Riccardo Mori

Menu calendar apps I've used over the years

October 13, 2015

Software

I dislike cluttering my Mac’s menubar with too many menu extra, i.e. first- and third-party applications that put a permanent icon on the menubar for quick access (or sometimes sole access) to the application’s options. But one particular kind of application I have always found quite handy is the calendar. The icon allows me to check the date with a glance, and by clicking it I can see right away the calendar’s month view.

It’s also the kind of application that is soon taken for granted, so I wanted to quickly enumerate the menu calendar utilities I’ve been using since the first versions of Mac OS X.

MenuCalendarClock for iCal [$19.95; See also: MacUpdate link] — I’ve had this on my menubar from the days of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, but actually I used it until mid-2009, when my 12-inch PowerBook G4 went from primary to secondary machine. I still have MenuCalendarClock on my Titanium G4 PowerBooks. I loved its compactness. Not that the most recent menu calendar apps are less compact, but back then, on a clamshell iBook G3 with an 800×600 screen resolution, every pixel did count. Judging from the webpage, it appears that this app was no longer updated/developed after Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
MagiCal [Free] — I’ve used this app for a long time as well, from 2009 to early 2014, and it’s still the menu calendar app on my aluminium G4 PowerBooks running Mac OS X 10.5.8. It’s available as a PowerPC-only, Intel-only, or Universal Binary. It’s still a personal favourite: of all the calendar apps I’ve used, MagiCal is the one with the most customisable appearance. For example, the menu icon can be of different styles and colours, it can show just the date, or date and month, or date and day. The app seems to work fine also under recent OS X versions (Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan). Last year I decided to look for an alternative after noticing that every now and then the related background process would hang and the date would not refresh. But it may be an issue related to my specific Mac configuration, not necessarily a fault of MagiCal. Your mileage may vary. (But if you still use G3/G4/G5 PowerPC Macs running Tiger or Leopard, I definitely recommend it.)
Day‑O [Free] — I’ve used Shaun Inman’s nifty calendar app from early 2014, when I was on Mavericks, up to ten days ago, when I upgraded to El Capitan (without passing through Yosemite). Simple, lightweight, well designed. It’s not that it has stopped working, but Inman hasn’t updated it for Yosemite, and it doesn’t play well with OS X 10.10 and 10.11 Dark Mode for the menubar and Dock. If you’re not using Dark Mode, Day‑O still works fine under these most recent OS X versions.
Itsycal [Free] — I found Itsycal a few months ago when I was checking whether the developer was still working on Itsy, one of my favourite Twitter clients for Mac. I couldn’t try it, though, because I was still under Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks and the minimum requirement was 10.10 Yosemite, but I bookmarked the link so that I could check again if and when I upgraded to Yosemite. It turns out that I upgraded directly to OS X 10.11 El Capitan, and when it came to finding an alternative to Day‑O, I switched to Itsycal at once. Not as customisable as MagiCal, but definitely well-designed and a pleasure to use. Under El Capitan, as the developer notes on the app’s webpage, you can’t change Itsycal’s position in the menubar as you could under Yosemite. Apart from that, it works flawlessly.

Two alternatives to MenuMeters

October 9, 2015

by Riccardo Mori

Software

MenuMeters is a set of CPU, memory, disk, and network monitoring tools for Mac OS X. It has been around since Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and it’s always been my preferred software in its category. Every time a major Mac OS X release came out, one of the first things I used to do after upgrading was checking whether MenuMeters would work. I like it for its unobtrusiveness, level of customisation and general lightness. I hate cluttering the menubar with icons, so it’s important that a monitoring tool let me hide everything I don’t need to see. In my case, I’ve always been interested in one thing — checking network activity, and MenuMeters can simply show the network throughput as bytes per second (or even just arrows, if you really want the simplest, most minimalistic option). I still use MenuMeters on all my PowerPC Macs.

