Immich and iPhone Storage
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Immich and iPhone Storage

Byrichard

When experimenting with the Immich iPhone app I found it impossible to upload beyond 15,000 images and I supposed that it was because the phone timed out before it had checked all the previous files before moving on to the last four thousand images. In reality the problem is that Immich downloads the media from iCloud and leaves it on the phone. The result is that if you have one hundred gigabytes of photos on iCloud you need one hundred gigabytes of storage ony your phone.

I only came across this after several attempts. I realised that it was a storage issue because another app said “Phone memory is low, please clear some data, or something to this effect. As this is my old phone I could clear files from other apps to make sense for iCloud to download the last of my photos, to be synced with Immich.

A few hours later I had downloaded and synced all iCloud photos to Immich. I can now delete iCloud images and have plenty of space for future growth. I have the 200 gigabyte plan so it doesn’t really matter.

iCloud and iPhones

My second to last phone as an iPhone 8 plus with 256 gigabytes of ram but the next one was an iPhone SE 2 with 128 gigs of ram. The reason for the downgrade in storage is simple. Two hundred gigabytes with Apple costs 3 CHF per month whereas 2 terabytes is 10 CHF per month. The cost per gigabyte makes the 2 terabyte plan more interesting but the difficulty of retrieving data makes the plan uninteresting. You end up paying 120 CHF per year until you find a way to retrieve that data.

The Shift from Self-Storage to Online Storage

Many years ago Google had Picasa, and Apple had and still have iPhoto. Both apps expected you to store your files locally. With time, as people shifted to laptops so the amount of storage available on devices declined. That’s why Picasa enabled cloud storage, and why Google Photos and iPhotos allow you to backup to the cloud and clear space on mobile devices. With android devices it’s easy to add a miniSD card up to two terabytes. With iOS, but also with MacOS devices getting more storage costs hundreds of francs more.

With Apple you pay 1 CHF per month for 50GB, 3 CHF per month for 200GB, 10 CHF for 2TB, 30 CHF for 6TH and 60CHF for 12TB. By dumping my photos from iCloud to Immich I can downgrade my iCloud plan from 200GB for 3CHF per month to 50 GB for a symbolic franc per month.

iCloud Photos use 135 gigabytes of storage out of 185 gigabytes of storage.

Local Storage and Cloud Storage

If you have one hundred and fourty gigabytes of photos then you need a phone with at least 140 gigabytes of storage but the SE has just 128 gigabytes of storage. The laptop has about 256 gigabytes if I remember correctly.

This means that if you store two terabytes of photos in the cloud you need a two terabyte drive to recover them, whether on your phone or your laptop. Since this costs thousands of francs it makes more sense to have a solution such as Immich, Nextcloud and photosync and Photoprism.

I believe that both Nextcloud and Photosync download photos from iCloud, upload them to their respective services and remove them, whereas Immich downloads them and keeps them in place. With Immich you need to have enough storage on your mobile phone whereas the others adapt.

And Finally

Immich did not give an error message. It just got stuck so I tried over and over without success. It’s because another app said that I had run out of space that I was able to resolve the issue and accomplish my goal of transferring files from iPhoto/iCloud to Immich.

Now is the time to evaluate Nextcloud Immich, and Photoprism over a number of days.

The iOS Astronomy Wallpaper and Seasons
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The iOS Astronomy Wallpaper and Seasons

Byrichard

If you’re wondering why one of the tags in my post is “Day 388” it’s because I shifted from WordPress to ClassicPress once again. In so doing I lost access to Akismet and Jetpack. By losing Akismet I lose comment spam filtering. I also lost access to the Jetpack app so I lost access to my streak info. That’s why I included it as a task.

Astronomy Wallpaper

If, like me, you’re using the Astronomy Wallpaper on your mobile phones you will have noticed that the shadow over the Northern hemisphere has shifted. It has gone from being a south to North shadow to an East to West shadow from the top of Europe. You can see how parts of Norway, Sweden England and Finland are now in the dark for longer and longer parts of the day. It’s rational that we would see it, but it’s interesting that we can see an illustration of how seasons change the pattern of daylight on earth.

With the Astronomy app on the Apple Watch you can see the same thing, but you can also see cloud cover over the part of the world where you are. In my case it’s Europe.

Gradual change

The changes are so gradual that if you look at your watch or phone every single day you wouldn’t notice unless you’re looking at the right time of day. If we went up to Kiruna now we might see that we’re in constant darkness according to our phones and watches. If we had a Garmin or Suunto device that displays sunrise and sunset we would see that the day may just be a few minutes long, at this time of year. We see this wherever we are, but to be in the arctic circle would be an extreme demonstration of the seasonal change.

