A month or so ago I busted my phone, and it was a huge pain in the ass. Aside from some lost data which was minor, the biggest PIA was resetting MFA, getting in touch with my US banks, and any other services that were tied to my phone. The experience also made me take a step back and realize I am pretty lax with security, and if someone had gotten hold of my phone and somehow god-forbid gotten the passcode, then I'd be fucked. They could do so much damage with unlimited access to my email + MFA SMS, even in just a few hours.
As a result, I kind of went down the ADHD rabbit hole hyper-fixating on how best to "optimize" my iPhone and iCloud configuration for two things:

1. If it breaks, the transition to a new device will be relatively painless. I won't have to spend several days stressing and trying to find the right international customer support number for a myriad of institutions and services to get into my accounts.
   
2. If it gets stolen and compromised, then there will be enough barriers such that the I'll have enough time to lock down the device and/or my accounts remotely before the thief can get key data or move funds.
   

So I put together this guide and checklist that I thought I'd share with others. I am a programmer but by no means a security guru, and so if any IT, DevOps, or SecOps folks want to chime-in with suggestions or improvements, please do.

Requirements

• an iPhone XR, iPhone XS, iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 13, iPhone SE (2nd generation), and iPhone 14 or newer for eSIM compatibility.
• a US-based carrier with eSIM support + a pay-as-you-go model for international travel (I use Verizon)
• iOS 17 or above (may not be strictly necessary, but I know my setup works with iOS 17.4.1)
• a password manager. I personally use 1Password because it works, is reliable, has cross-device support, and is easy and intuitive. It's also only $3/month.

Dual Sim Setup

I have been rocking an iPhone 12 for the past few years, and it's served me very well. I know the newer iPhones (14 and up) no longer offer physical SIM card support, but carriers in most developing countries are behind the curve. Even if they offer eSIM support, it's been my experience that it's a major headache to get setup, there is a lack of customer support in English, and they may even require a local ID to register the eSIM. It's way easier to just head to a shop and pay $5 for a SIM card, load some funds onto it, and then you're good to go.
The eSIM has been very helpful for maintaining a US phone number for which I can receive SMS texts from my banks and other financial services as well as continue to use iMessage with all my US contacts since hardly anybody is on Whatsapp.
Most, if not all, carriers in the US support eSIMs now, and so you should try to find a carrier that offers an international pay-as-you-go plan. Verizon offers two international plans - one is a "Travel Pass" where it's a flat fee of $10/day anywhere outside the US or Canada (even for just one text message). The other is "pay for what you use" which has a rate per text, minute, and mb. For my US plan, I only care about receiving SMS texts from my banks and the occasional phone call to a service that doesn't have an international, toll-free number. Data will always be cheaper outside the US, so I disable cellular data switching for my US line.
The last time I was in the US was for the holidays and I bought 2 used iPhone 12's for about $200 each. They have some scuffs, but they're perfectly serviceable. In LATAM, it also doesn't attract nearly as much unwanted attention in the street as an iPhone 14 or 15.
I brought these with me as extra devices. When my phone busted last month, thankfully I had a backup in iCloud and everything was loaded in a few minutes as normal. This was before I was using the eSIM, but if I had the eSIM I could just go to Verizon support online via chat and they could help me switch the line to the new device easily.

Basic Configurations

• Always use the latest version of firmware
• Require a passcode that's unique to that device.
• Use FaceID instead of passcode when possible (a thief can't snipe your passcode from a distance if you unlock your phone with FaceID)
• Set auto-lock to 30 seconds (lowest possible)
• Erase data upon excessive passcode failures note, this is complemented in a later step with daily backups. The odds of you putting in the wrong passcode 10 times is low, but in the event you do and you wipe the device by accident, you should be able to easily load in a back-up from the previous day)
• Turn off "Ask to Join Networks"
• Forget unused networks so that you don't rejoin automatically (airports, hotels, etc.)

Creating Backups

• Set iCloud backups to run automatically every night. This will allow you to load your entire phone as is (contacts, call history, iMessages, apps, even your wallpaper) onto another device during setup. The iCloud backup usually runs at 2am while I'm sleeping.
• You may need to pay for a higher tier in iCloud if you have too much stored on your phone. It's $3/month for 200gb of iCloud storage, and I find it worth it. Though I know some people with tens of thousands of photos for which 200gb might not be enough.

Password Policy

• For any accounts that may contain sensitive data (payments, PII, etc), always generate a unique password with 1Password. Don't reuse passwords. Same goes for PIN codes.
• For core accounts, create a strong but memorable password and then memorize it. The odds of getting locked out of 1Password are low if you're diligent, but for 2 or 3 core accounts (where you access money, your primary recovery email, your iCloud, 1Password), it's worth it to create strong, unique passwords for each core service and memorize them.
• I try not to reuse passwords in general, but I still sometimes am lazy and use one of my handful of typical passwords if there's no sensitive data collected by the service and it's a service I don't use often.

MFA

Set up MFA with everything. Add multiple options if possible. My preferred MFA options are as follows:

1. One-time code that renews every 30 seconds. This is device agnostic and can be stored in 1Password. You could also use Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator, Authy or similar, but there's just more overhead to now recover those accounts if your device becomes inaccessible.
2. One-time code to recovery email.
3. One-time code via SMS to my US phone number. On the pay-as-you-go Verizon plan, I only pay 5 cents per text message received. It's worth it to keep one consistent number.
4. List of recovery codes (stored in 1Password as an attached txt file for the given account)
5. Use another app for verification (Google does this a lot).

Lockdown your iCloud security

• Enable MFA.
• Create a strong, unique password.
• Remove any old or unused devices from the iCloud account (old phones, ipods, etc).
• Enable "Find My" for all of your devices.
• In Find My, configure all devices to send the last known location.
• In Find My, enable the configuration to remotely wipe a device.

In the event your phone is stolen, the idea is you could run back to any of your devices or even use a friend's device to log into iCloud on the web, go to Find My, and then in a single button click you can lock and wipe the stolen device. If the thief turned off the device or disabled wifi/cellular, then as soon as it comes back online it will be wiped.

Final Clean-Up

• Move any compromising photos to the "hidden" folder (which requires FaceID or passcode to unlock)
• Review the Files app for any documents containing sensitive info. If you need these documents to be accessible on mobile, then move them to 1Password and delete them from the Files app.
• Create a shortcut to trigger the lock screen (and thus require FaceID or passcode) when specific apps are opened (banking, email, photos, etc).
• Not sure if this is best practice, but I just keep everything in 1P and turn off apple keychain and the apple built-in password manager. I also don't save passwords in Chrome or Safari.

Extra tips

These aren't really iPhone tips but general tips. They are probably obvious to you if you aren't as scatterbrained as me, but I figured that I'd drop them here in case they help someone.

• Add thorough security measures to iCloud, primary email, and any banking or financial services. Review each account and make sure you have a strong, unique password as well as a unique PIN, MFA configured, login alerts, recovery codes, and an international, 24-hour toll-free phone number stored somewhere to contact the service in the event of a crisis. For banking services, add withdrawal limits, regional restrictions (if you bounce between the same few countries), and SMS notifications for charges over a certain threshold. Open up a second checking account with a separate debit card for trips to the ATM.
• Consolidate and close any unused bank accounts. I realized that on my phone I had Revolut, Venmo, Paypal, Nequi, plus 4 US banking institutions. I took this time to close my Discover account (which is pretty much useless outside the US anyway), close my Revolut account since I'm hardly ever in the UK/EU, and consolidate investment accounts from different institutions into just a handful that's easier to monitor.