But after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.11, I discovered that MenuMeters is not compatible with the latest version of the operating system. At the time of writing, developer Alex Harper has put a warning on the MenuMeters website that reads as follows:

Due to new Apple-enforced code signature restrictions, MenuMeters is not compatible with the OS X 10.11 “El Capitan” public beta. Although the restriction is similar, this is not directly related to 10.11’s “System Integrity Protection” (SIP, aka “rootless”) feature and disabling SIP has no effect on MenuMeters.

Unless Apple makes the signature restriction optional, it is not clear that MenuMeters in its present form can ever be made compatible with OS X 10.11.

In the meantime I can only suggest that you do not install 10.11 if you wish to use MenuMeters.

So I started looking for alternatives, and after asking for advice on App.net, I received two great suggestions. One for a software I didn’t know, the other for a software I should have remembered (since I used to have it installed as a Dashboard widget). Neither alternatives are free, but they’re not very expensive either, and both are worth your consideration.

The first alternative that was suggested — thanks Peter! — is Colossus by Sparkfield, available on the Mac App Store for $3.99. System requirements are Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later. An interesting feature is a built-in memory cleaner. I haven’t tried this app myself, but Peter is another long-time, expert Mac user, and he has purchased it. I trust his judgment on this.

The second alternative — as Shawn kindly reminded me — is iStat Menus 5 by Bjango. A single licence is $18, and if you’re upgrading from version 3 or 4, you’ll only pay $9.99. System requirements for version 5 are Mac OS X 10.8 or later, and it’s guaranteed to be compatible with OS X 10.11. It costs more than Colossus, but it also has more features and a higher level of customisation.

I ended up choosing iStat Menus mostly because I’m more familiar with Bjango’s products, but this shouldn’t influence your choice at all. Everyone has different needs and preferences, and I’m sure there are other similar monitoring tools out there that cost less or are even free. I think Colossus and iStat Menus are two well-made applications that are worth considering before looking for other cheaper alternatives.

Update — Meanwhile, another alternative that has been suggested to me is Monity ($4.99) by Lukasz Kulis.

iPad, text editors, workflow fragmentation. Again.

October 6, 2015

by Riccardo Mori

Tech Life

I have already written about this, at length, in an article I published eight months ago: iPad, text editors, workflows, and a frustrated digression on simplicity, but earlier today a similar episode as the one I talked about in that piece made all that frustration return.

Let’s get back to one of the points I made then:

When I’m writing fiction, my preferred tool is TextEdit, I write in rich text format, all my files are RTF. Nothing fancy, but I need to see the formatting. I need to see the parts in italics, bold, in smaller font size, that sort of thing. I can’t write fiction in Markdown or HTML like I do when I’m writing articles to be published online or on my Vantage Point magazine.

[…] [T]hese days I’m practically forced to continue my work somewhere else. […] I want to travel light, so I take a small backpack, put the iPad 3 and the Incase Origami Workstation inside, then a few pens and notebooks, and I’m off to the library. Of course, I’ve saved my work in a dedicated Dropbox folder, so I’ll be able to easily resume writing from the iPad.

Once arrived, I set up the Origami Workstation, wake the iPad, and from there — at least theoretically — it’s just a matter of picking a text editor among the few I’ve purchased and— oh wait… None of them will handle my RTF files saved with TextEdit. Not Phraseology, not iA Writer, not Daedalus Touch (my favourite of the bunch), not WriteRight… Then there are apps like UX Write and GoodReader which at least let me read the RTF files I need, but to actually continue my work right where I left it, I have to copy what I wrote, paste it into a new text document (say, in Daedalus Touch) in the same Dropbox folder, and take it from there. And write in plain text, or Markdown, which may be fine with you, but it’s hugely annoying for me.

Sure, if I had to work on the iPad only, or if my setup were iPad-first, Mac as a secondary device, instead of the other way round, my approach would probably be different, and I would perhaps choose my tools more carefully. Still, I would need to use a pleasant application that lets me write in rich text format directly (no, I don’t want to write in Markdown and check the preview all the time). When I publicly expressed my frustration, some suggested I use Microsoft Word for the iPad, or Apple’s Pages both on the Mac and the iPad. These solutions, however, strike me as a bit overkill for my needs, and frankly it’s also a bit silly that I have to compromise and resort to tools I don’t like using just because they do the job (I also don’t want to use iCloud for syncing — it’s a long story that I’ll leave for another article, maybe). I did that back in the 1990s and I hated it.