And Finally

if you have an iphone play with the app and see what the pattern is like for your part of the world.

Apple Reading Goals
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Apple Reading Goals

Byrichard

I am confused by Apple reading goals because they measure how many days you have reached your goal, as well as how much you read for the current day, but once today is yesterday it loses all of that information. It tells you that you have a. streak but you have no way of knowing anything else.


It would be nice to know how many hours you read per week, as well as how this has varied from one week to the next, from one month to the next, and from one season to the next. With this information you could see whether seasons and other factors affect how much you read. None of this matters, except that because it is tracked it is a shame not to keep that information available for users.


Apple Books has the same flaw as plenty of other Apple Apps. If you live in Switzerland it is assumed that you speak German, and because of this assumption it is hard to browse for English, and even French content. You are obliged to know what you want to find, instead of having the freedom to browse. Apple must lose a lot of business by forcing German language version of content, rather than looking at system settings and using the system default. We’re decades into regionalisation, and yet tech giants don’t cater to people who do not speak the majority language.


And Finally


I thought I was going to go for a walk today but didn’t. I walked to breakfast and back and then spent time standing, so when I saw that it was 1400 I thought that I should go for a walk but didn’t. This is unusual for me. Today has been a crap day. I didn’t get to focus on my goals as I wish I could have. Days like today frustrate me.

I Completed the Apple May Activity Challenge Yesterday
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I Completed the Apple May Activity Challenge Yesterday

Byrichard

I completed the Apple May Activity Challenge yesterday. The goal was to walk or run 349 kilometres within one month. I finished this challenge two days early.


Using the Apple Watch Series 3 and the SUUNTO Spartan Sport Wrist HR BARO I tracked all of my activities. For the first two or three weeks I tracked activities with both devices and then deleted the duplicates on Strava and then I stopped tracking with the Apple Watch as I saw that activity data could be communicated to Apple’s Activity tracking.


During the past month I walked 10-15 kilometres a day and when I didn’t walk such distances I was cycling. As a result I have had a sporty month. I’ve walked in the rain, the wind, and recently the heat. I took up running again and this provides me with an opportunity to play with a podcast, and to play with apps.


Running requires for my legs to adapt to the sport so I’m doing shorter distances than my cardiovascular system can cope with. I don’t want to feel knee pain so I’m doing less than I know I could. It’s about building up gradually, and eventually exceeding my previous best.


Now I have two days to recover, before the next challenge.

100 Move Day Goals reached

100 Move Day Goals reached

Byrichard

I have 100 move day goals reached. The difficulty of this goal depends on how high you set the bar. If you set the bar at two hundred calories a day then the goal is easy to achieve. If you set the goal at 500 or 600 calories then the achievement is slightly more interesting. 


An easy goal to reach, one days with the move goal achieved.


I would have reached it sooner if the screen on the apple watch had not broken and if I had not had a few sub-goal days over the last three or more months. I set the goal high enough that I would need to walk for more than two hours a day to reach it. On the bike I reach it within 40 to 50 minutes. 


I still haven’t had a perfect month. To have a perfect month I would have had to burn 550 calories every day for a month. I’d tease myself by saying that I set the goal to high but I reach it almost every day. It’s fun to set it high enough for it to be a challenge. It would be cheating if I set it lower. 


Despite its simplicity these goals and medals are having a positive impact on my fitness habits. Sometimes I reach the goal by sitting very little. On days when I go for long hikes or cycle I double or triple the move goal so I exceed the requirements of this badge. 


On other days I burn less than 200 calories over the day and I rely on the evening Zwift session to get myself over the daily goal. This habit is great. Earlier this week the CDC issued a statement that people should do any form of exercise for two and a half hours a day. They even removed the requirement for it to be in ten minute or more sessions. I exceeded this requirement by five and a half hours a week over the last four weeks. 


Monthly challenge


In August the monthly challenge was to double the move goal eight times. In Octobre the challenge was to do 27 workouts in a month. In November the challenge is to move 189 kilometres. If I put the road tyre back on the rear wheel of my bike then this is an easy challenge to reach. My bike rides range between 20-50km a ride. If virtual bike rides count then I would have achieved this goal days ago. As things are we’re half way through the month and I have just 80km. 

