iMessage: Sent to Email Address

I forwarded a link to a contact via iMessage yesterday and it never got to him, though it gave me a status message I’d never seen before: Sent to Email Address.

iMessage screen capture

I’d last texted this contact three years ago, and the history of that message is a blue bubble. I’ve migrated everything from an iPhone 11 to an iPhone 14 since the original message was sent, so it looks like the history made the assumption it was pure iMessage. The picture I sent this morning went through properly as a text message. The contact information knows his phone number and his email.

I’m traveling in an area where I’m going in and out of cell coverage and may be on WiFi at times, or may be completely disconnected with my phone telling me it’s in S.O.S. Mode.

I wouldn’t have minded iMessage telling me that the message could not be delivered. I wouldn’t mind the message being delivered to his email address. I don’t like being told it was delivered and it not being so.

iOS14 Date Time Picker Rant

I upgraded to iOS14 as soon as it was released just because I almost always keep my devices running the most up to date software I can. I don’t care about the widgets or interface customization options that were introduced with iOS14. I think much of that customization is actually what has kept me away from running Android.

The one thing that I really hate that was introduced was the date time picker in iOS14. I’ve included screenshots from my iPhone 11 Pro Max running the new version and my iPhone 7 running the old version.

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The old version had the issue that it was not intuitive to be able to pick a minute that didn’t align to five minute increments, but was very easy to select the day, hour, or minute individually and scroll to a reasonable number for the start time, then switch the the end time and do the same. The keyboard was only shown when I was typing the name of the appointment or the location.

The new one uses half of the screen to pick just the day, as well as displaying the keyboard, which does not seem to affect the time. I touch the tiny display with the time, and if I can select the hour, I can scroll my finger up and down over the entire screen to scroll the number. If I miss the number slightly, the screen moves to show my another part of the entry field. Then I have to repeat the same solution with the minute. When I’m trying to hit the hour, I hit the minute, and vice versa.

Because of the size of the calendar entry, I have to scroll the entire screen to find where the end time might be.

This change just feels like change for change sake, and poorly implemented. I wonder if it’s even worse on a smaller screen.

iOS14.1 was released today, and I’ve already upgraded to it, but don’t see anything I’d consider an improvement to this issue.

Annoying Flashing High Mount Stop Light on newer cars

I know that to some extent I’m yelling at the cloud. I’ve mostly seen this feature on new Toyotas, but I also recently saw it on a new BMW. 

The CHMSL flashing feature seems to happen when a person first applies the brakes after a period of not using them. It blinks the lamp three times before leaving them on constantly. This feature might be useful when traveling at highway speeds and it’s been a long time since the person has put their foot on the brake, but when traveling in city traffic it seems that the light is just strobing constantly. With modern LEDs there is no warm up time, so it’s like a red strobe light is going off at eye level.

The last update I found on Wikipedia said that the lights were generally not permitted to flash, with a couple of linked rulings from 2010.

My searching for details found various forum questions and answers, including how to add blinkers as after market options, but no details as to where the rules may have changed, or if it’ll be a new requirement going forward.

I certainly hope that it’s a temporary trend that goes away.

Skeuomorphism is back

I find it interesting that gizmodo is complaining about skeuomorphism again, but this time saying that it’s a good thing.

I’ve always liked skeuomorphism. I like the look of the new apple watch. I won’t be getting one because I believe that a watch needs to be able to go at least a week without requiring a charge to be useful.

I’ve always hated the US practice of tipping.

I really haven’t liked the increase in expected percentage being given as a tip. The entire reason to use a percentage to begin with is that it gets proportionally larger as the underlying value gets larger.

I came across an article sharing much of my sentiment, and followed it to a second article that had lots more information about the practice of tipping, so I thought I’d share them here.

• http://www.jdempsey.com/where-did-tipping-go-wrong/
• http://kitchenette.jezebel.com/the-gratuitous-injustice-of-american-tipping-culture-1608009017

Tide Pod Packaging

I recently had to replenish my laundry detergent. The last time I’d replaced it was after a trial of using the Tide Pods, liking the convenience, and liking the predictability of knowing how many loads left before I had to refill. I decided to go with the packaging that had 62 pods in a clear plastic container.

The old container was transparent and the new container is opaque. The advantage of the old container was that at a glance I could tell that I had multiple pods left for cleaning. I don’t see any advantage in the new package. I do notice that the new package now has warnings not to eat the pods, and not to touch your eyes after touching the pods. I expect that the reason for the change was because of children thinking the pods are pretty like candy and eating them. Because I had the old packaging, I simply poured all the new pods into the old container, but I might have been less likely to migrate to using pods if the convenience factor was not there for me initially.