These past months, when I’ve had to work on texts from my iPad, I resorted to a few tricks and workarounds to mitigate this kind of friction. For example, knowing that I’d continue working on a few text files on the iPad, I would convert them on the Mac beforehand, and upload them ‘iPad-ready’ on a different Dropbox folder. But today I had to perform a slightly different task, I didn’t have time for preparations, and I found myself dealing with the most stupidly fragmented workflow to accomplish a relatively simple goal. It was maddening.

I had a folder with six old RTF documents, written in Italian about twenty years ago, which I needed to edit and then translate into English. The idea was to simply open them and edit them right away in an app, then open a second app where I would create a new document and begin the translation. I don’t have Split View on my old iPad, so I would have to endure a bit of back-and-forth, but nothing overly dramatic. The problem is that I’d forgotten that none of the text-handling apps I have on my iPad (a dozen, more or less) can edit RTF files. So here’s what I did:

Opened the first RTF document in UX Write, an app that can display RTF files but not edit them.
Created a small workflow in Workflow that would convert the RTF text into HTML and copy the converted text to the Clipboard.
Created a new document in Daedalus Touch, pasted the HTML text in there, and tried to get rid of all the useless, superfluous markup by using Find and Replace.
Realised that Daedalus Touch has a Find feature, but apparently not a Replace feature.
Opened WriteRight, pasted the HTML again, and proceeded to remove all unnecessary HTML code via Find and Replace (a feature WriteRight has, thankfully).
Saved the result as a new document in WriteRight.

The time I lost, from Step 0 (becoming aware of the issue) to Step 6, was more than half an hour. If I had had a Mac with me, I would have opened the document in TextEdit, created a new document, stacked the two windows, to then begin working on the translation right away.

Again, perhaps the mistake on my part was in the choice of text editors I bought for the iPad. But see, I like to choose pleasant tools to write with. And there are apps, like Daedalus Touch, iA Writer and WriteRight, that have interesting features, are well-designed, and are generally a pleasure to use. Resorting to Pages or Microsoft Word for iOS is truly overkill when what I would simply like to do is editing an RTF file. It’s as if you needed to crop a picture and slightly retouch a small spot, and someone suggested you use Photoshop.

Most of the text-handling apps that exist for iOS — and there are a lot of them — seem to forget that there are other text formats out there beyond plain text and markdown. Some are great in offering a pleasant environment to write in, but when it comes to importing and editing documents created elsewhere with other software, things begin to quickly fall apart. Sure, I could get yet another app, but isn’t it a bit ridiculous to have 15 different iOS apps to do a job that on the Mac could be easily carried out by just one simple app like TextEdit?

I’m not complaining because on iOS there are too many apps to choose from, mind you! Such variety, such abundance, aren’t bad things at all. What I find a bit exhausting, however, is this silly trend of single-purpose apps or simplistic, minimalistic apps that are very pretty and very fashionable but sorely lack in features apart from some of the most basic stuff.

There’s a long debate going on about the iPad — that it could benefit from more ‘pro’ apps. That way, it could properly transform into a more professional tool, and a device like the iPad Pro would really be expressing all of its potential. Why don’t we start by offering some more ‘pro’ features in apps that are already out there? There must be a decent middle point between something like [insert minimalistic text editor here] and Microsoft Word for iOS, feature-wise. Adapting one’s needs and workflows to one or more apps can be a temporary solution, but in my opinion it’s not the ideal approach. These are tools, and tools should work for us, not the other way round.