There was a boy. I’d known him since I was 5 but it wasn’t until I was older that I truly noticed him. We were in 6th grade when we started taking an advanced math class together. I could tell he was smart, funny, and a person I’d want to be around for a long time. Middle school and all the drama that ensues during that time quickly invaded my life. My social group shifted and I found myself closer to my friend, Dakota. By the time we were in 7th grade he was tall and strong. Blond hair and a light greenish set of smart eyes. We started working together outside of school. My dad worked for his dad and I often found myself at their house. Dakota had one older brother, a younger brother, and a younger sister. I’m the oldest of four so I could handle the chaos of lots of kids in a home. I had some of my most fun memories in middle school at that home. Not just me and Dakota, but with other friends we worked with, our siblings, and family friends. Nerf gun fights, swimming in the pool, and playing manhunt on the homestead that they lived on. I developed what you could consider a crush on Dakota. And the feeling was mutual. He hinted with the not-so-subtle flirting of a 14 year old boy. Pulling my hair, taking my things, and throwing snacks were often his go-to moves.
One night at a Christmas party, us “kids” were watching a movie while the adults played games and hung out in the other room. At some point, his head ended up on my lap. I remember touching his hair, but ultimately deciding I did NOT want someone to see this and assume the worse. Another time, we were alone in the basement. The basement was the place of all our friend hangouts. The video and board games were down there, along with the nerf guns. One night we were on the couch showing each other memes from our iPod touches. We were laughing and joking, then he handed me his iPod to read the next one. Except this wasn’t a meme: it was his notes app. On the screen it said “I think you are beautiful”. I instantly blushed and tried to hide my face. “Me?.....” I looked at him, also blushing red and he nodded. I told him thank you. It was the first time any boy had told me I was beautiful. In my own eyes, I was not. I had a big tooth gap because my parents couldn’t afford braces, and I wore glasses. I don’t know what he saw, but I appreciated the flattering compliment.
We entered high school where once again, your life shifts. You are faced with new teachers, new course materials, new teammates, and new challenges. We remained close friends through this time, by taking enough classes together and being involved with the same friends. It was nearing the fall homecoming season and I was nervous about getting a date. I saw many older boys asking girls to be their dates and I wondered if I would even have one my freshman year. Leave it up to my best friend Anna to set me up.
I clearly remember it was a Sunday night and I was watching football. My mom tells me she got a text from Dakota’s mom that there was a book she needed to grab from their house. She told me I needed to go with her. Without any context, I was annoyed she was making ME drive her there since I did not want to leave home. They lived about 5 minutes away so I figured the faster we leave the quicker I can get back home. Mom told me I should brush my hair.
“Why?”
“Well because you should look a little presentable.”
“It’s fine right, we’re just grabbing a book really quick, right?”
“Yes but you don’t want to leave the house looking like you do.”
I huffed and opened our sliding glass door going outside to the car.
“You should at least put some shoes on!”
“I’m FINE, Can we just go and get this over with”
I angrily and annoyed drove/ sped down the paved road to their house, all the while questioning my mother why she really needed me to go with her.
“I don’t know, there might be something there for you.”
I had no idea what that meant. We drove to the shop on their property that this supposed book was. I stepped out of the car, barefoot on the gravel and walked into the shop. There I see Dakota, holding a sign. I frantically looked around to figure out what was going on. I see Anna crouched in a corner covering her smiling mouth. I looked at his sign and read the homecoming proposal which used lyrics and titles from Beatles songs, my favorite band.
“Oh, Dakota! Of course yes!”
I gave him an awkward hug and turned around to realize that my mother didn’t need a book at all.
Dakota was sweet. In an innocent way. He had casually asked before if we could date, but being the reserved and shy individual I was, I had always declined. After the dance, we drifted, not for any particular reason. I heard he had started dating a different girl. She was older by two years. Was I hurt? Not particularly. Was I jealous? Maybe a little more so. They went to prom together and she was definitely way prettier than me. It happens, I thought, we aren’t meant to be. A romantic relationship would definitely change our entire chemistry.
Summer came and we were out working together on his family’s farm. We spent hours in the fields, talking, singing, and sweating. Just good friends again. It was normal and felt right. We spent a week together in late July on a church trip. We worked on a homeless shelter with our youth group and had a fun yet powerful time together. My mom, dad, and brother were on this trip as well, along with many of our church friends. After the week was done on Saturday, we drove back to our town. I remember waving goodbye to his family in their Suburban as they left the church parking lot. I didn’t realize how significant that goodbye would be.
A few days went by and we had casual texting conversations about work and school starting in the next few weeks. He texted me Tuesday night that his dad really needed some help the next morning bright and early. I wanted to sleep in. He texted “Don’t worry about it, we’ll get it covered.” A decision I’d soon regret.
Wednesday morning, I go to the church with my mom to do a couple of things with her. I can’t even recall what it was. We were getting into our car when we heard loud sirens throughout our small town. Mom and I looked at each other. Sirens are never a good sign. We get in the car, curious, but praying whoever needs the ambulance is okay. My mom gets a phone call. It’s one of our family friends. She says Dakota and his older brother have been in a bad car accident. That heavy feeling that makes your heart sink to your stomach instantly hit me. “They’re okay, they’re okay, they’re okay.” I kept telling myself. The ambulance was going fast, and Dakota is strong. He’s practically invincible. My mother’s friend tells us that we should stop by Dakota’s house to grab the boys clean clothes and bring them to the emergency room. We drive in silence, except for maybe a short prayer that the boys are okay. We get to the house and my mom quickly runs up the stairs to the boys’ bedroom. I stay downstairs. I observe the dining room. Dirty laundry in the baskets. Dirty dishes on the counter. Dakota’s name on a marker board along with a list of chores to do. We speed to the emergency room in the nearby town. On the way we received a text from Dakota’s older brother, John. He said he was doing okay but he wasn’t sure about Dakota. We should be keeping their family in our prayers. The panic was rising in my throat. I had been nervous about things before. This was different. It was like a nauseating churn that started in my stomach. Like my soul was shaking out of my physical body. We got to the hospital, parked and my mom said I should stay in the car. Probably wanting to protect me from any scarring sights within the ER. I wanted to go in. Could I see him? She insisted that I stay in the car. I stayed. Frozen at first. Then rocking back and forth. My palms were shaking and itchy in the center.
“This can’t be happening. Not Dakota. He’s like my best friend. Kids don’t die. He’s too young. Too smart. He has an incredibly successful life ahead of him.”
I was eyeing the automatic door for any sign of someone that I recognized. The ten minutes I waited felt like an hour. Ten minutes of restless uncertainty. Then I see my mom. She had one of the hardest faces that I had ever seen her make. She opened the driver’s side door and I immediately asked “What’s going on. Is he ok?!”
She looks at me dead in the eyes, shaking her head, “He didn’t make it, Jasmine”
A million emotions and questions flood my brain. I started blubbering and sobbing while hitting the dashboard. “No, no, no. Why!? Why him?” My mom breaks down with me, not able to get out a single word. The family friend who delivered the phone call joins us in the car. She says Dakota’s in a better place now. I’m in a state of shock and disbelief. Hot tears will not stop streaming down my cheeks. We were silent on the way back home. I ran upstairs to my room and shut the door. I cried into a pillow for the rest of the afternoon. I skipped dinner. There was a candlelight vigil that evening at a church. I barely had the strength to go, but my mom said it would be good for me. I brought my water bottle. I ate nothing and only drank water to replenish my tears the next two days. Saturday morning, I went to a different church with my family to see Dakota’s family. The church’s youth were making survivor bracelets out of parachute cord. Dakota had made them during his depressive episodes during his 9th grade year, when we somewhat drifted. Dakota and I took Spanish class together our freshman year. One day he asked me what my favorite color was. I told him blue. The next day he gave me a blue bracelet he had made. He said he accidentally made one too small. I was instantly brought back to that moment while standing in the church with dozens of people learning how to braid the cord. When I got home, I tore apart my vanity in search for the bracelet he had made for me. I put it on my right hand. I wore the bracelet everyday for an entire year. I had a Dakota original.
Dakota’s brother, John, who was entering his senior year, invited many of us friends to go out to the place where the accident happened. It was a blind intersection that I had previously been weary of earlier that summer. The corn was high and there were no road signs for a yield or stop. John explained how they had just got in the truck after working the field about a half mile south and were going to take their lunch break. He said they had just started going down the road, picking up speed, when he heard a small voice tell him to put his seatbelt on. John put his seatbelt on, but Dakota didn’t. John said he felt as if there was something around the corner, but ultimately did not slow down near the intersection. A driver, going 50 miles per hour, t-boned them in the intersection. According to John, the truck rolled and Dakota was thrown through the windshield. John found his phone and quickly called 911. He found Dakota and blood was coming from his mouth. He had a large wound on his forehead where he had smashed the dashboard. John pulled him into the field of soybeans, opposite the corn, and tried performing CPR. Dakota was mumbling and sputtering blood before his breathing stopped. The paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. They said he was internally decapitated.
The wake for Dakota was on Sunday night. I had a tough time finding the strength to go. We waited in line behind dozens of people for close to an hour. When I finally got up to him, my heart sank again. There he was. His skin was pale. His hair was not right. His mother, who was right by, said it was okay to touch him. I reached for his hair to move it how he usually wore it. As I parted it, I saw the large scar covered by gobs of makeup that the hair was covering on his forehead. I put it back.
His funeral was the next day. Monday. At 1:18PM, his birthday date. I felt sick the whole morning. My whole family got in the car and my mom was talking to my younger siblings. I was silent. I was going to one of my best friends’ funerals. The church where the funeral was held was absolutely packed. Parked cars took up the surrounding blocks. The church had multiple floors and rooms with casted video of the celebration of life. I was considered close enough to sit in the sanctuary in the front half of the pews. I sat with my gifted teacher and other friends from the gifted program. What a terrible way to end your summer. Saying hello to people you haven’t seen in a few months at a funeral. I remember the funeral. There were songs and the service was led in large by Dakota’s own mother. To this day I have no idea how she had the strength to do that. I remember a few of the songs that were sung, but I’ll never forget the sound of the casket closing. The last goodbye. The final SLAM. His face would never again have sunlight shown upon it. Never again would a person touch him, hold him, hug him.
My family tried to get out to the burial but the crowd was just too insanely large to get around. I had the final say that we could go home. I’d come back another time.
The next day, I went to the scene of the accident. It was an intersection 5 miles east of my house. Someone had put up a make-shift cross at the intersection. I brought a big University of Kansas patch from one of our gifted trips to place at the cross. He loved basketball, and especially the Jayhawks. On the back of the patch I had written “I love you”. That night, there was a big storm. I sat up straight in bed and started crying as the wind whistled by my windows. The patch.
When I woke up, I found a reason to leave home and went back out to the intersection. I ran up to the cross and found my patch wrapped tightly around the base with some old barbed wire. I burst into tears of relief. I have no idea who saved my patch.
The next two weeks were spent preparing for school and fall practice. I had decided to do tennis that fall instead of volleyball. On the first day of school, I rode the bus into the town with my school. We drove past the intersection and I burst into tears. I cried four more times that day. Each time in the class he should have been in with me. I was distraught. I have no other way to describe how absolutely depressed I was walking the halls. Teachers were not the same. There was an absence in our sophomore class. An absence on our football team. In our audition choir. In our youth group. And in me. I tried my best to get through it. I started journaling a little bit after the accident to help organize my thoughts. To remember all the little details I could about him. To write them down so they didn’t disappear.
My sophomore year was brutal. I was playing tennis in the fall with a small team of girls who helped to create a safe and calm environment for me. I spent all of my hours in the team vehicle listening to two Lifehouse albums on repeat. I’d look out the window and reflect. What was life? What was my purpose? Why did this happen?
I didn’t have an answer. I bottled it up. It seemed that a lot of my class who weren’t very close with Dakota had a lot easier time going back to their normal lives. I was missing a friend. There was a contact in my phone from whom I’d never received another text. I had unfinished business. We had talked all summer about how our math class and Spanish II classes would be so fun this year. The bracelet I wore everyday was getting a stark tan line.
The semester rolled on. One of my other close friends moved to Colorado. And my last best friend, Anna, was in her own self-discovery phase. She wasn’t as close to Dakota and I was more or less a depressed teen at that time. I cried at school. In the bathrooms. In the locker room or a small music practice room. Am I just that sensitive? Why is no one else dealing with this grief like I am? I tried to distract myself with various activities. It worked for the most part. In the spring, I went out for softball. I loved softball. I had been playing it for years. I even had helped “assistant coach” a little girls rec league with Dakota and his family a few summers beforehand. Softball was hard but I needed the challenge. I worked hard at the sport and found myself on the varsity team after multiple players were out for the season due to injury or illness. In the last regular season game, on May 9th on our home field, I broke my leg. I had a high impact with the catcher while trying to steal home. The ump called me safe and we won the game by a run rule as I crumpled to the ground. I remember thinking I could stand up, but the weirdest tingling started down my leg around my knee. My coach carried me off the field like a baby. I pulled my helmet off and one tear slid down my cheek. They put me on a stretcher while the athletic trainer checked my knee.
“Yep, you fractured a bone. We should get you in to the ER for an X-ray”
“Fracture? Like my bone broke?”
“Yes that’s what a fracture is”
I started sobbing. Not from the pain. From the overwhelming feeling of becoming an invalid for an uncertain amount of time. I slid in the back of my mom’s vehicle as we drove down to the county ER. We got there, I was still in uniform. Just hysterical. I had no idea what was going on as I had never had an injury like this before. The ER lady took X-rays of my right leg. The images came back and showed a tibial plateau fracture. I wouldn’t be walking for a while. They helped cut me out of my softball pants and sent me home with lots of pain killers. The next few days I spent vomiting from the strong norco drug. I had a surgery a few days later where they placed hardware in my knee and put me in a straight-leg brace. I was miserable. It was hot and scratchy and I had my finals coming up. I went back to school the next Wednesday or Thursday to collect some class work to do at home. As I lived on the downstairs couch for close to three weeks I found myself asking again “Why did this happen?” I finished the school year by doing my final projects and giving my German foreign exchange student friend a final hug. I remember thinking “This is a nicer way to say goodbye to someone forever”.
I couldn’t walk for most of the summer and I started painful physical therapy. I was frequenting 3 times a week for a long while to build back my strength and relearn to walk. As soon as I was weight-bearing, I started working outside again. Doing what I could with one crutch. Dakota’s dad hired me to help manage the field workers and I could do some wood stacking decently enough. On the 1 year anniversary of Dakota’s death, I went to the gravesite for a small ceremony. It was the first time I had been there. The intersection where he died was my frequent mourning spot, almost daily on my drive to and from school. The gravestone was large and obviously very expensive. It has a beautiful picture of him and the quote “You got this”, that he used often as a self-reassuring phrase. At some point after the 1-year, I stopped wearing the bracelet he made me. Was it time to let go? How long does one mourn?
The rest of my high school journey was tainted with the memories of him and the phantom memories of where I imagined him being. At my graduation, we had an honorary memorial and scholarship dedicated to him and his character. Then I went to college. I was already dating who would become my husband a number of years later.
Years have passed. There is no happy ending. I'm still here. Aging. Growing older while I can still see the face of my 15 year old friend. He isn’t growing. He’s in the ground. Resting. It feels like a lifetime until I can see him again. I’ve had dreams of him. Unprompted visions of him were prevalent for about 2 years after he passed. You would think this story would get easier after the number of times I’ve played in my head over all of these years. But it hasn’t. I’m in the acceptance stage of grief. I’ve lived life, gotten married, laughed again, and see a bright future for myself. Though I do often think, Where would Dakota be now? Would we have become closer friends? Would he be married? He would have made a good father.
Again, I have no answers to these questions that I suppose may eternally sit with me. I do have some answers though. I’ve learned how to not take people for granted. I’ve learned how to recognize depressive symptoms and how to be a listening ear for someone who feels hopeless. I’ve learned how to find purpose in helping people. I’ve learned patience. Sometimes patience is agonizing, which means the reward is definitely worth the wait.