Planned Obscolesence as Fragility

Planned Obscolesence as Fragility

Byrichard

I want to discuss Planned obsolescence as fragility. In the days of Nokia you could buy a phone and give it to a teenage boy and expect it to survive without breaking. I know because I was a teenage boy with a Nokia phone. So were plenty of my peers. It was more likely that someone would lose or drown their phone than break it. I only broke one phone display in those days and that took some effort. 


Ingress


A few years ago I was playing Ingress and I managed to shatter three screens in quick succession and it was frustrating but it was due to me walking while playing ingress. I replaced the screens three times before I bought a rugged crosscall phone that was designed to withstand falls, submersion and more. I didn’t use it for long because I had connectivity issues. These were android devices. 


Lifeproof, Otterbox and Quad lock


When the risk of breaking phones increased so did the need for protective cases. I have used lifeproof cases for iphones, otterbox for iphones and a blackberry device and quad lock for the most recent iphone. I use these cases because dropping a phone just once will shatter either the front panel or the back panel. It’s for this reason that I used an iphone SE for more than a year. You can break the screen but you can’t break the back. 


I thought another iphone wouldn’t fit with the protective case within the clasps of the DJI drone remote control so I took it out of it’s protective case. Within 30 seconds the phone fell to the floor and the rear glass shattered. I promptly put the phone back into its case. 


On the one hand brands like Apple say “Look at our beautiful device devices, they’re so sleek and elegant” and then you shatter one of the screens within days of getting it and you think “What is the point of elegance if it shatters?”


The unfinished device


The Unfinished device I am thinking of is the Apple Watch. As I mentioned in an earlier post I have had at least half a dozen fitness watches and two diving watches. My Suunto Ambit 3 came with me for three years of sporting activites without showing any real signs of wear and tear. The straps are fine, the screen is fine. The only signs of wear are on the bezel that protects the screen and this is key. 


Most luxury watches use sapphire glass and despite the rugged qualities of this glass they protect them with a protective bezel. If you’re climbing and hit the watch against rocks, metal rungs, door frames or other surfaces the bezel keeps the glass safe. 


I know for a fact that my suunto Ambit 3 took rock impacts straight to the screen as I climbed but the glass is concave, sloping inwards from the centre to the bezel. If it suffers an impact it is designed to survive. 


The Apple watch has an unprotected glass screen that is flat. It is unsuitable for climbing because when you’re climbing your wrists hit rock, metal, resin hand moulds and ropes or cables. Whereas Suunto watches are designed for rugged sports Apple watches are designed for park runs and boardrooms. You find articles like this one about how to protect your apple watch when doing sports. To me the notion that you would need to protect a sports tracking watch is absurd. The whole reason for a sports tracking watch is to be light and tough, to survive indoor climbing. 


In indoor climbing the materials you come across are wood, metal and resin hand holds. They’re not granite, limestone and other forms of rock. They’re soft and forgiving. 


I have a theory that the hairline fractures that appeared on my screen after a fourth session of climbing with this watch were caused either by A) the rope somehow whipping the screen and fracturing it or B) When going from one hold to another I applied pressure to the screen at just the right angle for it to shatter in two places, splitting the touchscreen in three. 


The display itself is fine. The only reason I noticed the damage is that the touch screen failed to respond. 


Take it off


The most absurd suggestion to not damaging a sport apple watch is to take it off when you’re exercising. If you buy a sports version of the apple watch is taking it off a viable solution? If that’s the solution then buy a suunto or a garmin. They cost the same, have good battery life and they will survive any sport you can survive. Just google search broken suunto screen. A search for broken Garmin screen will yield broken screens. 


The protective sleeve


If a solution to protecting a device is a protective sleeve then it is an unfinished device. Your biggest fear with a watch should be that the screen gets scratched as you use it over the years. It shouldn’t be that you shatter it while climbing indoors. 


Conclusion – Buy a case


If you buy an iPhone you should automatically get a case. With Apple’s current design philosophy you should not buy an Apple watch until you can buy a protective case for it. The new design philosophy for mobile phones, watches, and as of yesterday laptops is to push the boundaries of survivability to their limits. I hope that the trend to make things more fragile goes away. 

Indoor Climbing and the Apple Watch

Indoor Climbing and the Apple Watch

Byrichard

After just three climbing activities the Apple watch screen broke, rendering its smart features unusable. 


Indoor Climbing and the Apple Watch are a bad mix. They are a bad mix because the Apple watch has an unprotected glass screen. The screen is so exposed that last Thursday I shattered the screen without realising until I got home and tried to use it but the capacitive screen did not respond. 