Upgrade paths

October 4, 2015

by Riccardo Mori

Tech Life

I don’t upgrade hardware frequently. Having a constantly tight budget is the main reason, but it’s also a matter of mindset. I don’t like to waste resources. I have been taught to make the most of things and keep using them until they’re not efficient anymore. Thankfully, Macs are still long-lasting machines. And thankfully my job doesn’t involve the use of demanding software that requires constant upgrades to the latest and fastest Mac. The most telling detail in this regard is that the 12-inch PowerBook G4 has been my primary machine from 2004 to 2009. Considering that the transition from PowerPC to Intel architecture happened in 2006, I was able to keep going with a PowerPC Mac for three years and a half. When I finally decided it was time for a faster, Intel-based machine, it was mainly because that poor PowerBook couldn’t handle my primary workload very well (the 1.25 GB of maximum RAM didn’t help), but also because by 2009 I couldn’t reasonably expect support of the PowerPC architecture to last much longer; in August 2009, Apple would introduce Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and the upgrade was available only for Intel Macs. It was time for a change.

Historically, my primary Mac has lasted me at least five years. That has usually been my upgrade cycle. When purchasing a new Mac, the strategy has generally been to invest a bit more money for a better-specc’d machine — at least one tier above whatever my current needs were — so that it could hopefully keep up with the increasing software updates and demands for as long as possible. I’ve also been favouring the laptop over the desktop for its versatility: at home I’d use it in desktop configuration, attached to a big external monitor, to an external keyboard and mouse; and when I needed to work while out and about, I could unplug everything and put the laptop in my backpack.

Now, my current Mac is a true workhorse, and I can’t stress enough how satisfied I am with it. It’s a mid-2009 15-inch MacBook Pro, with a 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 8 GB of RAM (updated from the original 4 GB), and a 500 GB hard drive (updated from the original 320 GB hard drive). To date, it’s the primary Mac that has lasted so much, further extending my upgrade cycle. It has seen 6 different version of Mac OS X, from 10.5 Leopard to 10.11 El Capitan — which would be seven, but since I’ve skipped 10.10 Yosemite entirely, I’m not counting it — and it’s still going strong, at least for my needs.

I have however been feeling that it’s time for an upgrade for a while now. Not because I’m noticing that this MacBook Pro is on its last legs, like it happened with the PowerBook G4 in 2009 and the clamshell iBook G3/466 in 2004. I simply think the time has come for a more future-proof Mac. A machine with a better display, which would literally be a sight for sore eyes. A machine with more up-to-date technology inside (advanced Bluetooth for OS X’s Continuity features, faster Wi-Fi, faster connections, better graphics card, etc.). And, in case of a laptop, a machine with a much longer lasting battery. I’m still amazed that my 6‑years-old MacBook Pro can still last about three hours on a full charge, but it’s nothing compared to the performance of the 12-inch MacBook (9 hours) or the 13-inch MacBook Air (12 hours).

So, which Mac?

That truly is the question. The strategy I was considering is as follows. My current MacBook Pro becomes the secondary machine, and this opens up different options:

I could wait until the smaller iMac with retina display is introduced. I would go back to having the more powerful machine on my desktop, and a still capable MacBook Pro for when I’m on the move. Flip side: limited battery life of the aging MacBook Pro.
I could opt for another, smaller laptop but with a retina display, and keep this more powerful machine in laptop configuration, while keeping the older MacBook Pro connected to the non-retina external monitor as it is now, since it’d make little sense to have a retina laptop connect to a non-retina monitor. Flip side: I work better on a bigger screen, and to keep using the older Mac in desktop configuration, while the newer Mac sits on another desk isn’t a very bright strategy — the newer Mac is supposed to be the primary machine!
I could purchase a Mac mini. I would attach it to the peripherals I already have (Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse, external monitor) and keep the MacBook Pro as my secondary Mac for when I’m out and about. This looks like the best option for someone on a limited budget. Flip side: Same as option 1, and I wouldn’t even have a retina display on the desktop.