So i'm a long android user, and haven't used a mobile apple device since the first ipod touch... And i'm considering buying the new ipad pro. Mainly for illustrator, video editing, webdev (done from the browser) and ofcourse regular media consumption.
My current android tablet is 6y old, was a budget option to begin with, and is slowly dying, but served me well. Time for an upgrade.
I do have some questions about features I can't seem to get clear answers on.
1) multitasking: i tend to have 3 apps open at once. 2 on the left side and 1 on the right. (1 upper left, 1 lower left, 1 right half). Is this possible on ipados? I mainly see 2 apps, but can't find anything about 3 at once, unless it's using the "desktop" interface, stagemanager. Can this be done without stagemanager?
2) multitasking: on android i can do a pop-out window. So i can have a youtube video over my other apps and resize, move that window wherever i please. Is this possible on ipados?
3) stagemanager: when i look up screenshots of stagemanager it seems like it doesn't utilize the full screen? Is this not possible or...?
4) i tested the ipad pro and magic keyboard in one of my local stores, and the typing was great, however...the trackpad seemed to lagg? There seemed to be an input lagg. Besides that, and this is hard to explain, it seemed like the movements seemed to continue even after i stopped...like sliding on ice, idk how to explain it. Is this due to some setting, or is this just how it is? And if you connect a Bluetooth mouse, is it the same, or does that work better?
Sorry for the probably basic and dumb questions, and thanks in advance.

Edit: Saw this later from web and it was awful to look at. Cleaned it up. Please read strike through as cheeky side comments.

Premise:

Share my experience getting started on Bookfusion as a mobile first reader on iOS. I am also a dev so I like to give feedback when I see a project with promise and I figured my use case is not so unique.

Background:

I stumbled upon this app after months of being super annoyed searching for a way to away allowed tablet +pen users to write in line on epub files. I know now that this is possible on some of the very new color eink readers and (maybe?) Marginote but nothing accessible on iOS that gives you the full "I wrote in this book" feeling. I don't actually write in my paper books because it crowds the pages. However I use text based annotations all the time and love that I can just hide them away as I continue reading. It seems like a waste to have all this hardware capable of writing on books, but not supporting the most popular book format for published media. My full ebook library is close to 350gbs, and I have read them on many generations and sizes of devices over the years. That's why I don't like to use pdfs, so I will not be converting them.
Alright, off my rant.

History with other ereader applications:

I've been reading from epub files since the original Barnes and Nobles Nook launched in 2009. Things have changed a lot since then (for better and worse). My biggest pet peeve with all these platforms is that they lock you into their version of a book store and never allow you to include your currently library- or if they do allow sideload, it is at a disadvantage. Each of their reading apps are somewhat lacking in functionality too, one way or another.

• Kindle app is organized like social media with feeds and other nonsense I find that extremely annoying clutter to get to my book. The navigation in looking for books has infinite breadcrumbs you can't reset without hitting back a bunch of times. It's ability to do the one thing, is made unpleasant by the other forced features of integrating with Amazon.
• Apple Books lets you side load, but won't organize books by the same author or series together with ones sideloaded. You can't custom categorize books in your library without them being tied in some way to the Apple Books store view of the book.
• I've always found Google Books reader (on the iOS app) to be very ugly, and they are often the recent missing titles that I'm looking for. Man, I miss buying a ebook and getting a file. I can only do that directly supporting authors on their websites these days.