At first I couldn’t see anything so I tried to feel it with my nail (whatever is left of it after an evening of climbing) and I could hardly feel anything. Eventually by trying to look at the surface with light from different angles I could see two distinct cracks in the screen splitting the screen in to three distinct segments. 


If I was your average smartwatch user I’d say that this is normal because smartwaches are made to be intelligent, not solid. I’d then point you to the fact that I have had suunto diving watches, Suunto feature watches and then Suunto Flagship watches such as the Ambit 2, 3 and then the Suunto Spartan watches. The Suunto Ambit 2 and Ambit 3 survived years of climbing, both rock climbing and via ferrata. 


My Apple Watch Series 3 was “accidentally damaged”, the way Apple describes the condition of my watch, after just three climbing sessions. I had bouldered once, climbed once indoors, and once outdoors without issue. It’s when I went climbing indoors the second time that I must have done something to hairline fracture the glass. 


In my humble opinion, with over 700 tracked activities with Suunto devices without issues, Apple is fatally flawed. In my opinion a smartwatch should be designed so that the screen is protected. The screen should be designed to survive what life has to throw at it. My Suunto Ambit 2 and 3 have had countless impacts on rocks over the years. You can see on the bezel of my Suunto devices that they have countless scratches. The glass however is fine. You need to look carefully to see any sign of scratches. 


It is with this in mind that I strongly feel that Apple should take responsibility for making a device so mediocre that it gets cracked while climbing indoors. Indoor climbing is on wooden panels and fiberglass holds. It’s not on granite or other hard rock surfaces. A watch screen should survive this environment. 


Replacing the watch screen via Apple would cost 230 CHF without taxes, possibly about 250 CHF with taxes. The watch itself cost 397 CHF new. It goes without saying that I did not ask for the unit to be fixed. It is because of Apple’s poor design that this watch suffered damage and it is Apple’s responsibility to replace the unit free of charge. 


I didn’t drop it, I didn’t smash my wrist against something. I didn’t even know the unit was damaged until I got home and tried to use it. Fitness tracking watches should not be this fragile. 

Corporate Social Responsibility and Apple

Byrichard

I have read numerous articles and I think that Corporate Social Responsibility and Apple are hot topics at the moment. When it was found that European firms were cheating on their emissions reports it was a great scandal and the European and German automotive industries took a financial hit. Their cheating cost them billions. In the US people were financially compensated whilst as one article put it Europeans got a plastic tube.

We should look at the Apple Back taxes story within the context of Brexit, the rise of the far right in a number of countries and the emerging popularity of Trump within certain sectors of the American voting public. The group anonymous is defending the rights of the 99 percent. They protest against Wall Street and the abuses of corporations and the wealthy.

When houses in the US were foreclosed because of the bubble bursting because of complex dividends those who suffered were the poor and the middle classes because they borrowed money at a rate that they could not pay it back. A number of documentary makers have explored this issue and there have been talks at the Graduate institute and other places.

Apple is currently making billions per quarter and that money is being stockpiled in offshore accounts so that neither the US government nor the European union can get to it. Other writers and journalists have written about this extensively. The perspective that I want to take is a moral one.

Apple products are expensive, they can cost twice as much as their android equivalents. People in the European markets are paying for these products. They pay the country’s VAT along with the product’s cost. They are contributing to the local economy.

Tim Cook argues that what the European Commission is doing is a “load of crap” and that it is abusing of its power. From an ethical and moral point of view though it is Apple that is being unethical and amoral. They are part of the economy. When they sell products they make huge profits that are taxed at less than one percent. 12 billion dollars could do a lot of good within the European Union if and when it is recovered because it could contribute to the road networks and transport infrastructure. It could contribute to housing, education and much more. In contributing to the economy those billions that Apple owes in back taxes could improve the quality of life of millions.

They hide behind the mask of job creation. They believe that because they contribute to the creation of 6000 jobs in Ireland that their corporate social responsibility stops there. It does not. Apple must be ethical enough to pay taxes like every other business is expected to do.

In effect Apple is providing a concrete example of what Brexiters voted against, the corporations syphoning off money to the detriment of living conditions of many populations around Europe. If corporations are allowed to make billions in profits without paying taxes because of creative accounting then society as a whole suffers. It also ferments resentment and encourages people to vote for the right.