These are just three examples, but the possible combinations and related dilemmas are numerous. Up until a few months ago, a machine I was really liking for an upgrade was the 13-inch MacBook Air, but the lack of a retina display in the whole Air family makes it a bit less ‘future-proof’ than I’d like. When the 12-inch retina MacBook was introduced, I really thought it was the best candidate as my next Mac. It’s the youngest of the line, it’s powerful enough for my needs, it’s thin and light, it has a retina display. Unfortunately it also has a terrible keyboard that makes it unsuitable for the amount of typing I do daily. The iMac Retina 5K Display is beautiful, and it would probably last me even more than my current 6‑years-old MacBook Pro, but it’s way, way beyond my budget. Another machine I’d like, but is equally unattainable, is the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro. Lovely Mac, and just the sweet screen size for me, but the entry model is €2249 and the high-end model is €2799. It’s simply too much.

All things taken into account, the rational decision is to consider two Macs as possible candidates:

The (hopefully forthcoming) smaller iMac with retina display.
The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, the mid-tier model with 256 GB flash storage ($1499/€1649).^[1]

A 21.5‑inch iMac with retina display wouldn’t be a bad desktop choice. I could attach to it the current 23-inch external monitor I use with the MacBook Pro. It wouldn’t have the same resolution and density of the iMac’s screen, of course, but I could use it as a secondary screen for applications and information I only need to glance at every now and then, or for palettes and toolbars when using graphics applications. I expect the price to be slightly higher than the current non-retina 21.5 iMac, so maybe something around $1400/€1600 — which would be in the same league as the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro above.

The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is very interesting. It has been improved, now featuring the same Force Touch trackpad introduced with the 12-inch MacBook, a longer battery life, and faster flash storage. It has retained the ‘good’ keyboard I know and love (okay, maybe not love, but at least it’s way more comfortable for me to type on). 256 GB of main storage isn’t a lot of space, but I can certainly optimise it and keep the majority of media archives on external volumes. I could wait a bit more and go for the 16 GB RAM upgrade straight away, too. Yes, it feels like the most likely candidate.

The crazy alternative

And then Apple introduces the iPad Pro, and it gets me thinking.

With the new productivity-friendly features introduced in iOS 9, I could revise my main workflow to make it more iPad-oriented. I could connect my Apple Wireless Keyboard to it (I’m not a fan of the Smart Keyboard for the iPad Pro), and still use my Incase Origami Workstation to prop up the iPad. With the right combination of apps and Split View, and a bit of training, the iPad Pro could become an interesting alternative. Not exactly my main machine, but certainly a workspace I’d spend a lot of time in, reserving the MacBook Pro for those specific tasks that require certain desktop applications and tools, or a bigger screen real estate, or the kind of versatile multitasking the Mac OS X environment can afford. I could even extend the MacBook Pro’s already long lifespan by removing the optical drive and getting an SSD, and eventually getting also a new battery.

I know, it sounds crazy, perhaps even counter-intuitive given all my ramblings about choosing the right Mac for the next upgrade. But the iPad Pro, I admit, has truly fascinated me. So far, I’ve been perfectly happy with my old iPad 3 and have never felt the urge to get a newer and faster iPad. I have older devices, and upgrading more than one at a time is something I cannot afford. So of course the Mac has precedence and is the rational, safe route given my long-time Mac user mindset. But the challenge of getting an iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil, and making this my new productivity environment is quite tempting. I can’t wait to see new iOS apps specifically designed to take advantage of the iPad Pro’s form factor and bigger screen. Again, the right software could definitely tip the scales in favour of a ‘disruptive’ iPad-oriented upgrade path for me. Interesting times ahead, indeed.

1. Please note the stupid dollar/euro difference, something I complained about when discussing the retina MacBook pricing. ↩

iOS 9 on the iPhone 5 and the iPad 3

September 24, 2015

by Riccardo Mori

Software

Two days after iOS 9 was released, I updated both my iPhone 5 and iPad 3. So I’ve spent roughly a week with the new system software, and I feel I’m ready to share a few first impressions of use. Like I did by writing about iOS 7 on the iPhone 4 two years ago, and iOS 8 on the iPad 2 and iPad 3 last year, I think it’s important to continue the tradition of mentioning how it feels to use the latest iOS version on older devices. Not everyone purchases a new iPhone or iPad every year, and people who don’t are often left wondering how the new iOS might work on their iPhones and iPads that now are almost at the bottom of the list of supported devices.