I haven't mentioned my qualm with actually buying books on these platforms either. Needless to say, I have books scattered across all the major platforms, which is why I will never get a kobo, amazon or otherwise platform affiliated e-reader and why I'm super interested in software based app solutions. I stick with iPad/iOS because it's familiar (I've had iPhones since the 3GS, and iPods even before then) and I have access to a lot of other stuff there too, jack of all trades style. Not an apple fanboy, I just hate having to change up something that's working for me already.
I have yet to find an eReader app that does everything I want, though. Besides digitally hand-writing in ebooks (which I understand is a particular challenge due to the format), I always end up trading one important feature for another. If I want an intuitive and simple interface, I have to give up customization options. If I want good organization, I have to give up proper cross device sync. If I want cloud sync I have to pray to the rain gods and light some candles. I rarely read from web since my iPad is a full laptop replacement to me, so this will all be iOS and iPadOS app perspectives.

Baseline for Comparison to BookFusion:

I have and still have to use the usual Apple Books, Kindle, Google Books and Kobo apps since my purchases are locked there for now. My latest and current app of choice was Eboox. It's made by a quiet little dev team. It's a 2 page app basically. Library view or shelf view. Some customization settings, but it has page-level Google drive based sync. Same deal, you can upload epubs super easily. I like that it shows me my most recent book at the top, and I can even download converted-to-epub fic and other comic files to this app sometimes. The big cons are that it's not very well polished: updates are slow, the shelving system is infuriating because there is no user created order enforced and since you can't re-arrange books on a shelf, tag, or otherwise subshelve books to group them you're stuck with alphabetical and recency order. On my "Worth Reading Again" shelf I'd like to have all the books from the same series sequentially. Or better yet, let me rearrange them. Annotating on this app is buggy, sometimes the note you typed won't be saved and will be open in the next note you make. The reading view navigation is glitchy and crowded. I have stuck with it because it does the thing(tm) with no forced frills and it is simple and nice to look at.
When Bookfusion came up on reddit in my search for supporting hand-written annotation it was like candy on Christmas. Plus, page level audio integration (something I never dreamed of having on mobile outside of platform lock) coming soon? Amazing. Now, I'm excited.

Initial Reaction/Onboarding:

I downloaded the app and made a quick account (not too many forced profile details too, great!), It was super easy to get started. Importing books is also quick and painless although that 10 books free limit is really nothing for someone like me *more on that later in criticisms.

What I Loved:

1. I was immediately in love with the amount of customization available for the reading view. Full color spectrum background support is awesome! I'll take an all black dark mode theme but for me, cream text and midnight blue background reign supreme for me. I don't normally mess around with the font options much but there were a lot to choose from! Big points.
2. Ability to tweak the epub files summary and meta data right in app is nuts, and incredible. Absolutely my favorite surprise perk so far, I've never had that available in a mobile app.
3. The sidebar is easy to use. I didn't love there being a store in my reading app (see my complaints about platform tying) but it is unobtrusive and I appreciate that.
4. Navigating my collection is straightforward and awesome. I prefer the info view over the gallery view since have a lot of files with no cover. Currently reading book at the top in the main screen is a feature I grew to love so I'm grateful to see it here!
5. I just about cried when I saw the color coded (And searchable!!!) tag integration. I've never had an iOS app do that. Especially on files with a large number of tags, like epubs exported from AO3. It's usually something I categorize on my own via shelves. Pretty damn awesome!
6. The text search is actually useful, God is real. I cannot explain how heinous text search has been on pretty much every where else. Being able to search/ see highlights across books is also legendary. A common note-taking feature but a very uncommon reading app feature (especially working well!)
7. Annotating the typed way (from my iPhone) is awesome. the context menu isn't too crowded, the highlighting is easy (another fully custom color palette, I'm screaming).
8. Speaking of the note view! I love that you can edit right from there without the book navigating to that page, AND you can jump there by tapping the note. Link navigation in general works well.

Nice-to-Haves that came up during use:

1. It would be nice to have the option to toggle off the book preview screen that shows after selecting a book you aren't currently reading. Most of the time, I already know what I'm reading when I open it. I'd prefer to be able view summaries or get this view via a long press on the book or from a context menu
2. I noticed that the order of tags isn't preserved, and instead tags appear alphabetically. Not a big deal, but it would be a nice to be able to preserve the order that they were imported with, and that you could priority order them. It would also help in the info view, since those top tags would be priority order too rather than whatever was closest to A.
3. I noticed that if I tap on a highlighted area I've already annotated it doesn't do anything? I would love to get an inline view of my note or at least a preview of it when I tap on the highlighted portion without going back to the edit menu to do so. Since, you can view all your notes across the book from the right sidebar menu, I can live without it but it would be a very nice to have.
4. Additionally, I don't always want to highlight AND note. It would be cool if you could have notes indicated with a accent colored underline when the passage is not highlighted. Typically, I highlight when I find the text meaningful and note when I have something to say about the content. For instance, I might highlight a stanza of poetry but not have anything to add. Or I might add a not to a passage that does not make sense to me- in that case, I'm not appreciating the writing but I do have something to say about it. Maybe this could be done by being able to preset a with a separate highlight color as default for when specifically selecting to add a note. In my view, notes that I wouldn't want literal highlighting on could be defaulted to a very gray/muted color, and then highlights remain as they are now.

Conclusion: So far I'm pretty impressed, and I know there's even more to explore with Callibre integration stuff too. Right now my central ebook library is hosted on a NAS that needs to be upgraded so it won't take me 20 minutes to download an audio book lol. I'd be interested in hosting my library on a cloud too. I also haven't tested it on ipadOS fully yet beyond the sync capabilities, but I'm already pleased with what I have seen so far in iOS
That does bring me back to the pricing though.

Criticisms

Some minor nitpicks: When I get a reading app, I'm looking for it to be completely usable offline. I think most people would agree? Why would I need to make an account before I even import a book? It feels like a lot of investment before I have even seen the app enough to decide if I will use it? It is understandable for early access but it did somewhat rub me the wrong way.
The Store. I don't love it. I wish it was out of view or something I had to open specifically rather than be in my main navigation bar. I get it, but it harkens back to platform lock.
The future social media-like features: Please, PLEASE make these optional or hideable. I hate this social-media-fication of everything these days. I don't want to be on yet another social media platform, I try to be on as little as possible of the already existing ones that you can barely escape these days. Goodreads and Storygraph already exist and I hardly want to use those. Storygraph is sticking to Goodread's original purpose which was to track your reading easily, and is the whole reason I use it. When Goodreads turned into Amazon's rendition of Bookface, I left the platform. Now it's cluttered with social media features I never wanted in the first palce. Goodreads became hard to use for it's original purpose. You have to constantly navigate away from a feed made up of people and authors I don't care about (because even if you didn't have people to put posts in your feed, they'd make you one based on recommendations and your reading lists....yay). Then the reviews were being censored, Amazon was making it difficult to remove books that were added to the platform without permission and get indie authors that actually wanted to be on there up. Sorry, I'm off track. As you can see I have a bitter attitude toward forced social media features. If the app becomes more complex to use for it's main purpose (re: Do The Thing TM) due to the social features it would ruin the whole thing for me.
The free tier: 10 books + 2 adds/deletes per day is way too low to get integrated into a new platform. I'm sure I would not have had time to consider whether I want to continue with my whole collection in Bookfusion before I reached frustration with the cap. I have at least 50 books in every eReader app I have right now, bar kindle since you can only download 10(?) at a time... but I can download and trade them as often and whenever I want- and I don't even properly OWN those titles half the time. And all of those are free and direct competition to Bookfusion.
In the free tier (without specifically enabling it), I should not be using up any cloud storage. It feels arbitrary to have this limit on the number books I can view in the app when I'm not using any services to do so. My device, that I own, with it's internal storage already holding my books that I also already own. Why am basically forced to be on a subscription to use the app realistically when the app is supposedly free? I would have rather (and happily) paid 4.99 out right to have no local storage limits, and the basic offline do the thing(tm) features. This app is better than any other e-reader I've found on the market so far so it should have a strategic advantage but it feels like I won't even get to experience that before I have to pay- under the guise that the app is free.
It's giving free trial instead of freemium and that doesn't line up with what is shown on the app store page. As it stands, I would not consider this a free app, as you can't use the basic feature set realistically without the subscription. If I only owned 10 books or would be okay to only view 10 books on rotation, I probably wouldn't be looking for something with such a robust feature set so I also feels this contradicts the goals of the market you're trying to capture. I understand pushing conversion, but this actually just scares away people who might have gotten themselves fully integrated into the platform and eventually more willingly paid for extra things one might expect, like expanded cloud storage, real time cross device sync, access to new features etc etc.
this is a bit of a soap box speech but I'm explaining what I would like to see for a subscription model Discord is a great example of freemium. The basic features that make it competitive are completely free. These features are limited to user in a reasonable manner, so that if they don't care too much about streaming in 4k or being a power user with 100+ servers, they can comfortably use the app in the free tier. When I first got on discord, it was to use servers as big archivable and searchable group chat. Much smaller than what it was capable of at the time, but had the easiest onboarding and the lowest overhead to get started. All you need is an email address, a username and an invite. Today, I've been a nitro subscriber since 2018, which is 2 years after I got started on the platform. No one I knew besides my gaming friends were on discord. Slowly, as I convinced more people to join me on the platform (I'd respond faster since I could use the web app at work), more and more of my total communication was happening on discord. Now, I happily pay monthly to have 50 more emojis to take between servers, customize my profile and push my server cap up. I also get to support the devs making a tool I use all the time and get early access to new features. I was already invested in the platform and that guaranteed I would want to continue with Discord enough to want and enjoy these extra features instead of hopping to a competitor like Telegram to start all over.
Because of the 10 book cap, there's no real incentive for me to invest time into importing all my books, making the shelves and tags I want to use, customizing the reading ui and making sure it synced over to my ipad. A casual user could have this experience: Upload 10 books immediately, be blocked from uploading more without deleting and be stuck. "What? Well that sucks, I really liked it so far." and immediately leave for other, worse apps that at least let me import my whole library. I hope this is coming off as constructive because I'm not trying to gripe about price. As I mentioned earlier, I have no problem paying for something I know I'm going to use. It just doesn't make sense for me (and when I say me, I mean the general consumer) to get on a subscription for the basic offline features of an app that I likely just got and am not sure I'll keep by that time. Only, if I don't subscribe the app at base is not very useful.
The Other Tiers: The two highest tiers are the only ones that would be useful to me, so I'm sharing my perspective on those. $10 a month isn't a lot but in the monthly sub competition space it's on the steep side. KU is $15? and I get Amazon's backlog included. This app is fundamentally and demonstrably better than any of the platform based apps, but it's not promising much recurring value in comparison to other subscription style plans. Maybe something like getting the first month for free would help? But mainly, changing between these apps requires decent front load effort on the user (to export their files from somewhere else, onto your platform) and then on top of that, you have to subscribe to read more than 10 of your own books? For me, I see it as dev support so I'm willing but others might not even try it with a limit that low.
To me, I would want to see features like the following to make $10 a month worth the value add:

• Integration with book tracking platforms like Storygraph (I hate goodreads but right now SoryGraph doesn't have the apis for it yet) and GoodReads
• Fancy Export tools for my annotations (to Excel, Google, OneNote Etc)
• Ability to view/export my reading stats by time (last month, last week etc)
• Hide social media/store/ad from sidebar and context menus. and be able to customize it with shortcuts to my most used shelves or something.
• Receive notifications about my favorite author's new books (rss feed or something)
• Strict interest/genre profiles for recommendations (for example: I'm only reading women authors writing historical fantasy this month, only show me those recs. Only recommended me Java17 manuals. Do not recommend horror novels).
• Complete data transparency. Where is my Bookfusion account data going?

But overall, I think this level of restriction will hinder the app more than it helps conversion. Please consider removing the book # (not the feature limits, only the local library size stuff) restrictions and either making the app cost money for those basic offline features or having those certain features be fully free so that the app is functional @ the free tier (and therefore, properly freemium).
I want to clarify in a quick closing note that I'm sharing this to give my perspective. This is not an official feature request or complaint or anything. I thought my onboarding experience and background with ebooks might make for an interesting take by new user but veteran e-reader.
I'd love to hear how other users feel (especially new ones) about Bookfusion and for you veterans, what keeps you using it?
Thanks!

Originally posted on https://productidentity.co/p/designing-for-a-single-purpose
If you’ve ever been to Amsterdam, you’ve probably visited, or at least heard about the famous cookie store that sells only one cookie. I mean, not a piece, but a single flavor.
I’m talking about Van Stapele Koekmakerij of course—where you can get one of the world's most delicious chocolate chip cookies. If not arriving at opening hour, it’s likely to find a long queue extending from the store’s doorstep through the street it resides. When I visited the city a few years ago, I watched the sensation myself: a nervous crowd awaited as the rumor of ‘out of stock’ cookies spreaded across the line.
The store, despite becoming a landmark for tourists, stands for an idea that seems to be forgotten in our culture: crafting for a single purpose.
In the tech scene where I’m coming from, and which you might too, this approach is often perceived as singular, and not in its positiveness. We’ve been taught to go big or go home—raise millions in funding, build a big company, hire more and more employees, and hope for the desired exit.
Anything less is considered a mind of a failure.
From a personal perspective I’ve seen this attitude in almost every branding session I ran with startup founders. Again and again, they struggled to distill their primary focus. Moreover, when discussing competitors, it often seemed their startup competed in every possible field.
In a way, that fear of committing reflects the human nature of FOMO—deliberately giving up on something(s) and experiencing the potential loss of other benefits.
This mindset has also seeped into our collective body of work, especially in software. A product, which often starts as a weird small creature, gradually evolves into a multi-arm octopus, which sadly became the norm for VCware.
And so we’ve been left with bloated, bigger, and… worse software.
The idea of maintaining a small scope in product has already appeared in my writing in various forms; in niche product design I explored the effect of growth on design; and in defense of Twitter, I wrote about the bloated era of incumbent culture. But in between there seems to be a different attitude that not many choose to embrace, which like in Van Stapele’s case, seeks a real purpose.

Going back to basics as a way to find purpose

In a tweet posted a few months ago, Jeff Sheldon described his renewed approach to photography after getting a new camera. It enlightened my eyes.
I’m not a professional photographer, and never been. But my beloved Canon 700D still serves me often while traveling. Besides learning about ISO and shutter speed settings, being familiar with the mechanics of a DSLR camera has also introduced me to the practice of shooting photos in RAW format, which means capturing photos at the highest quality level.
But the super heavy file format marks only the start of the process in modern photography. The rest belongs to the post-processing act: the daunting work of polishing, enhancing, and fixing images.
When I returned from vacation, I hoped to edit my captures. Then I noticed something weird. When comparing my photos to some stunning photos I saw online, it seemed like my camera output wasn’t as good as those shared photos. In doubt of my gear I then, again, noticed something I should have probably known: it wasn’t about the camera, but the editing.
I realized professional-made photos were overly edited, often detached from their original conditions. It appeared that what you see isn’t what you get.
I wondered, has photography become an art of photo manipulation?
To respectful photographers, this might appear like a false accusation. The time spent sitting in front of the photo editor is at the heart of many camera enthusiasts. After all, that’s why a camera is set to shoot in raw.
But this potential debate triggers a more profound question: what’s the purpose of all this thing, to find the perfect angle or color filter?
Despite being somewhat contradicting with modern photography philosophy, I find “going back to basics”, as Jeff described, to reflect the same spirit as of Van Stapele—a devotion to a very minded process. No editing. No over-complication. Working only in one mode, and for the sake of it.
At first glance, Van Stapele’s laser-focused outlook might seem detached from tech and other mass-production industries. But there’s a line that can be drawn between the Dutch cookie store to some other products which makes them all distinct:

• You can only read e-books with a Kindle.
• There’s no app store on the Light Phone.
• You’ll mostly find waterproof apparel in a Rains store.
• The Bic pen has remained untouched for almost 70 years.
• The design of Are.na remained the same for more than 12 years.

Whilst not every product mentioned above is hard-core focused like Van Stapele, the pattern is clear: an intentional commitment to a single purpose—either as a life philosophy, by using specific materials, or a deliberate design. And it also feels more appreciable when succeeding that way.
Some might call out a gimmick, while others appreciate the care for deep focus, which both are understandable. Finding the perfect recipe for the perfect cookie, and then committing to selling only that can be novel or a trick in marketing—depends on who you ask. But as I will stretch out from now on, I choose novelty.
We started with very minimal and basic products, aimed to serve only one simple job. A car to get from point A to B, a telephone to communicate with others, and a watch to check the time (perhaps the last analog device to serve human beings). But then many of our mundane artifacts have become more of a Swiss knife rather than just being exceptional in one form. We’re now drowning in oceans of product suites, both in the digital and physical worlds.

