This smart water bottle is created by a company called Hidrate and I have been using them since 2018. This company makes a line of water bottles in all different shapes and sizes and what the water bottle aims to do is automatically track your water usage throughout the day. There is an application that pairs to your smartphone and there you can see how much water you have drank in that day so far. There is even a fun social aspect of it that you can add your friends and see if you are drinking enough!

I have purchased two different versions of this water bottle and it has helped me in my situation. The disclaimer here is that 1) this is not medical advice in any way shape or form and 2) this isn't the easy fix solution if you are trying to get healthy.

I originally purchased the HidrateSpark 2.0 in 2018 and used that up until it ended up breaking in 2021. That version was a plastic version and it lasted me a long time and was very durable, but unfortunately, I dropped it down a flight of stairs and that was the end of that. The current version that I am utilizing is the 21 Oz HidrateSpark Pro and I have been loving it since I started using it. It comes in a nice steel frame and has a rechargeable battery that lasts me about a week or so on a charge. This product has a great build quality

So what this water bottle does is that it tracks the water usage throughout the day and lets you know what your ideal water amount of water that you should consume in a day is. When you are creating your account, it asks you for various amounts of information about yourself like your height/weight. With that information and the weather of the current location that you are in, it calculates how much water you should be consuming on that given day and sets that as your goal for the day. Periodically throughout the day, your water bottle will light up and glow if you are not on pace to finish enough water for the day. You can also receive a push notification on your device with some sayings to try and entice you to keep drinking so more water.

I found the tracking results accurate and on par with the amount of water that I consumed. While yes, it isn't drinking the water for me and I still need to have the desire to drink the water, this has kind of done the same thing to me that the Apple Watch/Fitbit has done for me and others. It has gamified the act of being healthy and many days I have caught myself wanting to complete the ring and drink enough water on that day. This is one of those things that are super niche because it is water, but for the right person (aka me) it can help them increase their water intake and try to get themselves to a healthier lifestyle.

So while I am saying all this good stuff about the application, nothing can be perfect right? There are some things about this that I would like to change on this device. For starters, the way it recharges. It uses this proprietary puck on the bottom of the bottle that you remove when you are trying to charge it. This might be a personal problem, but I twist my cup against the desk a lot and I will every so often unhook the puck from the bottle turning it off. I wish it had something that locked it in so I couldn't do that.

I also do not like that the puck has a proprietary charger. I wish it just used USB-C instead of this magnetic coil. Granted this coil is only $8, but it is the principle of the matter.

Lastly, it takes some getting used to, but the way the bottle knows how much water you drink is when you place it on the table, it measures how much water is in the cup and figures it out then. Because of this, there is this thing where you have to remember to constantly place the water bottle down which doesn't sound like a problem, but I have been in situations where I had to actively think about this situation to make sure that it is measuring the water. For example, when you are walking around all day and don't necessarily place the bottle down, you are going to wait to eventually place it down before you put more water in it because without doing that, it won't know that you refilled the water bottle. It is just another thing for you to think about that every time water is removed or added, you need to place it down so that it can measure the water contents of the bottle before being consumed. None of these things for me were dealbreakers, but there were things that I thought were important to mention.

Now, would I recommend this smart water bottle? Yes, I would recommend it. While it might not be the solution for everyone, for me it has worked wonders. It has gotten me to continue to drink and make sure that I am consuming enough water most days. It is pretty surprising to me that it has had this effect on me, but I am a big fan of this solution. If you are someone that things like this can get you to start taking care of your health more seriously, I would recommend you in trying this.

WWDC is my favorite keynote of all year. While hardware and new products get me super excited, I'm usually more excited about software and this is the biggest keynote for different software updates(in my opinion). The software unlocks the capabilities of a device and where most of the innovations are normally at. While some great hardware innovations get released, it relies on the hardware to move the needle forward. That is why WWDC normally is my favorite keynote and this year they did not disappoint!

They had tons of software AND hardware upgrades this year that made me super excited. While I won't talk about all of them, here are the top 3 things that got me excited about the keynote.

iOS 17

As far as operating systems go, iOS is by far my favorite operating system. I love using it every day and it has been my main driver OS since I got my iPhone 4 (I do love my Android systems too, don't worry still pumped up for that Pixel Fold coming out). This year, they didn't bring crazy design changes, but they brought tons of "quality of life updates."

One of the big updates that they announced was the Contact Photos. With this, you can create your full-screen contact photo and edit it to the way that you like it. Once you have done this, when you give someone a call, this will be the pop-up that they will see. I think that is such a great personal touch that they are implementing with welcome contacts. I'm a big fan of things like this because it just makes everything feel so personal.

Photo from 9to5Mac

Another thing they added that got me hyped up is StandBy mode. With this, when you dock your iPhone on a MagSafe charger and turn it sideways, it will enter this landscape orientation that will allow it to display some useful information for you. To make it even more intuitive, you can have different layouts for different MagSafe connections and it will remember what you set for each location. Me, I think this is great because when I'm sitting at my desks, for the most part, everything that I will interact with on my computers is available on the computer so my phone doesn't get picked up. It would be nice to have this on the side of my desk and just give me some important information that I may have not seen otherwise.

Photo from MacRumors

The final thing I will talk about for iOS 17 upgrades is Interactive Widgets. This is something that I wished iOS would have, especially when I noticed that Android already had this on my Pixel. I am a big user of widgets on iOS, but sometimes I wish I could hit a checkbox on my To Do List instead of being sucked into the application each time. Without this functionality, they felt more like just status updates instead of a quick and easy way to access some information without having to enter the full application. It would make it ten times easier if that was possible. With this update, I can see a ton of individuals starting to use Widgets more if they haven't started to use them yet.

Photo from MacRumors

There were tons of other updates to iOS 17 that I'm excited about like Name Drop, Facetime Voicemails, Live Voicemail, the new Journal application, and more. If you are interested, check out the link below for the official page of iOS 17 releases.

iOS 17 Preview

iPadOS 17

The iPad is one of those things that I love to use and will always have, but I'm not someone who heavily relies on it. That being said, it always seems to me that sometimes, iOS gets these killer features and for some reason, the iPad is missing them (calculator app anyone?). This year's update seems to be bringing in some of the features, while also adding some new ones.

For example, last year iOS got the ability to add widgets and customize their lock screen, but for whatever reason the iPad didn't. Now it is available and it is something that I would use. I was always confused why it wasn't there and definitely feel like some great widgets can come in use for the larger screen of the iPad. It would be nice to be able to get some information without having to actually unlock the device.

Photo from 9to5Mac

The Live Photo Wallpaper on your lock screen is also a great touch to the device. I'm a sucker for some great animation like that and this is no exception. With some of the animations, it gives this great motion effect that just settles into the wallpaper. macOS also has this feature and I think it is a great addition to the systems.

Besides those two features, the iPad will be getting a lot of the features that are coming to iOS like Interactive Widgets and much more. Just like the iPhone, I think this update will be very well accepted! Check out the link below for the rest of the iPadOS 17 release information!

iPadOS 17 Preview

New 15-inch MacBook Air

Photo from Apple

Now, I know this is not software, but man I love this MacBook release! I currently still use a 2014 15-inch MacBook Pro for my side hustle life I live as a DJ. Why do I keep using this laptop? Because right when it was time for me to upgrade, the M chip line series came out and I have been waiting for a laptop that met the requirements that I currently was running. These requirements were mainly 16 GB of RAM, 1 TB of Internal Storage, and a 15-inch screen. The problem I was having is that I use this laptop to DJ and the only laptops that had a screen large enough were the MacBook Pro line. With something that I ONLY use for DJing (maybe a couple of other things here and there, but mainly playing music), this purchase just didn't make sense.

I actually almost caved and got the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air when it was announced, but the rumors started coming out that a 15-inch MacBook Air was coming so I've been waiting to see if they would announce it. I pretty much told myself if they didn't announce it and an M3 MacBook Air came out, I would just accept the smaller screen. This device is perfect for individuals who just want a larger screen, but don't need a pro device. While those Pro devices are great, they aren't for everyone. As a matter of fact, most people don't actually need that laptop unless they really are doing intensive workflows.