The range of devices supported by iOS 9 is surprisingly ample, the principle being that if a device was able to run iOS 8, then it’ll run iOS 9. Performance-wise, according to what I’ve been reading on the Web so far, the consensus seems to be: If you were satisfied by iOS 8’s performance on your (older) device, then iOS 9 won’t disappoint. I agree with this assessment, and I’ll go as far as saying that iOS 9 feels even smoother and more stable in places where iOS 8 stuttered every now and then. I noticed this on the iPhone 5 especially.

Of course, not all the new features introduced with iOS 9 are available on older devices: Ars Technica gives a detailed overview of feature fragmentation. It’s a pity I can’t take advantage of features like Split View multitasking or Slide Over on my iPad 3, but it’s not the end of the world either (I’ll eventually upgrade to an iPad Pro when I can). The only feature I’m really missing are Safari content blockers. In case you were wondering, the requirement for this feature is an iOS device with 64-bit processor, which means iPhone 5S or newer, iPad Air or newer, iPad mini 2 or newer, and the 6th-gen iPod touch. As I observed on social networks, slightly older devices would benefit a lot from content blockers, as there are certain sites with so many ads and underlying related code that browsing them is an exercise in frustration and a blow to the device’s general performance. Too bad (and ironic) that they can’t take advantage of this iOS 9 feature.

Animations and transitions feel very smooth on the iPhone 5, even smoother than under iOS 8. Navigating the springboard, entering and exiting apps, flicking through apps in the new multitasking interface, unlocking the phone, accessing Spotlight — so far my iPhone 5 has never stuttered or otherwise hesitated. I’ve noticed a marked improvement when invoking both Notification Centre and Control Centre: their interface appears to be more responsive, and the animation more fluid. This is also true for the iPad 3. Even my wife’s iPad 2 appears to have smoother animations and transitions than under iOS 8, especially the multitasking interface, while pulling down Notification Centre the few times I tried proved to be a more jerky, stuttering affair. A slight delay I’ve seen on the iPad 3 is when opening an application that wasn’t already in memory: the app icon darkens (registering your tap to launch it), stays darkened for half a second, then the app launches. Perhaps some users will find this annoying: for me, it’s not really an issue. The delay is so small as to be largely forgivable. Another slight delay happens in certain apps when you have to enter text: the virtual keyboard may not spring up as readily as, say, Control Centre. But again, I haven’t seen this happen consistently enough to be an issue, and once the keyboard is up, it’s perfectly responsive. Apart from these exceptions, I’d say iOS 9 visual performance on the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 is satisfying.

General performance and feel — iOS 9 feels like the most stable .0 release in a long time. No strange behaviours, no unexpected crashes (old apps that stopped working under iOS 9 and crash on launch do not count — these are expected crashes) or reboots, no inconsistencies in general responsiveness. iOS 9 feels light enough and solid, especially on the iPhone 5, but also on the iPad 3. The feeling is that you’re using a very well optimised system, not something that an iPhone 5 or iPad 3 can barely sustain and may break at any moment. I’m generally impressed by how well iOS 9 is behaving on the iPad 3 in particular. Maybe if you’re a more nervous user, frequently jumping in and out of apps, you may notice more lag here and there. I have not, so far. If you still use an iPhone 5 or iPad 3, are still on iOS 8.4.1, and you’re not sure whether to update to iOS 9, I’d say go for it. What you gain, however small, will be more than what you lose (nothing, basically, although if you’re still using very old apps there’s the remote possibility of running into something that worked on iOS 8 but won’t on iOS 9).

Two very nice improvements in iOS 9 — The first, believe it or not, is the new system font, San Francisco. I’m so glad Apple decided to use it on iOS and OS X too, not just on the Watch. I find it to be much more readable than Neue Helvetica in so many places, and especially in all the instances of smaller text (like in share sheets or when previewing mail messages in Mail’s list view). It’s better spaced than Neue Helvetica and I don’t have to squint to make out certain groups of words. Very nice. The second improvement is in the user interaction with external keyboards when in use with an iPad, by implementing very useful and very familiar keyboard shortcuts. I’ve already talked about this in my previous article Keyboard shortcuts in iOS 9 bring back memories.

