Apple’s timing problem

The M1 was announced in November 2020. The M1 Ultra wasn’t announced for another sixteen months, in March 2022. It was clearly late. Very late. The M2 was presumed right around the corner (and it was, released just four months later). Why would anyone buy an M1 Ultra, using a two year old CPU architecture… Read more

Apple Watch Ultra is a poor dive computer

Note: this was written in 2021 (and updated in 2022) based on version 1 of the Oceanic+ app. In September 2023 version 2 of that app was released, and it appears to have fixed quite a few limitations (e.g. you can finally export your log book, as a standard UDDF file). Once I’ve gathered some… Read more

iCloud ‘Optimize Mac Storage’ breaks the Mojave installer

Yet another example of a really bizarre macOS bug that’s pretty inexcusable as a test escape, given it occurs with the default installation settings on a completely clean OS install. In short, the Mojave update installer does not work (on High Sierra at least) if you have ‘Optimize Mac Storage’ enabled for iCloud Drive (System… Read more

FTZ adaptor hates tripods, straps, and harnesses

The FTZ adaptor has a surprising and very frustrating design flaw – it’s impossible to mount it to the camera body when you have almost any kind of mounting plate, strap, or harness (e.g. Cotton Carrier) mount point attached to the camera body.  This is because the FTZ has a big fat foot, as can… Read more