This is why this MacBook is perfect for the use case that I'm going to be using it for. It is a great screen size (15.3" exactly), great battery life, and sports the new MacBook Air Design that the original M2 MacBook Air introduced. This new MacBook I think will be a great sell and they also lowered the price of the original M2 13-inch MacBook Air to $1099. The new 15-inch MacBook Air will be starting at $1299.

Check out the link below to see more information about the new MacBook Air.

MacBook Air 15-Inch

MacBook Air 15-Inch Video

One More Thing…

I know, I know. I only said my top 3 things…but Apple did announce a new product category that will be revolutionary to the market, the Vision Pro.

Now this is a complete luxury device that I do not believe that majority of individuals will be purchasing (mainly because of the price tag of $3499) but it still is insane and cool and I absolutely will be purchasing one when it releases early next year (I know. What a tease from them.). This new headset was crafted with tons of cameras and sensors to give this immersive experience in a VR/AR world.

Photo from Apple

There were many examples and ways on how this device can be used, but I especially want to focus on the possibilities of this. This device right now is a device that most likely will not be traveling around with you, especially with the 2-hour battery life for the battery pack that comes with it. To me, I do not look at this thing and think of where it is now, I think of where it is heading, the rumored Apple Glasses.

The ability to put something on your head and interact with these different environments that the device is putting in front of you sounds so magical and futuristic. I am imagining this a couple of generations ahead, then maybe you don't need that aggressive battery pack, or this becomes a way slimmer device that you can actually wear on your head 24/7 to increase your experience every day. This device shows the direction that technology is heading.

Between the cameras bringing people into focus when they are physically interacting with you, the ability to completely immerse yourself or bring reality back in with the digital crown, and also being able to bring up multiple screens or even your MacBook in front of you and interact with them, this device is very futuristic. I am so excited to try it out. The media have already tested this and they have all been for the most part saying how impressive and magical it is. I can't wait to try it myself.

The only downside of this thing at the moment is that you have to wait until 2024 (oh, and the price haha). I have tons of questions and thoughts about it like how much batteries are going to cost and are people going to be getting sick if they are in it for too long. I'm going to wait until I get my hands on it next year before I can give any official comments. Everything right now is speculation.

If you want to see more and the demos that they show, check out the link below!

Apple Vision Pro Preview

Apple Vision Pro Video

Conclusion

While I mentioned a good bit of stuff here, there is still so much more to talk about. This was a great event and an amazing presentation. I can not wait for this software and hardware to be released and for me to get my hands and incorporate them into my life, especially that Vision Pro.

If you haven't gotten a chance to watch the official keynote, I would highly recommend it. I will link it below.

Are you excited about these releases? Was there anything that I didn't mention that got you excited? Feel free to reach out to me on my socials to let me know what you are excited about!

Social Links

Watch WWDC23

This will be a little bit of a different kind of blog post this week. This post is about the direction of the blogs and where I will be taking the page in the near future.

The purpose of this blog was always to share reviews of products and more in-depth technical posts about different things I'm implementing into my workflow and life. The goal was to post bi-weekly on opposing weeks of my newsletter. The difference between this and my newsletter is that my newsletter is more opinionated and more of my thoughts and updates on my life while the blog is more educational.

What I have come to realize is that in the drive to constantly be trying to give content out and juggle the many things in my life, some things are starting to lack in quality. While I will love to give out a large sum of content, I think it is more important to give out quality updates. I know my content is lacking sometimes on these posts and I would like to spend more time to create the best content that I can here.

Because of this, I will be making some changes to the frequency of the blogs/newsletters. Instead of releasing the blogs bi-weekly, I will be releasing them when I am finished with a review or technical post. I have a good list of things that I will like to write about, but I will be taking my time creating them so that they are the best information that I can give.

Starting next week, however, I will be upping the newsletter occurence to weekly. You may be asking, why am I making that more frequent and this one less frequent? The reality of it is that the newsletter is more streamlined where I'm giving updates and talking more freely than these blog posts so I can handle that much better. I will be still massaging the format of the newsletter, but I believe that I can give out quality newsletters weekly instead of the schedule that I was attempting now.

I have a couple of blog post ideas in the work and hope you will enjoy them when they are released.

If you are not subscribed yet, please feel free to subscribe to my newsletter at: https://seanmilfort.substack.com/

Dash Cams are car accessories that people have been getting for years. If you aren't aware of what a dash cam is, it is a small camera that sits on the dash of your car and can record what either happens inside, outside, or both (depending on the model you purchase). It is popular with many people that do work in their car like ride-sharing applications, as well as people who just want a sense of security.

Which is what led me to get one. I have been wanting to get a dash cam for a magnitude of personal reasons (which I won't get into), but my biggest fear is that the companies that weren't there didn't fully offer what I needed and wanted. I wasn't sure about a lot of the companies, as well as couldn't find enough information on if I trust some of the cloud storage solutions that they offer. Being already a Ring customer, when they released a dash cam for the car, it checked off a couple of boxes for me that I was looking for so I knew I had to get it.

Ring

If you don't know who Ring is have you been living under a rock? I kid, I kid, but you should know who this company is. They are a pretty big consumer security solution for people wanting to protect their homes. They offer a magnitude of cameras and video doorbells. They were purchased by Amazon in 2018 and have since then integrated into the Amazon environment pretty extensively. I used to use a doorbell (my new living situation doesn't allow video doorbells), but I still, use an outdoor camera in our backyard area. I would highly recommend this solution to others.

How has the device been?

So now that I explained how I use Ring, how has the dash cam been in my life? Honestly, it has been pretty good. It sits right on your dashboard and works just as expected. It has a camera on both sides of the item so it can record the front of your car, as well as the inside of your car at all times. For those that are uncomfortable with being recorded, there is a privacy camera that you can easily flip up that will stop the camera from recording you while you are driving. The video that it records is also in a "crisp" 1080p quality, however, the live feed is in 540p.

This brings us to the next feature of the Dash Cam that I like. It has a cloud subscription service that will allow you to connect to the device remotely. This will allow you to go into the app and remotely see what is going on in your car from anywhere in the world through their LTE offering. It also allows the device to alert you when something happens to the device. Now, this requires you to subscribe to Ring Protect Go, their subscription service to get these features. I have been running the trial that they give you and honestly, I think it is worth it for the ease of mind. It is $6 bucks a month or $60 bucks a year. Now if you don't get the subscription service, you can still connect to the device remotely, but only if your device is on a WIFI network that you have configured. This is fine and dandy when you are home, but when you are out and about, it won't allow you to connect to the device from those moments.

One of the nice things about this is that it features a recording feature when specific events happen. Since it is part of Amazon, they can build some of their Alexa systems into the device. With this, they can add functionality for you to call upon Alexa to start a recording. The one example that they showcase in the commercial is getting pulled over and being able to voice-activate a recording. This is very helpful because you can record whatever situation is happening on the fly without needing to pull your phone out or physically interact with the device.

The installation of the device was very simple. When you first add the device to the connection, it walks you through all the steps easily. It does use your driver's OBDII port to power itself, so I would make sure that it is compatible before purchasing it. There is a compatibility checker when you are purchasing the device. I didn't have much issue installing the device, but I will say that getting the wire hidden along the dash was a little bit of a struggle. I eventually got it and I'm not sure if this is a Ring issue per se, but it was something that I had to experience when configuring my device.

Improvements That Can Be Made

Everything worked exactly how I pictured it, but there are a couple of things that I wish it did better or knew about before I purchased the device. The one thing that gets annoying sometimes is that I'm getting notifications that there was a motion at my car when I'm in it. I wish it recognized that I'm sitting in the car or that my phone is in the car and didn't notify me about this. I'm almost getting this every single time I drive that there is motion in the car. I'm unable to turn this off either because half of the point of this is to get notified when I’m not near the car so that it will let me know who is touching my car.