The bloated culture

In software, this trajectory is no different. Furthermore, it’s on steroids.
Despite “Do one thing well” being common advice for people building products in tech, it fails to hold water in the long run. Temptations are far too many to build and launch new stuff. Here’s Dropbox, a famous example of software turned bloated, in the words of DHH of 37signals:

Over the years, Dropbox has tried a million different things to juice upsells, seat expansions, and other ways to move the needle. There’s been a plethora of collaboration features (when all the collab I ever need is those magic links to files I can send over any wire!) and more and more pushy prompts to, say, move pictures and videos straight from the camera into the cloud. Along with pleas not to store the files I have in the system on my local computers (presumably so the transfer costs they pay are less). It’s exhausting.
I just want to pay for the original premise: All my files synched between all my computers, with a backup in the sky. That’s a beautifully, simply solution to a surprisingly difficult problem. And Dropbox absolutely nailed it.
Finished software

Back in its heyday, Dropbox was simple. A classic piece of software. Its purpose was to allow people to store and share files on the cloud effortlessly—either from a computer or mobile device. It was straightforward. Even its homepage was simple. There were no bells and whistles. It was designed to serve… a single purpose.
But as with VCware, things have started to shift gears. Amid Google Drive's popularity, the “drop-to-the-box” identity started to blur as the product offering expanded.. and expanded. It seemed like Dropbox’s purpose became more generic and less focused.
Another resentment that ignited a storm in the design community occurred when the company announced a brand redesign a few years ago. In a way that act marked the shift in the company’s direction, bringing unclarity to its customers. The cynicism of Brand New's audience also made its review post one of the most popular that year.
The novel idea that was executed so well has followed the same growth patterns of the tech bubble—as I wrote in Niche product design:

As companies grow, they gradually move from a state of fan-only to a state of a product for everyone. During this transition, dramatic changes occur, as the drive to satisfy more audiences and increase revenue. But eventually, this shift harms the core of the product. It becomes scattered, and the brand turns into a gigantic octopus, leaving people questioning its purpose and values.

An email client, a note-taking tool, and a Photos-like app are only part of what Dropbox has been involved with over the years.
Today Dropbox is seemingly much more than a storage cloud service. It’s also a video reviewer (if there’s such a term at all), a Loom competitor, and a document e-sign tool. However, at its core, Dropbox is still a company selling terabytes on the cloud.
Yet Dropbox might be just a drop in the ocean. A symptom of a bloated culture in modern software. To better understand this bloat-mania, let’s look at one of its kingpins, and a company of which Dropbox is valued at 0.003% of its worth: Apple. And what’s a better example than one of its greatest products of all time, the iPhone?
Launched in 2007, the innovative touch-screen device had only essential features like phone calls, and text messaging among other luxuries like a camera, an internet browser, a weather, and a stock app. The peak of technology at the time.
In 2008, a year after the first iPhone release, Apple introduced the App Store, which was the catalyst for entering the smartphone era while unleashing a tidal wave of apps.
Fast forward to 2014, and the iPhone got an upgrade in the form of a multi-model release, with the launch of the iPhone 6 Plus. The trend expanded and Apple gradually added different shapes and names to the iPhone line: Plus, Pro, Pro Max, alongside other discontinued model names. This doctrine has been applied to many of Apple’s products—the iPad, Macbook, and Watch. Some got bigger, smaller, or faster. In a materialized world, I wouldn’t be surprised if the iPhone got bigger only to store more functions.
But perhaps the greatest archetype of Apple’s transition to bloated products was the iPod. The next-level MP3 (or 4?) essence was simple—to carry music on the road. Nothing more. But then Apple gave the iPod a life of its own, as it eventually became an iPhone replication, just without a SIM card.
The iPod (especially the non-touch model) is still dear to many Apple (non-)fansbois. The beloved product was designed entirely around the music experience. Before music streaming services took over the industry, people manually entered song metadata: the title, artist name, and of course—the holy album artwork. The hurdles of iTunes made this a daunting task, but iPod users found joy in this craft.
As a standalone product, disconnected from other functions, the iPod was a true single-purpose product.

In more recent times

What would happen if Van Stapele decided to add more flavors or open other branches? Probably nothing. Maybe its profits even increase. But the Valrhona chocolate-made cookie store icon will be losing its artisanal identity. Specialty and quality aren't determined by size.
In a more familiar case, we can look no further than the platform that hosts these very own words—Substack. Since the announcement of Notes, Substackers have shared concerns about the direction the platform is heading.
Substack’s original purpose, to some, was to highlight great writing while making writers a living. Now with the seeming transition for eyeballs and short-form content attention, Substack is being questioned whether modern social network dynamics are taking over it.
To close this social network loop—Twitter has been a good executer at designing for a single purpose until it wasn’t, largely by the decision of going for a longform direction alongside launching questionable features. For years Twitter sanctified the quirky 140-then-280-characters limit while establishing a new internet medium. Those recent announcements made by its new execs are ripping off its identity, slowly but surely. By adding more purposes to this platform design, Substack risks going down a similar path, jeopardizing its writer's soul.

Drinking beers and building businesses in Japan

If I were raised in Japan I may not understand what this turmoil is all about. The renowned business heritage in Japan is an oasis in the never-ending capitalistic desert:

Japan’s startup climate has often been criticized for being sluggish, perhaps because a culture that promotes business longevity also cultivates a fear of failure. Now, however, ‘startup’ and ‘atotsugi’ are words spoken in the same sentence, as today’s leaders finally feel permitted to apply entrepreneurial lessons to traditional companies to ensure their legacy continues. Why Japan is home to the world’s oldest businesses

Japan is located on the other side of the earth, and its business culture values seem too. In a Western society of hyper-everything, which characterizes the move-fast-and-break-things startup ethos, the far island culture is way more cautious. Instead of financial logic, which might seem irrational, the ‘shinise’ tradition cultivates sacred values such as continuous improvement, longevity, and care for quality. It’s an extremely long-term game.

In Japan, more than 52,000 companies are more than a century old. Why Japan is home to the world’s oldest businesses

Japan is probably the largest home for centuries-old businesses, in varied fields from sake producers, to hotels and construction companies. This fact is much attributed to how generations of Japanese aspire to keep businesses running in the family. But as in the words of Yusuke Tsuen, the current owner of Tsuen Tea, the key to sustaining a shinise is to focus only on one thing:

“We’ve focused on tea and haven’t expanded the business too much,” he says. “That’s why we’re surviving.” Why so many of the world’s oldest companies are in Japan, Bryan Lufkin

In The Price of Immortality, Rohit Krishnan concluded the same:

The conclusion of this little digression has been to find common grounds amongst the most long lived organisations, and turns out you need to be a particular type of company: Extreme dedication to doing one thing well

But the Japanese business heritage isn’t the last and only resort from bloat-ism. The next time you drink beer, think about this:
Weihenstephan is considered to be the oldest brewery in the world, founded in 1040, more than a thousand years ago. And we don’t need to travel this far back. Other European breweries like Tuborg (1873) and Heineken (1864) are over 150 years old.
Van Honsebrouck, the brewery that produces the famous Kasteel Rouge was founded in 1865 and is still owned by the same family.

The brewery is still owned and operated by the family, now the seventh generation of van Honsebrouck brewers in Ingelmunster. James Clay

Breweries have developed more tastes and flavors over the years, but they’ve been all operating for a single purpose for decades and hundreds of years: to craft beers.

What might come next?

A real shinise is rare in tech. Focusing on a single purpose often seems boring, a narrowed view, or a lack of ambition to some. But I find it invigorating. A long-lasting design can be timeless and unique.
Do we really want to carry our stress, depression, and fears everywhere we go? Don’t we want to feel disconnected from time to time? Then why the heck do we carry our mobile phones everywhere we go, even to entertain ourselves in the toilet? And not to mention the germs.
Would this all happen if we were using a cell phone that’s just designed to make phone calls? This is actually what the Light Phone founders realized a decade ago:

What does it do? Nothing. You put in a SIM card, press a few buttons, and make a call. There’s no browser. No games. No NFC. It has quick dial, which is nice, and it doubles as a flashlight. The Light Phone Is The Anti-Smartphone, John Biggs

I may get carried away from the main idea of this essay, but that’s in part why I think designing for a single purpose is so important. The purpose of many products and artifacts has gone lost. Beyond the seeming gimmick, building for a single purpose reflects an understanding of what a thing is meant to be, and serve.
We’ve reached a point where focusing seems like spinning one's wheels, instead of appreciating the deep care of it.
And perhaps going back to basics is inevitable. When I’m reading on my Kindle I don’t get bothered by WhatsApp messages, or get interrupted by an incoming call. I’m not being tempted to do something else. I’m just focused on the act of reading.
As Devon tweeted a few years back: “When using my cellphone, I tend to become a passive consumer of the internet.” This also resonates well with the idea of this whole long text but from a slightly different angle. Using a multi-purpose product increases my distraction level, as I consume more things in the background.
Using a product that was designed for a single purpose brings back joy. It removes all the unnecessities and emphasizes an experience essence in a calmer environment, and with a real purpose.
Unlike photography, what you see is what you get.
​

SO- I have some old iPods! 2 that are iPod classics (A1238), and an iPod nano (A1320) I really wanted to start them up again and add some music to them! At first they all hooked up fine and synced to the itunes store fine. NOW THOUGH- my iPod nano will not light up or show up in itunes (it does make the little sound that is is connected though when I plug it in) I had restarted it as I wanted to just give it a fresh start and then it started doing that. Though,,, as I was restarting it the itunes store froze and just kinda kicked the whole thing out- I don't know if it really got to finish rebooting. And like- twice before it stopped showing anything at all, it said the drivers had an error, so I scanned them and after that it said nothing was detected, so I ejected and let it set to try again. Now it doesn't show up at all :< Then one of the classics (it's white with 120 GB on it) will power on and works but it reset and it says like, ALL the storage is being taken up by "other" and when I open apple music it completely freezes- and it won't let me eject it. I had to just go ahead and unplug it and then the app will close. Then once I do that it pretty much resets again- has me choose a language and does the same thing. The last classic (a black 160 GB) seems to be doing fine BUT I can't add music files like I used to- it also freezes the app and I can't eject it. So far it still has all its music and I REALLY don't want to accidentally erase anything on it (as it was my moms, and both of my sisters before it was mine- they like to look at the old music too- the white one already reset and I don't know why or how X[ ) So- any ideas? I am absolutely FLOORED. I also checked to make sure my itunes was up to date and it is. I don't expect an easy answer but any advice is appreciated to maybe help fix them? I'm not the most tech savvy but I'm always willing to learn lol- so if any of you guys know anything I'd definitely be grateful! In the mean time I'll continue to search files for any problems and try and Google a solution! X] If you want any more details let me know and I'll happily give em' to you!

