Manuel Riess

Facebook Says it Will Stop Operating in Europe If Regulators Don’t Back Down - Oh yes please! This would be the first time Facebook makes the world a little better.

After most of the day on the road yesterday my 23 days streak of closing the activity ring on my watch had to stop. Now it’s time to start a new try for the perfect month 💪

Oy… 4 weeks delivery time for an Apple Watch. Seems like I‘m a little late with ordering 😉

Playing with the very few widgets available as of now made all my folders disappear into several screens of randomly ordered app icons, after I just got all screens besides a single home screen removed. If there just was a way for Apple to properly test this stuff before 🤔

24h notice for app developers to submit their apps for iOS 14 - I didn’t even get a reminder yet, like in the years before - is outrageous. How many apps will not be updated today and how many of the users will not blame the developers for that? Apple’s losing it.

Of course Fitness+ will only be available in „English speaking“ countries. It’s not like I‘m not able to follow „fitness level English“. I don’t understand this move, I think it’s yet another ridiculous decision, but at least it’s one less thing from them for me to try out 😉

After 4 years I‘ll be getting a new Apple Watch. I thought about it already last year but I‘m really using it a lot lately, so that’s a good upgrade.

I‘m conflicted about their new service bundles. The integration of everything (including the new fitness service) is unbeatable. And that’s exactly my concern. I don’t want this, but I want it. Pricing is fine, but the storage levels are yet again laughable. I still can’t understand why there is no family photo library. I’m burning through double photo storage with my family photos and this is probably the reason this feature doesn’t exist. It would let me drop back to the standard iCloud storage tier. Tim Cook would be sad about this.

Of course, in terms of quality, integration and features, Apple is the gold standard. This means vendor lock-in. Do I want that? No I don’t. Is it convenient? Of course it is! The experience is great. But is has a cost. Not sure where this will lead in a couple of years.

I have to think about this some more. At the moment I would even be ready to switch back to Apple Music just because it would make things easier. Against my better judgment. I tried alternatives to the whole Apple ecosystem. There are none.

Mid September and still no Christmas cookies in the stores?!? Somethings seriously wrong this year 🤔

Got to see the sun go down at the beach today with my daughter. Lovely scenery!

Strong winds today! Makes the sand look like fog.

The biggest beach I‘ve ever seen. No idea why I never came here before 😊

Another day at the beach

Street art in Flensburg

At the beach

I love this place! So calm and quiet. It almost looks like you could walk over to Denmark (there’s a fisherman on the far right edge 😉)

Did a little tourist hike today to go see the chalk mountain on Rügen. Another day on the road tomorrow to get to our next location on the Danish border.

Not much sun today but we went to the beach anyways.

Sent an eMail to the owner of a supermarket today. Not a single one of their employees was able to wear their face masks correctly when I was there this week. One wiped his nose, kept the mask below it and didn’t even care to wash or disinfect his hands before continuing to restock the shelves. Unacceptable.

Trying to get into some coding groove in the evenings while on vacation. Not as easy as I thought… two little kids make me a little sleepy after long days 😉

With more stories of randomly rejected apps and suspended developer accounts the question is whether the App Store really is the best viable option to have your business depend on. I‘ll try to build my apps nevertheless, because I don’t depend on it and it‘s just a hobby, but I have some second thoughts (again). I already was certain to quit the whole ecosystem end of last year for different reasons, but I got drawn back in by the quality of the apps and services around it. Not because of Apple or the iPhone. Apple is wrong on so many levels. They just don’t know yet and I hope someone will show them sooner than later. The current situation is sad and maddening. It’s true: money hides problems.

Quick shot from our first „actual“ vacation location. Need to go out with a real camera some time this week.

The saga continues. Come on Apple… you’re acting a little too weird lately. What’s the tactic here? Do they want to force governments to regulate them?

We found a serene spot though… away from all those crazy people. Nice refreshment at almost 38 C.