Another thing is that I didn’t even think about the battery drain that the device can cause since it will always be pulling from the car. They do have modes to figure out what to do about that, but it just wasn't something that I was thinking about when purchasing the device. If you have an older battery, one of the modes that it has won't use the device when the car is off, which I agree with and understand. However, when you are purchasing the vehicle product, it doesn't alert you to this. Someone can be purchasing this and not realize that they will not be able to use all the features of this device on their vehicle.

Recommendation?

Either way, I would recommend this device to the individual. It brings a ton of safety features as well as peace of mind for the individual utilizing this product. I will be using this device for the foreseeable future and will be adding it to any other vehicle that I purchase in the future. It works pretty much as advertised on newer vehicles (older vehicles may vary) and is backed by a very reputable company. Very solid device.

Edited at 12:41 PM : Replaced word "vehicle" with "product"

Phones have been going down the same path for a pretty long time. A large slab of the screen seems to get closer and closer to the edge. At the end of the day, all the phones have started to follow the same similar packaging and not change anything in forms of design and function. That is until folding phones started to come out.

Folding phones have been coming out for the last couple of years in many different forms: a slab folding on itself for a smaller device or a larger screen folding in half with a single screen on the outside. These new configurations were created with the idea of bringing new functionality and allowing users to achieve new forms of productivity with the various forms. At first, there were some bumps and bruises with the new designs, but it looks like they are finally starting to find their way.

Right now, some of the biggest brands like Samsung and Oppo are heavily invested in creating multiple folding phones. And there are even some rumors of Google and Apple joining the party in the future. Right now, it looks folding phones are here to stay.

My Thoughts on the Devices

So what are my thoughts about a folding phone? I think they are great. I tend to lean more toward the larger screen that folds in half with the outer screen portion available when it is folded, but I think both designs have their place. I know my mom would probably love the smaller design because she does not like large phones to begin with.

I am someone who relies on my phones quite heavily so I can see a ton of benefits to using a folding device every day. From using it to read emails and books, to being productive with writing notes; the added screen real estate in your pocket is a welcome change. I know some of you are asking why would you want to carry something that big in your pocket. Honestly, I already carry two pairs of headphones, 3 writing utensils, 2 pocket notebooks, and two phones in my pockets, so I'm not sure if this will bother me.

Well if you carry all this stuff, why don't you just carry an iPad too, and not need a folding device? Well even though I do have an iPad already and they are portable, they aren't fit in your pocket portable. All of that stuff fits in my pockets while an iPad doesn't. That is the win with the foldable devices, you can put the device with all that screen real estate in your pocket.

Wait, you don't have one?

But now I bet you are wondering, I just sat here and talked about why they are great, why don't I have one already?

Well even though I think they are amazing and love playing with them when I get a chance, until about a year and a half ago, I used to be an iOS person only and Apple didn’t' offer (and still doesn't offer) a foldable option. The Pixel 6 Pro was my first experience integrating Android into my life and it was supposed to be just a test (spoiler, I ended up liking it). With this, I ended up sticking with the Pixel line because of the "stock" Android experience vs going to Samsung. I didn't have a problem with Samsung devices, but I wanted the major Android updates the day Google releases them because I'm usually more interested in software upgrades than hardware. With the path of staying with the Pixel line, they didn't offer a foldable option.

Now this year, there are rumors that a Pixel Fold is coming out and it will be Google's first initial offering of this type of device. Without actually seeing the device, it is most likely that will be the Pixel device that I will be upgrading to and I'm super excited to try it out if it is true.

So yes, I am super excited at the idea of owning a foldable and I haven't used one day to day so take this take with a grain of salt, but I love the idea of foldable devices. I don't think the current iteration of the slab will ever go away, but I do think that foldable devices are the next step in the form factor of folding phones. I see tons of use cases for work, personal productivity, and just consuming content that the foldable phone can shine in.

More Information

If you are interested in getting a Fold offering today, check out these videos on the latest Samsung Galaxy Fold to see if you would like this device.

Every year new devices come out and every year companies try to get us to upgrade to their "latest and greatest" offerings. But do people do that and more importantly, do people need to do that? Realistically, no. No, your 1-year-old, even in some cases 2-year-old device does not need to be swapped out every year. So if that is the case, when should you upgrade? The general rule of thumb in my opinion is when your device stops functioning for you beyond repair or when the phone stops supporting the latest and greatest OS updates. This can become an issue because once the OS is not supported anymore, applications stop supporting those OSs and then your phone starts to become slightly useless. I think around year 3 is when you should be looking to upgrade, but some devices get OS upgrades for 4+ years, so your mileage does vary based on what device you have.

My Stance on Upgrading

What and When Do I Upgrade?

So if I’m sitting here telling you that you should not upgrade every year and instead wait a couple of years to get the latest and greatest, I surely do not fall for the shiny new device and upgrade every year right? Right?

Hello, pot. I'm kettle.

I upgrade some devices every generation. Right now my current path is upgrading my iPhone and my Pixel device every year when the new generation comes out. With that also comes that I upgrade both my Apple Watch and my Pixel Watch, as well as my AirPods Pro when their next generation comes out. Do I need to do this, no? But I also trade my devices back into Apple to get the most bang for the buck so it isn't like I'm constantly paying full price. Yes, I know what you are thinking. I'm not getting some deal. I'm just telling something to make myself feel better and you are correct! Realistically, I'm a tech fan and this is the thing that I'm into so that is why I do it, but you don't need to if you don't care about tech that much! (Sort of questioning why you are reading this blog post if you don't care about tech, but a view is a view!)

What Do I Not Upgrade?

So if I'm upgrading all these devices all the time is there anything I don't upgrade every single time? Yes, two things come to mind when I think about things I don't just trade in for the next version: Cars and Computers.

The first part of this is easy. I don't really like cars that much and they are expensive (I think some of them cost way too much for what they are, but I'll save that discussion for another day). Now for the 2nd part, the computers. I do upgrade them usually after a couple of years, but when I do, I usually get one that is pretty powerful so because of that, I tend to take a little longer before upgrading them. My upgrades for these machines usually happen when I am unable to upgrade the device any further with the software. Once that happens, I will upgrade the device when the next upgrade is available.

Any Cons to Upgrading

So if I upgrade my devices this commonly, it must be a great experience every year to get something new. Yes and no. I won't lie, I still get excited every single time I get a new device, but it wears VERY quickly once the device is in my hands. See the thing with these devices is that it only changes a bit every single time. Because of that, I'm barely getting an upgrade each time when moving from just the previous device. I most likely will experience a way better upgrade if I upgraded every couple of years instead of each one, but I know that I do not have that kind of self-control.

What happens to the older ones?

What happens to all the old devices? I trade them in. That is really how I'm able to stomach purchasing all the devices that I'm constantly getting. Let's be realistic, these things aren't cheap, but usually, the companies have pretty good trade-in offers that make it pretty worth it. Because of that, I end up trading in the old devices and upgrading to the new ones.

What about you guys? How often do you guys upgrade your devices and why? Feel free to reach out and let me know!

Ecosystems. They can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you are utilizing them. Some people enjoy them and some people do not like them at all, but what exactly are they in terms of tech? The easiest way to describe them (in my terms) is a collection of hardware and software that work together to accomplish several tasks. These devices and software usually work best on their platforms and devices so users tend to stay in these ecosystems to get the best-crafted experience. I am one of those people who play into the ecosystem A LITTLE BIT (maybe a lot a bit, but I'm in multiple! I live a complicated tech life).

Pros

So, the pros of these ecosystems as stated before is that work together. I'm going to use Apple as the example here. When you buy multiple Apple products, they all work together to give you what they consider to be the best computing experience. An example of this is that when you buy an iPhone and you buy a Mac, all your information is easily by default able to sync together. Your texts and iMessages are available on all these devices and you can move from one device to the other and continue the experience that you are having. Then you add some AirPods to the mix. You pair them with one device, and it pairs with all your devices and just magically works. And it just evolves from here.

Do you see where this can start to become enticing? This experience is not possible when you try to incorporate multiple different companies together. For that to work like that with multiple companies, they would have to open themselves up so that other organizations can natively connect to their systems and realistically, a corporation is not going to do that most of the time. When they keep everything in-house they can craft this seamless experience and make everything "easier" for the end user.