My wife has an iPod touch that is functionally bricked: the security questions were set up when she was in middle school and the answers are lost to time. She’s attempted roughly 100-150 combinations. The email associated with the Apple ID is also inaccessible. Apple has stated they cannot do anything about it. It contains photos of her now-passed grandma and her brother when she was a baby, so she’s made sure to keep the physical iPod in good condition. The only hope I can think of at this point would be to manually hack it, but I’m not even sure if that is possible nowadays. Any thoughts on what to do or how to find a white hat would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I'm basing this off of https://www.reddit.com/ipod/s/huoAXZj8iz
So I've seen people using multiple slots for uSD cards for storage. Has anyone added ZFS support to any custom OSes so you can set up a RAIDZ1 array? That would make upgrading storage so easy. Just swap cards out and let ZFS handle the rest.
Here's my thought: if you put four 32GB cards in there as a RAIDZ1 array (presumably they're loop-formatted as ZFS; that means no partition table) then you have 96GB of storage and can just swap one out. RAIDZ2 would mean you have 64GB of storage and is effectively dual mirroring (but actually striping). RAIDZ3 is just a perfect mirror across all four.
With no redundancy, you'll have to manually redistribute files in some way, and that'll be a pain. But then upgrading storage is almost instantaneous (to my knowledge, a RAIDZ pool is only as big as the smallest drive if it couldn't handle any more failures. So a RAIDZ1 pool is only as big as three of the smallest drive); all capacity is immediately available. But you lose some of the automation aspect.
Now here's a question: how would you suggest a UI to manage ZFS on an iPod? A question for another day, I suppose...
Anyway, if this isn't a thing, where are the GitHub (or whatever) repos for iPod custom OSes? I want to make this happen so badly 🤓

It is our great pleasure to announce that Ayziak is our Photographer of the Week. This accolade has been awarded based upon the number of votes during week 15, with this post having received the most when searching by top submission: https://www.reddit.com/analog/comments/1c06tz0/what_are_we_going_to_do_hasselblad_503_cx_portra/

• How long have you been taking photographs?

Haha depends how you count it- the interest in photography started in middle school when I first got an iPod Touch with a camera, but I picked up digital photography more seriously somewhere between then and high school. I then got my first film camera, a Minolta SR-T 200 in the 11th grade or so. I’m 23 now, so short answer, call it roughly 10 years?

• Why do you take photographs? What are you looking to get out of it?

There’s really something to the chase in photography. The idea that the defining image of your career is just around the next corner. Given that, my real passion in photography is portraiture, and in broader life, connecting with people. There’s really something special to getting to make someone look good in an image, and feel good about themselves.

• What inspired you to take this photo?

I was travelling with friends to see the eclipse and knew I wanted to capture it on film, but as options for medium format telephoto lenses thinned in the days leading up to the event I was hit with a specific vision for an alternate idea. I sketched it out on paper and was so excited that I called my friend at work to tell him my plan.

• Do you self develop or get a lab to process your film?

A little of both! In addition to my other jobs I actually work at a lab so I can run the film myself (though am often busy and hand it off to a tech haha). I do also develop B&W at home on occasion for fun.

• What first interested you in analog photography?

When I found that Minolta SR-T 200 with a handful of lenses for $50 on a local buy & sell site, I had only planned to get it as a prop for an upcoming high school project. Upon purchase however, I discovered a half-used roll of film from the seller's late father from at least 20 years prior. Wanting to be able to return any potential images to the family, I took it as an opportunity to try out the medium and finished the remaining ten exposures on the roll before getting it processed. On receiving the images back, I was struck by how both the old images and my own new frames on the roll appeared equally timeless in nature. The colours and grain pulled together the years, all made uniquely tangible by the light leaks and degradation of the film from sitting in the camera for so long. This tangibility stuck with me, and in combination with the gratitude and encouragement I received from the previous owner's daughter, whose photos I was able to return, I purchased another roll of film and continued to learn the camera. Now it depends on how much you want to attribute to the beauty and history of these tools and how much you want to attribute to a rather obsessive personality on my part, but that first exposure set in motion what would become the analog medium's effect on my career and life as a whole.

• What is your favourite piece of equipment (camera, film, or other) and why?

Oh my god this is such a tough one to answer. I have several cameras I adore. The Rolleiflex is the perfect tool for both starting conversations on the street and then capturing striking portraits. The 105mm lens on the Pentax 6x7 makes scenes look like nothing else. Though, if I could only pick one camera for the rest of my life, it would have to be the Hasselblad. I currently have a 503 CX but anything in the 500 series. It is just the perfect blend of iconic history, and perfect function still nearly 70 years later.

• Do you have a tip or technique that other film photographers should try?

Don’t worry too much about exposure - I see so many people obsessing over zones and matrix metering, but modern print films can capture so much dynamic range that you can just dial in a touch of overexposure for safety and be there in the moment :)

• Do you have a link to more of your work or an online portfolio you would like to share?

Yes please! My portraiture work I’m most proud of is at https://aidansamuels.com/portfolio - it’s all mostly analog as well!

• Do you have a favourite analog photographer or analog photography web site you would like to recommend?

Oh I have so many, but if I had to pick just one, I am always amazed by what Jake Wangner does with his images so uniquely. https://jakewangner.com/portfolio/ - his newer work is good too but to see the real example of what I’m talking about, I’d scroll down to his older series Alone Together from 2020 or so, as well as his album cover artwork.

• Is there anything else you would like to add about yourself or your photography?

Oh I could talk about photography for way too long, so I’ll just say thank you to the users of analog for appreciating my image enough to get me here!

Looking for some help with this as it is quite a strange situation, I'm planning on moving from Android to iOS so I'm trying to log into my old Apple ID that I used with an old iPod touch. Looking back in my old emails, I had a number of emails from Apple 5 years ago. The first email being that I had purchased a game from the app store which I know was not me as I didn't have any Apple devices at the time. Secondly and after the game purchase email there was with a password change link along with a subsequent email saying my password had been changed, all without any input from me.
Fast forward to now, I have requested a password change link which I subsequently followed to reset my password. With the updated password, I was able to log in to my Apple ID through a web browser however I'm unable to reset my security questions as I can't provide sufficient information according to the on screen message. After an hour or so, in quite a freaky development, I noticed that my Apple ID password had been changed as I checked it on Google Password Manager however I did not receive any email notification for this. I changed the password once again and it seems to be ok now however it would not surprise me if it gets changed again.
I would imagine that I should just dump this Apple ID as it seems like someone has access to it but even more worryingly it seems that someone may have access to my emails as I'd assume that passwords could only be changed via email link? I had nothing of note on my Apple ID anyway so I don't really mind setting up a new one when my iPhone arrives however I would like to keep everything on my same email if possible. If anybody would know how I could secure my account or whether it is a lost cause then it would be much appreciated!

If you are relatively new to making music then you'll probably be familiar with this story.
You stumbled your way around mixing something that sounds more or less like music (not before having watched countless youtube tutorials in which you learned many terrible rules of thumb). And at the end of this process you are left wondering: How loud should my music be in order to release it?
You want a number. WHAT'S THE NUMBER you cry at the sky in a Shakespearean pose while holding a human skull in your hand to accentuate the drama.
And I'm here to tell you that's the wrong question to ask, but by now you already looked up an answer to your question and you've been given a number: -14 LUFS.
You breathe a sigh of relief, you've been given a number in no uncertain terms. You know numbers, they are specific, there is no room for interpretation. Numbers are a warm safe blanket in which you can curl underneath of.
Mixing is much more complex and hard than you thought it would be, so you want ALL the numbers, all the settings being told to you right now so that your misery can end. You just wanted to make a stupid song and instead it feels like you are now sitting at a NASA control center staring at countless knobs and buttons and graphs and numbers that make little sense to you, and you get the feeling that if you screw this up the whole thing is going to be ruined. The stakes are high, you need the freaking numbers.
Yet now you submitted your -14 LUFS master to streaming platforms, ready to bask in all the glory of your first musical publication, and maybe you had the loudness normalization disabled, or you gave it a listen on Spotify's web player which has no support for loudness normalization. You are in shock: Compared to all the other pop hits your track is quiet AF. You panic.
You feel betrayed by the number, you thought the blanket was supposed to be safe. How could this be, even Spotify themselves recommend mastering to -14 LUFSi.

