Everything is annoying me today
As someone who has grown around computers all their life since the 80s, I've seen the struggle to learn to the annoying usage of computing today. As much as I try hard to adapt, some things are just plain obstacles put in front of consumers in order to make us use paid cloud services.
The convenience was great back in the Dropbox and iCloud early days for example. Our brains clicked in how it worked due to the simple file & folder structure of our local computers. Though as time passed, Apple started hiding this in iOS but later gave us the Files app that still is useless. Android took a different approach and gave users options.
I have been struggling to listen to my own music collection, mostly in the car, since cancelling subscriptions. Apple really could care less and forces us to use the limited library in Apple Music. They don't make it easy for us. Third party apps are limited in their features or buggy. I miss the days when things just worked and because of this I always resort to desktop to do any task. But MacOS just got on my nerves today and I shut down my MacBook Air.
I bounce back from MacOS and Linux and BSD. I'm happy I do because I see how things work and learn about solutions or alternatives. But it drives me up the wall some days. If you are a regular reader of my posts, you know I've struggled with sticking to one platform. Every year Apple makes it easier to drop them or at least minimize what products and services I use. Most of my family and friends are in the Apple ecosystem so I think keeping an iPhone around is enough to interact with them and any family management of purchases or what pops up in the future that requires my assistance.
I think my main issue over the years, is using older hardware every time for Linux and BSD. Most of the time I've been lucky and everything works with few issues. Sometimes I give up conveniences for example in OpenBSD not having Bluetooth but whatever. I was also struggling with an external monitor displaying 4K and T470 ThinkPad. It worked in the past using a Lenovo dock but after a firmware update on it, the T470 would stay stuck in 1080p. HDMI didn't help due to the Intel gpu limitations and tried a third party USB-C dock with HDMI connection and it finally worked. Hertz rates are low but another whatever. Used old hardware limitations!
It is the same issue with GrapheneOS on a Pixel 7. It is fine but it is no match to iPhone 16 Pro Max hardware. Perhaps if I had nicer hardware, it would make the transition feel nicer. It is more in my head, I'm sure if I sold everything I would forget about this. Which is on my mind along with de-cluttering a lot of my old stuff. In progress.
We really have become stuck in these Apple and Google ecosystems but is good to know we have an alternative in Linux, BSD and GrapheneOS. At least for now.