Cons

So with all of these pros, it sounds like there could be no cons to this right? Wrong. There are cons.

One of the biggest cons is that you are subject to whatever that company wants to do with the ecosystem. That can mean anything. Did they decide to discontinue one of the product lines you like? When it is time for upgrades, you need to pick one of their other versions. Do they raise the price? The next time you upgrade, you will need to pay that premium unless there is a sale or you be a used device. You are at a certain level just bound to the decisions the company makes and that isn't always the greatest feeling.

Another con is that once you are in deep, it is VERY hard to bring other products in or leave the platform. The companies don't want you to move off of their platform so they do not make it always easy to just move off of it. Apple seems to get the most slack for it, but honestly, each of the companies is doing the same thing or heading in that direction. That is why some people say to be careful of how deep you get into an ecosystem because once you are in, it is going to be tough getting you out.

Conclusion

With all those pros and cons, I do live in multiple ecosystems, but I do call one home in particular…Apple's. Yes, I have jumped into that ecosystem and used all of their products from their iPhones, AirPods, laptops, and all of their services. I use iCloud for my photos, contacts, and calendars. This ecosystem just works for me, but I do pull out for occasional things. When I need to grab a third-party application, something that I usually tend to do is find a solution that is available at the minimum on iOS and Android. I carry an Android phone in addition to my iPhone and realistically, the only thing that I can't access from my Android phone is my iCloud photos and that is okay for me.

I just use what fits my life in the best way that I see fit and that would be my advice to you. If living inside of Microsoft's and Google's ecosystem works best for you, then do it. If mixing them and trying to use them all together works best for you, then do that. As I said before, there are pros and cons to using an ecosystem. But if you take your time and know what you are doing and looking for, you will be able to navigate them successfully.

Windows. macOS. Linux. These are 3 different operating systems that you can choose to run on your laptop and desktop machines and I use all of them! You may be wondering 1) Why do you use all these systems and why not just pick one? and 2) which one do you prefer over all of them?

I have a really hard time choosing which OS I would prefer. Truth be told, they all have their use cases and things that they do better than the others, but I would just be fine with any of them. The main reason that I use all of them is that I like to be versatile and well-versed in all three because of my day job, but also I love seeing all kinds of technology. Having these systems allows me to constantly see the newest things that they offer as a first-hand experience. This is the same reason why I use Android and iOS devices.

I like to be technologically agnostic as much as I can be. I am a little caught up in some ecosystems, but the main goal is that I'm able to do the majority of what I need to get done from any system. The majority of my programs are accessible to all my systems.

Now, even though I can do anything that I need to do from any system, what are the actual use cases for all systems? I mentioned earlier that each system has its pros and cons, so which ones are they? Well for me, the main things I do are learning development, web browsing, and other forms of content creation.

Use Cases for each Operating Systems

macOS

The mac comes into play in a couple of important spots. I'm currently learning iOS development and as a result, it is just easier to develop those applications on a mac. I'm able to natively use XCode and being able to test it on the system itself. I also have an older MacBook Pro that I use for my DJ side hustle. I've always used a mac because of the integration with iTunes and my DJ applications and the workflow that I've built works great for me. And lastly, my MacBook Air is my portable laptop. I take that with me on any long trip. This device is important because I find it to be the best laptop for quick work on the go. I don't push it much, but it has a long battery and most importantly, wakes up from sleep super easily. These three use cases end up being the reason why I use Apple for these scenarios.

Windows

Now on the Windows side, the main Windows machine I use is my gaming PC. This configuration is used for many purposes. One of the big things that I have it for is that I stream with the machine and I find the configuration with Windows to be more configurable and work better on this device. Now, I'm not saying that it isn't possible to stream on other machines, but I just think the workflow and customization opportunities for your stream or more abundant on windows devices. Another spot that it works is also for gaming. PC gaming is just light years ahead on a Windows PC than on a mac or Linux system. I don't necessarily think it should be that way, but realistically it is. Whenever I'm doing one of these scenarios, I'm on my Windows PC.

Linux

Last, but not least, is Linux. I have a laptop that I run Linux Mint on. I thoroughly enjoy this machine and like to tinker with it, but realistically that is all it is. I do have Linux servers in my home that I have some applications running in, but the Linux machine is mainly a machine to tinker with. I am usually getting random things done on this machine and taking the challenge to get some niche cases and applications running on this laptop. I enjoy some of the challenges that the system brings on a day-to-day basis. I used to have a Linux Desktop configuration, but in my current living situation, a third desktop configuration wasn't necessarily viable haha.

What Would I Use?

So, I guess the final question is: if I had to purchase one, which one would I use? My answer to this is a cop-out answer, but honestly, this is what I would do. I would pick a mac system, but the reason I would is that I can use macOS and virtualize the other two operating systems. At the end of the day with a macOS machine, I have more flexibility to use all the configurations in some form.

How about you? What systems do you use and why? Feel free to let me know!

Software Development

This is something that I have been working on for years to learn in the background. I will start doing a course and then learn some stuff, but never apply. Throughout the end of the year, however, I have started to learn and complete some projects based on Meta's Coursera course that they made. With this being said, I have a goal to do more software development work in 2023.

Twitter Followers to Reach 500

Something that I have always struggled with is reaching out and conversing with people. That might be one of the reasons why I enjoyed computers so much when growing up because it was something that I can do from the comfort of my home. Something that I have started to do this year though is starting to post more and reach out to people on Twitter. At the time of writing this, my Twitter following is 59 followers. I am looking to grow on this platform and network during 2023. I believe that this will help me not only grow as a person but help me connect to other like-minded people!

Feel free to follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/seanmilfort

Start Creating YouTube Content - Goal 15 Videos

Another thing that I always wanted to get into was creating some YouTube content. The biggest problem is that the people that I watch have inspired me to try and make content for some of the biggest names and do the craziest reviews and have such a good personalities online. As part of trying to grow and expand my horizons, I would like to start creating content about the many things that I do. I have set aside the goal to myself to create 15 videos on YouTube. The only way to get good at these things is to try doing it myself!

Feel free to subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@seanmilfort

Grow Blog and Newsletter to 100 Followers

Another thing that I would like to do is grow my blog and my newsletter. I currently run a blog and a newsletter, both with separate kinds of content that go to each one. The blog is mainly more of reviews and tutorials of different techniques that I am either using or integrating into my life. The newsletter is usually more opinion-based and has feelings about what is going on in my life. Both come out bi-weekly, basically, you get one or the other each week. I started both in 2022 and would like to continue to grow each one through 2023. My goal is to reach 100 followers on both platforms.

Blog Link: https://blog.seanmilfort.com/

Newsletter Link: https://news.seanmilfort.com/

There are other goals that I am also trying to achieve like continuing my schooling and resurging my DJ Side Gig, but these are the main ones that I am currently working on.

If you want to follow and check in with how they are going, feel free to follow me on any of the social media above or follow me on of the links at the website below!

https://links.seanmilfort.com

I hope you have a wonderful 2023!

In my own home, I have a mixture of HomePods, Amazon Alexa, and Google Homes and I do use all of them for different use cases. The Alexa's are put in everyone's room and are the main source of voice control, but the other two systems are used as well. Most of the automation is configured via HomeKit and that is how they are controlled and automated.

In my honest opinion, I feel like each smart speaker has their positives and benefits and this is why I use all 3. I think Apple has the best UI and control for their smart home ecosystem which is why I build everything in there. However, I find Amazon's Alexa platform to be the best whenever I'm trying to control things with my voice. When I just have generic questions, Google seems to be the best personal voice assistant, so that hub lives in my office area. I know Google is updating their home UI configuration, but I just seem to still love the customization I can do inside of Apple's HomeKit (I know, go figure Apple's solution is the one that offers me the most customization).

Using all of these solutions does come with some complexity. A lot of the products that you can buy usually is tied to some of the ecosystems, but not always all of them. Some of them do work with all of the systems, but it is not the majority, especially when you start getting to random items. The big thing is to get the unsupported devices into HomeKit so the automation flows will be possible in my home. Thankfully, there is a solution for that.

