for. Recently I also purchased a used second-generation iPad mini for €30, and after updating it to its maximum supported iOS version (12.5.7), I found it to still be a surprisingly capable device. 

As for the Kindle, I have an older Kindle Paperwhite (7th generation, a.k.a. Kindle Paperwhite 3), plus a 9.7‑inch Kindle DX Graphite, which was the best and last of the big Kindle DX line, released in 2010. Despite the Paperwhite being much more advanced and more portable, I tend to enjoy the bigger DX more, which is still a great device for reading and perusing PDF documents, magazines, typeface catalogues, and any digital publication that takes advantage of the larger format. 

So, despite me not needing a new iPad mini or Kindle, I was keeping an eye on both products. The iPad mini has intrigued me since the major redesign introduced with the 6th-generation model. I have extensively handled it several times in various stores, truly astounded by its lightness, size, and display clarity, and especially by its potential of being a really handy digital sketchbook/notebook.

On the Kindle front, I’ve been tempted to get an Oasis, due to its form factor, which I’ve found very nice to hold and operate, and especially due to it having physical buttons for navigation. My Paperwhite is nice and compact and all, but when it comes to touch interaction it’s no Apple device (credit where credit’s due) and it’s a bit awkward to use.

So, as time passed, I was telling myself that I should wait for the introduction of the next generation of both of these devices before making decisions or impulse purchases I would end up regretting.

Now that the new iPad mini and the new Kindles are out, I can tell you that they both have one thing in common: they have sold me on the previous generation of their respective models or product lines.

The 7th-generation iPad mini is essentially a gentle speed bump of the previous model, and little more. By comparing it with the 6th-generation iPad mini on Apple’s site, the only differences I’ve found are these:

iPad mini 6 iPad mini 7
A15 Bionic chip A17 Pro chip
Does not support Apple Intelligence Supports Apple Intelligence
Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi 6E
Supports Apple Pencil (2nd-gen) and Apple Pencil (USB‑C) Supports Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil (USB‑C)
Capacity: 64GB, 256GB Capacity: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB
Does not support Apple Pencil Hover Supports Apple Pencil Hover
Camera has Smart HDR 3 for photos Camera has Smart HDR 4 for photos
Bluetooth 5.0 Bluetooth 5.3

The rest of their tech specs are identical: same camera technology, same display, same size and weight, same battery life. And as you can see, the differences are actually nothing to write home about. I suspect that the iPad mini 7 has also more RAM than the 6, given that it supports Apple Intelligence and the 6 doesn’t. So I guess the biggest difference — for those who absolutely care — is the chip and Apple Intelligence support. The ‘problem’ is that today’s iPads are all fast enough for normal use, and from what I hear, even Pro iPads are more than fast enough for pro users. Their speed and performance differences can only be appreciated by looking at artificial benchmarks. I still have to try an iPad mini 7 in person, but I suspect I won’t be saying, Oh, it’s noticeably faster than the previous model, because when I picked up the older iPad mini 6 in a store three days ago, everything I was doing with it felt instantaneous and lag-free.

The only two practical advantages of choosing the newer iPad mini over the previous one that I can see are:

  1. Newer chip always means longer software support, so an iPad mini 7 purchased today will last longer with updated system software.
  2. The iPad mini 7 comes with more base storage (128GB) than the previous model (64GB).

Given that I still use older iOS devices with older iOS/iPadOS versions, and that they’re still working great, advantage №1 is somewhat tempered for me. My iPhone 7 Plus is updated to its maximum supported system, iOS 15.8.3, and all the apps I use are still working fine. When it comes to app functionality, in day-to-day use I virtually see no difference between this phone and my main iPhone, an SE 3 running iOS 17.6.1. My iPhone 8, purposefully left on iOS 12 (long story), still works fine for the most part — there are a few apps I can’t update anymore because they require later versions of iOS, but the core functionality is still there; if it weren’t for work and for the fact that the battery has severely deteriorated, I would probably still be using this iPhone today.

As for advantage №2, in my case it’s not significant, either. If I think of what I would use an iPad mini for, 64GB are plenty. Both my iPhone SE 3 and iPad 8 have 128GB of storage: on the iPhone I still have about 50GB free, while on the iPad I still have almost 90GB free. On the iPhone, most of the storage is taken by thousands of photos, and that’s the only reason why I have ‘only’ 50GB left.

But at this point, the most appealing feature that makes me prefer the iPad mini 6 over the 7 is the fact that it doesn’t support Apple Intelligence. Even if Apple Intelligence appears to be an opt-in feature on supported devices, its complete absence gives me a special kind of peace of mind, you know? Call me old-fashioned if you like. I’ll take that as a compliment.

As for the new Kindles, I’m not saying they’re bad devices. The Colorsoft looks nice enough, and I’m sure the Scribe has improved over the first iteration. But when it comes to personal preferences, I’m with Michael Tsai:

Sadly, the Kindle Oasis was not updated and is, in fact, discontinued. This was my favorite design, as it had physical page-turn buttons, a more comfortable shape to hold, and the lightest weight (131g without the cover). 

I imagine that, from a manufacturing standpoint, devices with physical buttons may be annoying because they have parts and components that are subject to stress and wear. But physical buttons in ebook readers — especially when well placed — are crucial and make for a much more pleasant experience; they’re exactly where your thumbs rest while holding the device, and turning pages becomes a frictionless action; you click the button instinctively, without having to constantly move your hand away from holding the device to tap on the screen (hopefully in the right place). Amazon should have kept at least one Kindle with physical buttons instead of going touch-only across the whole lineup. Last week, at the local second-hand electronics shop I frequently visit, I’ve seen a Kindle Oasis at a good price, so I guess I’ll go with that.