A third new feature in iOS 9 I also find quite useful is Low Power Mode (only supported on iPhones). As explained in the Settings > Battery screen itself, Low Power Mode temporarily reduces power consumption until you can fully charge your iPhone. When this is on, mail fetch, background app refresh, automatic downloads and some visual effects are reduced or turned off. I particularly like how the feature is implemented: if you turn it on yourself, Low Power Mode will automatically engage when battery level drops to 20% (the battery percentage will appear in the iPhone’s status bar even if you normally keep it hidden). If you leave the setting off, when battery level drops to 20%, you’ll get the usual ‘battery low’ warning, but iOS 9 will also offer to turn Low Power Mode on temporarily, until you can charge your iPhone. If you dismiss the first warning, a second warning at 10% battery level will again offer to turn Low Power Mode on for you. Smart and helpful.

If you have an iOS device of this vintage and have questions for me regarding iOS 9 performance in specific places I have not mentioned, let me know; you can reach me on Twitter or App.Net, I’m @morrick on both networks. I plan to add more iOS 9 commentary if I notice other things worth covering.

Coda — A couple of weird things

Weird thing №1 — virtual keyboard glitches

After updating to iOS 9 on my iPhone 5, I noticed strange glitches in the rendering of some keys in the virtual keyboard:

iOS 9 keyboard glitch

As you can see, the affected keys are the Shift key, rendered as a black square; the Delete key, rendered as a white rectangle; and the International key, the white square between the ‘123’ and Dictation keys (it normally has a globe icon). What I noticed about this UI glitch:

It doesn’t appear in all applications.
It only happens with the keyboard’s dark theme.
It doesn’t happen on the iPad.
The correct key icon appears briefly when tapping the key.
When double-tapping the Shift key, the correct Caps Lock key appears.

At the moment I still haven’t installed iOS 9.0.1, so I don’t know if the problem has been resolved.

Weird thing №2 — A battery mystery

Since updating both the iPhone 5 and the iPad 3 to iOS 9, two weird episodes happened, both related to the battery. I went to bed one night and set up an alarm on my iPhone 5 for the following morning. I placed the iPhone on my night table, activated Do Not Disturb, and went to sleep. The iPhone still had 38% of battery left. A bit low, but nothing the iPhone can’t handle, given that it’s going to stay several hours on standby. The next morning I woke up an hour later and found strange that I didn’t hear the alarm. I woke the iPhone from sleep to check if I really set the alarm the night before… and the iPhone was dead. The first thing I suspected was some odd background process that kicked in and drained the battery overnight, but I hadn’t noticed any unusual battery drain in the previous days, and I hadn’t installed any new app. I got up and connected the iPhone to the mains, making a mental note to check back for any unusual app or service behaviour once the iPhone was fully charged. Charging it to 100% took longer than usual, and what happened next left me equally baffled: battery life seems to have noticeably improved since the incident. The iPhone was at 100% battery level yesterday morning, and at the time of writing — 34 hours later — it’s down to 20% after moderate use.

Something similar happened to my iPad 3. The other morning I noticed the battery was almost depleted (4%), and I connected it to the charger. After the usual amount of hours needed to bring back the iPad to 100% battery, I went to check and, strangely, it was only at 63% of charge. I thought that maybe there was something wrong with the cable, but everything was fine and the lightning near the battery icon indicated that the iPad was indeed recharging (moving the cable didn’t interrupt the flow of current, so there was definitely nothing wrong with the cable or the connector). It took almost twice the amount of time usually needed to fully charge the iPad, but again, like with the iPhone, now the iPad’s battery appears to be discharging more slowly and to last more than before (and I’m not using the iPad more lightly than usual, either). In Mac terms, it’s as if both devices got their power managers (or System Management Controllers) reset. If something similar happened with your iOS devices as well, let me know. It’s certainly an intriguing matter.