This is where Homebridge comes into play. Homebridge is a framework that allows you to be able to bring uncertified and unsupported smart home devices and able to control them into HomeKit. You will need a dedicated machine to be running the Homebridge platform and it will serve as the connection point between the unsupported devices and Apple's HomeKit platform. This platform is supported by individual developers who would take a device and create applications that work inside of Homebridge.

With this solution, I have added tons of devices into my HomeKit library that normally wouldn't be possible. Some of the devices that I have been able to add to HomeKit via this solution are my Harmony Hub and all my desktop PCs. Yes, you read that right. The nice thing about Homebridge is that virtually anything that has a network interface or APIs can be configured to some extent.

Now, you may be wondering why on Earth would I want to add my PCs to my HomeKit. And the reason that I did that is for cost savings. I was able to add automation to my configuration that will allow my devices to power off every night. Yes, you can do this with a scheduled task on each device that has the power off at a certain time every night, but with HomeKit I was able to configure it a little bit more. With HomeKit I was able to make multiple timeframes that will power off the devices. Right now they all turn off at midnight every night, but I do have automation that if I'm not in the house at a certain time of the day, then the devices should power off early to save power. This can be useful if I am on vacation or if I know I won't be at the house for a couple of days.

Homebridge isn't the only solution that can provide some of this functionality. There are also other companies like HOOBS and Starling Hub that help do the same thing. HOOBS is another Homebridge solution, but since Homebridge is a lot of configuring and understanding some scripting, HOOBS packages it all up in a nice application that is easy for anyone to configure. Starling Hub on the other hand is another solution that allows you to add your Google Nest products natively into HomeKit. I use Nest products in my own home and this is how I can access all of them with HomeKit.

With the evolution of smart home products, there have been some great leaps have been made. There is a new solution called Matter that is built on a framework called Thread that is being released. Somehow all the tech giants have come together to agree on a standard for smart home tech (I know, I can't believe it either). This new standard, it will allow the devices to be interchangeable hopefully and work natively without all these other configurations. This does require the actual smart home products to be updated to support this new framework, but a lot of the companies have stated that they will support them and have even started to update older products to support this new framework.

Do I think Matter and Thread will get rid of Homebridge? Not entirely. While the devices are being updated so that you will not necessarily need this solution in the future, there are still some other use cases out there like my controlling my PCs that won't ever be updated for Matter/Thread (or that I can predict, never say never).

Smart home tech is something that I find to be super interesting and I love utilizing it.

Let me know if you use any smart home tech in your life!

So I ended up purchasing the Matte Black Pixel Watch, the non-LTE version. I don't usually buy the cellular version of watches because I always have my cellphone on me so I can't see myself personally using the cellular functionality. This device comes in at $350 while the cellular one is $400.

Design

For the Pixel Watch design, Google went with a more traditional circle design and I have mixed feelings about it. For a traditional watch, I will admit that I know that the norm is to have a circle-styled watch. Me, however, I'm not a traditional watch wearer. When I first got my first smartwatch, the Pebble (RIP), I was only to check it out for a short amount of time. I never wore watches before that. I think from all the time wearing the Pebble and the Apple Watch, I just have become accustomed to and enjoy more a square design.

I do think however though that the Pixel Watch design does look good. It is built with good quality and is a functional watch. The bezels are pretty big, but if you are using a black watch face (which I am), you don't notice the bezels at all. Most of their watch faces (besides the photo one, but I don't even know what you would do about that) work well with the bezels and make them very unnoticeable so they did a very good job with that.

The bands also have this interesting mechanism of swapping the bands out. I've done it a few times and I got to the point where I don't have a problem at all. If this is the mechanism that they are going to keep and use, then I am a fan of it because it works well. I'm not someone who changes their bands much. I usually stay with the same black sport band and use that forever so this isn't the biggest deal in my use case, but I know a lot of people do change their watch band a lot so this is good to have this kind of solution.

Smartwatch Features

One of the big arguments for getting a smartwatch is for fitness tracking and this one is no different. Google acquired Fitbit and completed the acquisition in 2021 and built a lot of the Fitbit integration into the Pixel Watch. They even built it so much in mind that it connects with the Fitbit application and requires you to use it for a lot of the tracking features. From the fitness standpoint, it feels like a Fitbit watch that was Googlefied. I've used Fitbits in the past and it worked just as well as that for a lot of the basic tracking. To get some of the more in-depth features like workouts and deep diving into your data, you will need to subscribe to Fitbit premium. To me, this is a miss because a lot of the stuff that they have put behind a paywall is not behind a paywall on their competitors.

Another feature that they have on this device is the ability to use third-party watch faces. This is something I wish that Apple would implement because it allows for a lot of customization on the watch. It can make you watch your watch. The most you can do and still have all the functionality of the watch on Apple's version is to set your photo. I ended up just using one of the Stock options because I liked it, but the fact that I can do so if I need to is welcomed.

Usability

Past this, the usability of the watch and navigation was easy and understandable. After the initial fumbling around for the first day or so, I was able to navigate through the watch like a pro. For some reason, I never got to the point when I used the Galaxy Watch 4. Now, that could very well just be my thing, but I felt myself get used to the Pixel watch very easily and quickly. The experience just worked for me and I appreciated that.

Where they can Improve

Now even though they did a great job with this device, there is always room for improvement. This is their first crack at making a device like this so they get some leeway, but that doesn't change the fact that some things do need to improve. One of the things that I think needs to change is just some things that you would expect to work hand in hand together with two Pixel devices. The one thing that happens to me a lot is that I'll go a good bit of the day, sometimes almost a full day, and I'll forget to unlock my watch. I'll be using my Pixel and be confused why my watch isn't vibrating for notifications, but it is because it is still locked. On Apple's version, when the watch is on your wrist and you unlock your phone for the first time, it will unlock the watch so I'm rarely unlocking my Apple Watch. This isn't a deal breaker and a big deal, but it is software situations like this that I hope they improve on with the next couple of iterations.

The battery life is also something that needs to be improved drastically. I do not use the Pixel Watch to do sleep tracking so it doesn't become a big deal for me at night. I can always make it to the end of the day and be fine to put it on the charger, but it usually is pretty dead by the time this part of the day comes. One of the things that they say is a feature is sleep detection and if you are purchasing it to use it for sleep detection, this is something that you have to think about. Hopefully, this can improve because this will be a very welcomed upgrade.

Summary

As a whole, this is a great device to be used as a smartwatch. They did a very good job on the first attempt at this device and I believe someone just jumping into their first smartwatch will like this and it will work for them. If you are coming from another smartwatch however like an Apple Watch, I can see how some of the flaws start to show. They aren't dealbreaker flaws in my opinion, but everyone is different.

Keep up the good work Google. Looking forward to this Pixel ecosystem to keep growing.

The date is October 6th, 2022. Google is currently going through their keynote presentation for their new Pixel lineup and I notice that the Google Store is already updated with their new devices able to purchase. A couple of minutes later before the Pixel 7 Pro is even fully announced, I now have a receipt from the Google Store for a Pixel 7 Pro. Yes, I did purchase the device before they finished announcing exactly what it was. At the end of the day, I knew I was going to check it out because I have an addiction to tech so it almost didn't matter what they said up there and unless Google did something wildly unsettling, the Pixel is my Android device of choice for that stock Google experience.

So if you have been following my journey, using Android in a non-MDM or enterprise setting has been new to me. Just last year, I purchased my first Android device, the Pixel 6 Pro, and started using it as a secondary daily driver (I carry both an iPhone and an Android device everywhere daily. I also wear two watches, but we will save that for another day). This was a very exciting time upgrading to a new Android device because I was curious how the upgrade will feel compared to the Apple experience and let me tell you, I was not disappointed.

First Experiences & Upgrades

If you are coming from a previous Pixel, you will not be disappointed. This year's device feels like a better and more refined version of the previous generations. A lot of the problems that I was facing with the previous device seem to have been refined and taken care of from the previous year. Things like the device getting hot or lagging seem to have all but disappeared. One of my biggest complaints of last year was that I have been in tons of scenarios where my Pixel will not be able to get service at all, but my iPhone will. Both of them are using the same Verizon service as a carrier as well so that was always alarming to me. This year, for the most part, the service on my device has been spectacular. There has still been an instance here and there where it seems to not be able to go out to the internet but the device is a lot more reliable on that front.