In my opinion, based on the reading of numerous articles and watching many documentaries Apple should agree to pay the 14 billion as a gesture of good will and as a Public relations exercise. Imagine what a positive effect those billions would have for the European Union as a whole. Imagine how much social good having that money re-invested would do.

I believe that Tim Cook and Apple need to pay these back taxes to diffuse the tensions caused by austerity movements across Europe. A wealthy, rather than austere Europe could buy more Apple products. Other corporations would also benefit directly from people’s increased disposable income. A few weeks or months ago I watched a documentary about how the United States benefited from corporations paying their fair share of taxes.

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The Apple Watch does not fill a niche

Byrichard

The Apple Watch rather than fill a niche provides a fifth screen. According to Wikipedia the four first screens are the cinema screen, the television screen and the mobile phone and tablet screen. The fifth screen is the smart watch as designed by Apple, Samsung, Sony and others. Apple and others have designed phones that bring the mobile phone experience to the wrist.

Energy efficient

Suunto, Garmin, Fitbit and other brands fill the wrist worn niche effectively because they have designed devices with energy efficient displays that provide tracking whilst at the same time giving extended battery life.

Extended battery life in use

Health trackers by fitbit and other companies have been designed to last for a week or more whilst tracking movement 24 hours a day. Suunto, Garmin and other brands have designed watches that can track activities for hours or even days before they need charging.

Long stand by time

When not in use all of the devices mentioned above can last for weeks. In the case of the Suunto Ambit two I have found that it loses one percentage of charge per day. As a result of this it can be used as a watch for three months before I need to think of charging.

Data analysis

All of these tools are for collecting data about the route you took, the intensity of the exercise tracked, heart rate and complementary information. When synced on the computer or website a lot of information is presented. Garmin syncs with Runkeeper, Strava, Garmin connect and other services, Suunto syncs with Movescount and Strava intuitively. Fitbit syncs with the fitbit site and other fitness apps. The most interesting data is analysed on a computer rather than the wrist unit. This leaves the device to track information cost effectively, where cost is battery life, and effective is defined by how long you can track an activity.

Conclusion:

My passion for “smart watches” stems from scuba diving. I bought a Suunto D9 to track dives and loved taking dive data and analysing it in view of improving my diving ability. I tracked training at the gym, hiking and other activities with various phones and their weakness was battery life. When you go for a hike in the mountains, go for a via ferrata or do a number of other sporting activities for extended periods of time you want a device that can last as long as you do.

Suunto’s Ambit 2 filled that need very well, so well that I upgraded to the Suunto Ambit 3. As an android user I can’t  take advantage of all the features yet but that will come soon, this month in fact.

The Apple Watch does not fill any of the requirements I have listed above and for this reason I am not tempted. I see it as a fifth screen that does not fill a niche. Fitness trackers, fitness watches and other devices cost the same price or less and fill niche requirements effectively. Why would I want a gimmick?

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Audible books and Kindle Unlimited

Byrichard

This year I have set myself the goal of reading 30 books. I am currently on track to reaching that goal. Most of my reading material comes from two sources. Audible.com and amazon.de. What I like about reading books via Audible.com is the freedom it gives me to do something at the same time as people are telling me stories.

This habit was born from listening to podcasts while I went for hour long walks. Over time podcasts went down in quality and my time was taken up by other activities. As a result of the scarcity of time I moved towards audible books. Audible books provide me with an opportunity to listen to stories and learn whilst I do other things. I can listen to them while I commute, while I go for hikes or while I mow the lawn. As a result of this ability to multitask I have finished many more books than I would finish if I was only reading.

I am an audible platinum member and I pay in advance. This gives me the option to buy 23 books a year. Audio books are not cheap when you buy them individually so buying a subscription makes sense. Below a certain price I buy the books and use credit when the value justifies it. For at least two years I have felt justified in keeping the subscription.

I am lucky because I like to read on electronic devices. I have used iphones, android phones, iPads, iPad Mini, Tablets and a kindle for reading. As a result of this I always have several books with me at all times. I have a tendency to buy many more books than I have the time to read. This is especially true of books when they cost less than an airport coke. Eventually I will get to read them.

Today I took a step which may make conventional book readers envious. I will test Kindle Unlimited for the next month. I can “borrow” up to ten books simultaneously per month. I can be as uncommitted as ever with books. I am working through the James Bond Collection and reading three history volumes at the same time.  I “read” the history volumes as audio books and this allows me to enjoy the nice weather we have had. When I am in a fixed location I can read James Bon books on the kindle.

At the end of the trial month we will see whether I keep using Kindle unlimited.