The build quality of the device is superb. I got the new Obsidian color and it just looks remarkable. I love the color black and prefer the darker tone on this year's device than last year's. The one thing that I will say that I did not like is the new camera bump. Now, I know this is subjective, but I will admit that I did prefer the previous year's camera bump over this year's. But either way, I still find this device to look amazing.

Because I should mention it the camera is phenomenal. I'm a huge fan of the camera and the improvements that it had. I'm just getting into photography honestly so I don't have much to say, but for an everyday person. I will be starting to post more pictures from my devices so follow me on Instagram if you are interested in that journey. - https://www.instagram.com/seanmilfort/

Upgrade Experience

Now, I was absolutely curious how the Pixel will handle moving from device to device compared to Apple's. Every year, what I normally do for my iPhone is plug in my iPhone to my MacBook, run a backup, and then restore from that backup on the new device. That just seems to me to be the quickest way instead of waiting for iCloud to download the backup and apply it. Since iCloud and/or iTunes are not available on Android as an option, I was curious if Google's option would handle this scenario and it did not disappoint.

Google prompted me to take a USB-C to USB-C cable and connect the two devices and viola, it started the transfer over. It was pretty much seamless, had to sign in to a couple of my third-party applications and then I didn't have any issues after that. This is an important feature to me because I'm someone who doesn't like to start fresh at all. I know I should after a couple of years, but I haven't and honestly, do regular consumers do that often? One of the things that iPhone users say (myself included) is that the part that Apple does well is making the experience super simple for non-technological folks so Android must get these things right if they want to start eating in that market. I believe that they nailed it.

Gripes

Alright, since I keep talking about all the good things about it, I should talk about the things that I don't like about the device right? Honestly, my biggest problem with the device isn't with anything specific to the Pixel device itself. It is with the Android software. It is very tailored to a Google Account in a lot of ways like Apple is tailored to an iCloud account which is fine, I have found ways around some of the things. Honestly, the biggest drawback that I haven't found a way around is the At A Glance calendar feature. I use iCloud Calendar with my family and for most of my stuff because we have for years and it just works with everyone. For you to utilize the At A Glance calendar feature, you have to use Google Calendar so that is a bummer in my head. I do just end up using the Outlook mail client which allows me to add a widget for the calendar, on my screen, but still!

The other thing that I do not like is the updated experience. I do not like the way it rolls out updates and it is a slow trickle. I prefer to get my updates immediately when they are released. I'm the person who installs the update the second I see that it is released on Twitter. The fact that it is trickling out slowly does bother me. I do not experience this on an iOS device and I wish that experience was the same. Now, I know these are personal gripes, but they are gripes nonetheless.

Future/Closing Thoughts

Now, this device does get me excited for future devices. At least from the Pixel 6 Pro to the 7 Pro, it seems like Google is refining its experience for the end user. They are also adding more to the ecosystem with the Pixel Watch and Pixel Tablet and an ecosystem is a big thing for me. An ecosystem is what I loved the most about Apple's devices. I have added the Pixel Watch to my collection and will be adding the Pixel Buds Pro to it as well (stay tuned for those reviews).

We have just earlier this week started to get leaks about the Pixel Fold (I'll link the video below) and THAT has made me super excited for the Pixel future. I have been hoping for a Pixel Fold as a tech fan for years and as an owner, since I purchased the Pixel 6 Pro. The leaks look amazing and I will be purchasing this device when it comes out.

So in conclusion, this device is a great step for the Pixel lineup. I can recommend this device to the everyday person. The phone has been working well and will be a great addition to my daily driver devices. It has great quality and can handle everything that I throw at it!

When the Apple Watch first came out, I was pretty skeptical of its value that it had. I was already using a smartwatch called Pebble (R.I.P. Pebble), and that cost a fraction of the price of the Apple Watch. Back then, I was a little more skeptical of products when Apple released them and didn't immediately get excited about them. I still bought them nonetheless, but I was more skeptical and weary of spending my money on them. I just didn't understand what the watch would do that would benefit my life.

Fast forward almost a decade later and I have purchased an Apple Watch that cost almost twice the price as the original and didn't blink an eye or question. My how times have changed.

When the rumors of the Apple Watch Ultra started to come up, I wasn't sure what they were going to make it to give it the Ultra name. Then they actually announced this watch and all its features and I pretty much thought to myself, "Yeah, they did it."

Ultra?

The Ultra name definitely fits the description of the watch compared to the regular model, however, it is really meant for those active people. The three main modes were hiking, amateur scuba diving, and runners (runners more than the amateur ones, I'm talking marathon runners). Between the Wayfinder, the improved compass & the new scuba diving application, the Apple Watch really catered to these people. MKBHD and the team talked to people who fit these descriptions on their podcast (WVFRM) and had a really good discussion with them. I'll link the podcast episode below and highly recommend you check it out. Since I don't fit any of those descriptions, I can't fully comment on those experiences.

Average Uses

What I can comment on is how I use this device every day as an average fitness person. For starters, the build quality of this device has definitely improved. It is now built with a titanium case that is sporting a 49mm FLAT display. I absolutely love the flat display and have been wanting it for years. They definitely upped the design from the previous version. I have always opted for a bigger watch so if you like a bigger watch, I don't think that it is too massive on your wrist.

Action Button

Another change that they have made is they added a new button on the watch, the action button. You can customize this button to do different control over workout functions. This is such a great addition. You won't believe how many times I wish I could customize some of the other buttons for this kind of functionality. I don't find the workout layout on the watch to be super confusing, but I think it could have some improvements and this button is a very welcome change.

Battery Life

The battery life has definitely been an improvement to the previous watch. It will last me about a day and a half with promises of 60 hours of battery life in a later watch update. This is super helpful especially when you sleep with your watch. With the quality of this screen and the features of this device, the battery should be getting destroyed. But with the new changes they have made, I am very impressed with the watch's battery life.

Things to Improve

There are some things that I would like to improve even though I do find the watch to be great.

I've been having this issue since Day 1 on my Apple Watch, but since now the watch has doubled in price, I personally feel like this shouldn't still be an issue. This is mostly software, but there are times when the watch just doesn’t sync the information correctly, specifically the messages application. Multiple times I will interact with my messages application on my phone and hours later will notice that the messages application on my watch did not sync properly. It will have messages still unread that I have already read and have responded to as well. I'm not sure why this is happening, but this issue has followed me on multiple watches.

Another thing is that they did add another watch face on this, but I would love some more customization for the Apple Watch. I know they are just starting to allow customization for the Apple Watch, but it would be nice if they could allow even more customization.

This is completely a personal preference, but I am a fan of wearing all black and have all-black devices (S/O MKBHD). For the previous Apple Watch, I would get the black version (or whatever is closest that they offer). This version is only offered in the one Titanium build. It would be nice if they could still offer different colors for this device. Again, this is totally a personal preference, but it is a preference nonetheless.

Overall Opinion

Overall, this new watch is great. Apple did an amazing job and right now, it is definitely my favorite watch. At the time of writing this, I did just stop using a Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and switched over to a Pixel Watch on my other wrist (yes, I wear two watches every day haha) so maybe my stance will change (stay tuned for the Pixel Watch Review).

If you do not care about any of these features, I would stick with the regular Apple Watch Series 8 (or even the new SE). However, if you end up purchasing this device, you will love it. You can see the time and effort Apple put into this product and I am enjoying it thoroughly. I am interested in how they will one-up the device in the future.

Links Mentioned Above

WVFRM Podcast w/ Apple Watch Ultra Interviews - https://youtu.be/vGlbCM2coDU?t=2762

*Update November 7th, 7:00 AM ET: Fixed spelling error and incorrect measure of Apple Watch Ultra from 49inch to 49mm.*

That being said, I don't use the camera much besides random photos and Snapchat Stories. I just don't have that desire to constantly be taking photos on the device or have that eye. I know the camera is definitely better than previous generations, but that is to be expected right? The camera is amazing, just like the last 10 iPhones have been.

There were two big changes though that I was SUPER excited about: Dynamic Island & Always-On Display.

Dynamic Island

One of the big changes has been Dynamic Island; that pill shape thing that replaced the notch. That thing looks awesome. When I first saw the rumors of the pill, I was definitely confused, but I just accepted that it was just a way to get rid of the notch and get closer to that full-screen iPhone. It felt very much like the next step. What I didn’t expect was for them to make it a feature of the phone. That was awesome….at first.

Don't get me wrong, I do love it and have been super excited about it, but at this point, it started to become the same thing the notch became for me; I forget about it constantly and it has blended in. Yes, cool animations are up there and when I'm paying attention to it, I notice it and think it looks awesome. They did a good job with it and I'm super excited for the Live Activities to be up there for sports scores and such. This just isn't a reason to upgrade from one of the most recent devices.

The real interesting thing here is where they will take this Dynamic Island in the future. I'm more curious about now how they will improve Dynamic Island in iOS 17 and later generations of the iPhone. I can definitely imagine that Apple will find some great ways to utilize this space.

Always-On Display

Another big thing that I was excited about the way the Always-On Display. I have one on my Pixel 6 Pro and I have been wanting for years to get an iPhone so when Apple finally announced it, I was hype! They also did it in a way that was unique way than just the black screen. I do enjoy the dimmed version of your screen although it did come with some growing pains for the first week or so.

At first, I would constantly keep thinking my phone was lit up because I saw the wallpaper. I would constantly be thinking that I missed a notification or that something that I was supposed to be looking at is on the phone. It took some time to realize that the screen is locked and nothing new was there for me to look at. I know some people don't like it and it is kind of an acquired taste, but I love it. I'm keeping the feature on. As for battery life being affected by this feature, I didn't have an issue with it. I do work from home though and have access to a charger at most times so I will say that it might take a little bit for me to notice any steps backward with battery life from the previous generations.

Issues w/ the Device

Even with my ecstatic love for the new features, I will say that there were a couple issues that I fell down with. On my previous iPhone 13 Pro Max, I was utilizing the Dual Sim feature (an e-sim for my personal line & my work line was provided by my employer on a physical SIM). I usually don't have a problem activating my e-sim on my device, but this year when I tried transferring my personal line, I ended up having to call Verizon support and it was about a 2-hour experience.

Now, I did use an iTunes backup like I normally do (I have a lot of music from my DJ library that I put on my phone, so it is just easier to use an iTunes backup normally) instead of just transferring from iPhone to iPhone. I know that method of transferring does transfer the SIM lines as part of the setup. After I got my personal line configured that way, I did end up with this feature to transfer my Work line over and it worked flawlessly so I think I learned a lesson, and next year I'm going to switch the phones this way.

I also experienced the camera shaking bug in third-party apps that were being posted about. It wasn't every single time that I tried using a third-party application, but it did happen a couple times. Thankfully, Apple released the bug fix patch and it looks like I'm not having any issues at this time.

The Future and Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, I love this new phone. It was a very welcomed change and I do not regret buying the device. While this phone wasn't some game changer for my everyday life, it got me excited for the future and what the next devices will be offering. Between iOS 16 and the changes that the new Pro model iPhone brought, it shows that we are in a direction for some new things. Hopefully, next year brings USB-C.

Now I just have to wait for my Apple Watch Ultra to come in at the end of October.

With this being said, something that takes time is having to retype the password over and over again to access the machine in the local network from the same machine. Because of my drive to always try to accomplish repetitive tasks more efficiently, I was led to find a way to access the drives more efficiently. Because of that, I ended up implementing this process of using Private/Public Keys as authentication into the systems. With these steps being implemented, I do not need to type my password in when I SSH into the same systems again.

Please note that this only works for the specific client you are SSH from and the machine you are SSH into. You will need to repeat that process for every other situation that you are connecting to.

Some disclaimers for this process:

Disclaimer This is only for a one to one connection. If accessing same system via another machine, you will need to repeat the steps or type a password in to access system.

Second Disclaimer Do this at your own security risk.

Windows Based Instructions

Create your .ssh directory!

mkdir C:\Users\<username>\.ssh

Create a Public and Private Key!

ssh-keygen -f C:\Users\<username>\.ssh\id_rsa -t rsa -P ""

Copy the Public Key over to the system that you are accessing!

type C:\Users\<userdirectory>\.ssh\id_rsa.pub | ssh <username>@<server-ip-address> -o StrictHostKeyChecking=No "umask 077; test -d .ssh || mkdir .ssh ; cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys || exit 1;"

Now Test!

Mac Based Instructions

You don't have to make a directory here on macOS/Linux based machines. It already exists!

Creating a Public and Private Key!

ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa -t rsa -P ""

Copy the Public Key over to the system that you are accessing. There are two ways that you can do it.

You can do this ssh-copy-id (this way will require a password):

ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub <username>@<server-ip-address> -o StrictHostKeyChecking=No

Or you can use cat:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh <username>@<server-ip-address> 'mkdir -p .ssh; cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys'

Now Test!

After this process, you should be good to go and connecting to your machines via SSH without a password.

I hope this helps! I did post these instructions earlier in the week on my Twitter account! Feel free to follow me on socials here! - links.seanmilfort.com

Here comes the downfall of me using their product, Apple created the Find My network. It isn't that I necessarily move over to Apple products just because they announce something. I tend to weigh the pros and cons of the products and pick the one that works the best for me. Realistically, the Find My network devices and the Tile devices are the same things. The difference though is their network reach. See, the devices don't have a connection to cellular, so when they are lost and not in reach of your phone, they need a way to keep giving a location. They both handle it similarly, they look for other devices that they can connect to and send their location back to their respective servers. In Tile's case, it needs another Tile to report back the current location. For the Find My network, it needs just ANY Apple device that is online to report back its current location. See the difference now? The network of Apple's devices is just so much larger and more common than the Tile network. It isn't a fault of Tile's at the moment, it is just the reality of the situation. Because of that, I have switched over my trackers to Find My network devices. This brings us to the Chipolo CARD Spot. Switching most of my Tile devices was easy at first. For the majority of them, I switched over to just an AirTag and moved on with my day. There was one Tile product though that I have been holding on to for a while now because there wasn't a direct replacement. The Tile Slim. The Tile Slim was basically in the form of a credit card and went into your wallet so that you can track your wallet location (something I do lose a lot too). I relied on it pretty heavily and the AirTag just doesn't fit in the wallet correctly so I had to keep it. Because of this, I kept Tile around for a good bit. That is until the Chipolo CARD Spot was released.

I finally got my hands on it and it is pretty much the same as the Tile version. The real only difference is that this can work with the Find My network, so it takes advantage of all those Apple devices for connectivity and location. The setup was done in the Find My app just like an AirTag and it was very seamless. It pretty much is an AirTag, just in the form of a credit card.

After using it for a couple of weeks, it has worked flawlessly. I have actually lost my wallet already and was able to use the device to find it just like an AirTag. Because of this decision, it has come quite relevant to me that some devices may need to resort to using Apple's Find My network to give Apple some competition. Realistically, the only reason why I switched from using Tile for years was because of this network. If you ask my honest opinion, I don't see much of a difference between the Chipolo version and the Tile version except for the network. Even the price is the same, $35 for 1 and $60 for 2. I think if the Tile version had to Find My network, I most likely would have just purchased another Tile device since I have been using them for so many years.

If you are looking to purchase a Chipolo CARD Spot, you can find them here: https://chipolo.net/en-us/products/chipolo-card-spot?cl=header

And if you have an Android device and can't use the Find My network, I would suggest getting the Time Slim at this link: https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/store/tiles/slim

Feel free to follow me on socials here! - links.seanmilfort.com

A big thing with me and technology is automating a process that I do repeatedly. If I'm going to do the same thing over and over again, I would love to create a process that just happens all the time so that I don't have to worry about it. Here are a few of the things that I was able to do on my device.

Disclaimer: This isn't an in-depth tutorial on how to set these things up, but I will attach screenshots of the settings. This is meant to just give you some ideas on things you can enable yourself on your device.

Automatic Low Power Mode

The first Shortcut that I have is that it automatically runs Low Power Mode. For this one, I have when battery level falls below 30% percent level, it will automatically turn on Low Power Mode. I do have this notifying me as well so that I am aware that it did just turn on Low Power Mode besides the battery icon changing its icon. This is useful so that when I'm out and about doing things, it will automatically start saving the battery so that my device will not die as quickly.

So, you may have guessed, if I have it turning on Low Power Mode automatically, do I have it turned off automatically? Yes & no. I do have the shortcut configured that once the battery reaches over 70%, it will turn off Low Power Mode. Most times, I do end up turning off Low Power Mode on my own though. I don't have this notifying me however like the previous shortcut because this will run if Low Power Mode is off or on. So that means that if I put it on the charger at 50%, once it reaches the threshold to turn off Low Power Mode, it will run the shortcut and notify me, even if I never had Low Power Mode on.

Watch Face Changes

The next Shortcut I use routinely is changing my watch face automatically for work and then back to my normal watch face. I have this specific watch face that has my Outlook Calendar on it and lets me know if meetings are coming up or are scheduled for today. So during the weekday (Monday - Friday) at 7:00 AM, it will set my watch face to the work-based one. I do have another one that odes set it back to my normal one at 4:00 PM since I don't need to see my Outlook Calendar at that point.

Automatic Wallpaper Changer

So for this last Shortcut, the idea didn't necessarily come from me. This idea came from a post I saw on Apple Insider (will link tutorial below). For the gist of this last shortcut, it goes out and grabs a wallpaper from a popular wallpaper website, Unsplash, and sets that as my home screen wallpaper.

As you can see in the screenshot, in the spot where the URL is being defined, I have it looking for landscape images. Every time it goes to that URL, a new picture is presented. You can change that word to any other category that you can think of and it will search Unsplash's collection of photos. I have this running in the morning and at the end of a workday so that I am presented with a new wallpaper twice a day for my home screen.

This is just the beginning of the powerful things that you can do with Shortcuts and with Automations in Shortcuts. My suggestion is that anything that you realize you are repeatedly doing every day, try to see if there is a way that you can automate it on your device. If you can automate it, then it might be something that you can implement here.

Feel free to comment if you have any other Shortcut ideas or things that you have implemented yourself!

Apple Insider Wallpaper Article - https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/23/how-to-use-shortcuts-to-automatically-change-your-iphone-wallpaper-every-day

Microsoft offers these Learning Paths that tell you the prerequisites and which exams you need to take to achieve a certain certificate. It was recommended to me that a good certification for me to aim for was the Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert. Getting this certification requires multiple exams and other certifications for me to receive before I receive this one. The first exam that I needed to take was the MD-100: Windows Client exam.

To prepare for this exam, Microsoft also offers modules and objectives that will help prepare you to take their exams. Going through this process gave me many ideas about how this process could improve. I went through all the modules and the readings for that section, but I personally don't think it fully prepared me for the exam. It does go through and talk about a lot of the topics, but I didn't necessarily feel like they getting me ready for the many different things that came up during the exam. I can't say exactly what came up because of the NDA they have you sign, however, what I would say is that I wouldn’t necessarily say that I can go and implement immediately everything that I read about.

They do offer you to purchase a practice exam for the test, however, for the test I was taking that add-on was $100 on top of the $165 to take the exam. Getting these certifications can get pricey when you are preparing to take multiple tests. Especially when you only get one try per exam purchase. It would be nice if they gave you some basic examples after each module of how they can show up in the exam.

I took this exam at home from the comfort of my computer. When scheduling the exam, they do mention that you are going to need to have a microphone on, a webcam, and a form of speakers available. They also mention that you will need to have your cellular device, no one near you and no one disturbs you while taking your exam. All of this is fine, except that there were more things that I ran into during the test. My proctor had to let me know that I wasn't allowed to have multiple monitors connected to my computer, you are not allowed to use headphones and I could not have a watch on (although that last one I should have figured out since you can't have a mobile device during the exam).

As for scoring, you do get your result right away. Right after I finished the test, it immediately let me know how I scored (I passed by the way). The one thing that I didn't like was the feedback you receive from the exam. You get a summary of areas that you need to improve on, however, they do not tell you specifically what you got wrong. I was very curious about what questions I got wrong and why. It would be nice if you could see maybe immediately afterward each question result and why certain things were wrong so you can understand them better.

At the end of the day, the experience wasn't bad and I did learn some new things. I will be continuing on going down this journey and think that other people should definitely do it.

Here is a link to available Microsoft Certifications if you are interested in taking this journey as well. - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/browse/

1) To get this started, you first need to login into the Synology Control Panel and create a shared folder. I called my folder Time Machine Backups.

2) Once this is created, you should make another User account on the Synology device and assign it to read/write permissions to just that folder. I did this because this is the account I will have access to macOS devices to use.

3) After this, go to the File Services Section to make sure you have SMB or AFP enabled. This depends on how you are going to be connecting from your macOS devices.

Once this is complete, we are able to login to the mac and start to get it backed up.

4) Once you are logged in on your mac, you will need to go to your finder and connect to a network drive. Select File > Go and type in the server address that you are connecting to. When it prompts you for login credentials, make sure to use the account that you created on your Synology NAS.

5) After that open up Time Machine by either searching for it or opening up your System Preferences and selecting it there.

6) Once you have this opened up, create Select Disk. It asks you for a location to store the backups and here is where you would select the network drive that you created.

After this, your macOS will back itself up periodically as long as the network location is available.

7) The last thing that I like to do is automate the mounting of the drive. Since this computer is always going to be online, I add mounting the network drive as one of the startup items. You can do this by going into the System Preferences > Users & Groups pane and dragging the network drive into the Login Items section.

After this, you will be good to go!

Feel free to follow me for more reviews and tips!

AirMessage is a free platform being developed by two individuals to allow accessing your iMessages from the web and an Android device (I'll link all the information about this at the bottom). This platform helps the individual still take part in a lot of the features that only Apple devices can take part in. There are some caveats to this, however. You will need a Mac device that is always online for this to work. This machine is what is being leveraged to communicate the sending and receiving of the messages. I happened to have a Mac Mini that is rack-mounted at my house, so this solution was perfect for me.

The installation was pretty straightforward. You go to the website and download the "Server" Application on your Mac. You connect it to a Google account so it will be able to authenticate your account on the multiple devices you log into and then you allow some permissions and voila! At this point, you should be able to access your iMessages in the web client and on the Android application.

I attempted to use the application on both the web and on my Android phone and it did work pretty well. It did everything that it said it would do, but it wasn't 100% smooth sailing. There were a couple of caveats that came across with that solution for someone that is still very much in the Apple ecosystem.

The first thing that I came into was that this is only grabbing your messages, not your contacts. It reads your Google account for the contact list instead of your iCloud. This isn't a problem if you use Google contacts, but I use iCloud contacts. Because of this, when I first launched the application, it didn't have anyone's number saved in the application which is not ideal. I was able to get by this by installing an application on the Mac Mini (Contact Sync Pro) that will automatically sync my contacts between iCloud and Google. This was an awesome application because not only does it allow me now to have my contacts for AirMessage, it allows my Pixel to have contacts natively in its application. So this solved my one problem.

The other issue I ran into was that it does not sync when you read a message. When I read a message on an Apple device or vice versa, it does not tell the other system that the message was read or responded to. Because of this, I run into the situation constantly that I have to open up messages twice. This sounds like a minor annoyance but becomes a major one when you are constantly picking up the devices and seeing an indicator for a message you already responded to. Now, there is a new version currently in beta by the developers that are being tested and it does mention read receipts, but I'm not 100% sure that it is referring to this issue.

At the end of the day, this is a pretty good solution minus the read receipts. I am very impressed by what the two developers were able to accomplish with this application. I am very impressed with this solution and will continue to use it. Feel free to check out this solution at the link below.

If you know of any alternatives to this solution, let me know!

AirMessage - https://airmessage.org/