The cold truth

Here is the cold truth: -14 LUFS is quiet. Most commercial releases of rock, pop, hip hop, edm, are louder than that and they have been louder than that for over 20 years of digital audio, long before streaming platforms came into the picture.

The Examples

Let's start with some hand-picked examples from different eras, different genres, ordered by quietest to loudest.
LUFSi = LUFS integrated, meaning measured across the full lenght of the music, which is how streaming platforms measure the loudness of songs.

• Jain - Makeba (Album Version, 2015) = -13.2 LUFSi
• R.E.M. - At My Most Beautiful (1998) = -12.2 LUFSi
• Massive Attack - Pray for Rain (2010) = -11.4 LUFSi
• Peter Gabriel - Growing Up (2002) = -10.5 LUFSi
• Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood (2001) = -10.1 LUFSi
• Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - In Motion (2010) = -10.0 LUFSi
• Zero 7 - Mr. McGee (2009) = -9.8 LUFSi
• If The World Should End in Fire (2003) = -9.1 LUFSi
• Taylor Swift - Last Christmas (2007) = -8.6 LUFSi
• Madonna - Ghosttown (2015) = -8.6 LUFSi
• Björk - Hunter (1997) = -8.6 LUFSi
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Black Summer (2022) = -8.1 LUFSi
• The Black Keys - Lonely Boy = -7.97 LUFSi
• Junun - Junun (2015) = -7.9 LUFSi
• Coldplay - My Universe (2021) = -7.8 LUFSi
• Wolfmother - Back Round (2009) = -7.7 LUFSi
• Taylor Swift - New Romantics (2014) = -7.6 LUFSi
• Paul McCartney - Fine Line (2005) = -7.5 LUFSi
• Taylor Swift - You Need To Calm Down (2019) = -7.4 LUFSi
• Doja Cat - Woman (2021) = -7.4 LUFSi
• Ariana Grande - Positions (2021) = -7.3 LUFSi
• Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - Immigrant Song (2012) = -6.7 LUFSi
• Radiohead - Bloom (2011) = -6.4 LUFSi
• Dua Lipa - Levitating (2020) = -5.7 LUFSi

Billboard Year-End Charts Hot 100 Songs of 2023

1. Last Night - Morgan Wallen = -8.2 LUFSi
2. Flowers - Miley Cyrus = -7.2 LUFSi
3. Kill Bill - SZA = -7.4 LUFSi
4. Anti-Hero - Taylor Swift = -8.6 LUFSi
5. Creepin' - Metro Boomin, The Weeknd & 21 Savage = -6.9 LUFSi
6. Calm Down - Rema & Selena Gomez = -7.9 LUFSi
7. Die For You - The Weeknd & Ariana Grande = -8.0 LUFSi
8. Fast Car - Luke Combs = -8.6 LUFSi
9. Snooze - SZA = -9.4 LUFSi
10. I'm Good (Blue) - David Guetta & Bebe Rexha = -6.5 LUFSi

So are masters at -14 LUFSi or quieter BAD?

NO. There is nothing inherently good or bad about either quiet or loud, it all depends on what you are going for, how much you care about dynamics, what's generally expected of the kind of music you are working on and whether that matters to you at all.
For example, by far most of classical music is below -14 LUFSi. Because they care about dynamics more than anyone else. Classical music is the best example of the greatest dynamics in music ever. Dynamics are 100% baked into the composition and completely present in the performance as well.
Some examples:
Complete Mozart Trios (Trio of piano, violin and cello) Album • Daniel Barenboim, Kian Soltani & Michael Barenboim • 2019

• Spotify
• Youtube Music
• Apple Music

Tracks range from -22.51 LUFSi to -17.22 LUFSi.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 "Choral" (Full symphony orchestra with sections of vocal soloists and choir) Album • Wiener Philharmoniker & Andris Nelsons • 2019

• Spotify
• Youtube Music
• Apple Music

Tracks range from -28.74 LUFSi to -14.87 LUFSi.
Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 38-41 (Full symphony orchestra) Album • Scottish Chamber Orchestra & Sir Charles Mackerras • 2008

• Spotify
• Youtube Music
• Apple Music

Tracks range from -22.22 LUFSi to -13.53 LUFSi.
On My New Piano (Solo piano) Album • Daniel Barenboim • 2016

• Spotify
• Youtube Music
• Apple Music

Tracks range from -30.75 LUFSi to -19.66 LUFSi.

Loudness normalization is for THE LISTENER

Before loudness normalization was adopted, you would put together a playlist on your streaming platform (or prior to that on your iPod or computer with mp3s), and there would often be some variation in level from song to song, especially if you had some older songs mixed in with some more modern ones, those jumps in level could be somewhat annoying.
Here comes loudness normalization. Taking a standard from European broadcasting, streaming platforms settled on the LUFS unit to normalize all tracks in a playlist by default, so that there are no big jumps in level from song to song. That's it! That's the entire reason why streaming platforms adopted LUFS and why now LUFS are a thing for music.
LUFS were invented in 2011, long after digital audio was a reality since the 80s. And again, they weren't made for music but for TV broadcasts (so that the people making commercials wouldn't crank up their levels to stand out).
And here we are now with people obsessing over the right LUFS just to publish a few songs.

There are NO penalties

One of the biggest culprits in the obsession with LUFS, is a little website called "loudness penalty" (not even gonna link to it, that evil URL is banned from this sub), in which you can upload a song and it would turn it down in the same way the different platforms would.
An innocent, good natured idea by mastering engineer Ian Shepherd, which backfired completely by leading inexperienced people to start panicking about the potential negative implications of incurring into a penalty due to having a master louder than -14 LUFSi.
Nothing wrong happens to your loud master, the platforms DO NOT apply dynamic range reduction (ie: compression). THEY DO NOT CHANGE YOUR SIGNAL.
The only thing they do, is what we described above, they adjust volume (which again, changes nothing to the signal) for the listener's convenience.

Why does my mix sound QUIETER when normalized?

One very important aspect of this happens when comparing your amateur production, to a professional production, level-matched: all the shortcomings of your mix are exposed. Not just the mix, but your production, your recording, your arrangement, your performance.
It all adds up to something that is perceived as standing out over your mix.
The second important aspect is that there can be a big difference between trying to achieve loudness at the end of your mix, vs maximizing the loudness of your mix from the ground up.
Integrated LUFS is a fairly accurate way to measure perceived loudness, as in perceived by humans. I don't know if you've noticed, but human hearing is far from being an objective sound level meter. Like all our senses (and the senses of all living things), they have evolved to maximize the chances of our survival, not for scientific measurements.
LUFS are pretty good at getting close to how we humans perceive loudness, but it's not perfect. That means that two different tracks could be at the same integrated LUFS and one of them is perceived to be bit louder than the other. Things like distortion, saturation, harmonic exciters, baked into a mix from the ground up, can help maximize a track for loudness (if that matters to you).

If it's all going to end up normalized to -14 LUFS eventually, shouldn't you just do it yourself?

If you've read everything here so far, you already know that LUFS are a relatively new thing, that digital audio in music has been around for much longer and that the music industry doesn't care at all about LUFS. And that absolutely nothing wrong happens to your mix when turned down due to loudness normalization.
That said, let's entertain this question, because it does come up.
The first incorrect assumption is that ALL streaming platforms normalize to -14 LUFSi. Apple Music, for instance, normalizes to -16 LUFSi. And of course, any platform could decide to change their normalization target at any time.
YouTube Music (both the apps and the music.youtube.com website) doesn't do loudness normalization at all.
The Spotify web player and third party players, don't do loudness normalization. So in all these places (plus any digital downloads like in Bandcamp), your -14 LUFSi master of a modern genre, would be comparatively much quieter than the rest.

SO, HOW LOUD THEN?

As loud or as quiet as you want! Some recommendations:

1. Forget about LUFS and meters, and waveforms. It's completely normal for tracks in an album or EP to all measure different LUFS, and streaming platforms will respect the volume relationship between tracks when playing a full album/EP.
2. Study professional references to hear how loud music similar to what you are mixing is.
3. Learn to understand and judge loudness with nothing but your ears.
4. Set a fixed monitoring level using a loud reference as the benchmark for what's the loudest you can tolerate, this includes all the gain stages that make up your monitoring's final level.
5. If you are going to use a streaming platform, make sure to disable loudness normalization and set the volume to 100%.

The more time you spend listening to music with those fixed variables in place, the sooner digital audio loudness will just click for you without needing to look at numbers.

TLDR

• -14 LUFSi is quiet for modern genres, it has been since the late 90s, long before the LUFS unit was invented.
• All of modern music is louder than -14 LUFSi, often louder than -10 LUFSi.
• There are NO penalties for having a master louder than -14 LUFSi. Nothing bad is happening to your music.
• Loudness normalization is for the LISTENER. So don't worry about it.
• The mixes which you perceive as louder than yours when normalized, is likely a reaction to overall better mixes, better productions made by far more experienced people.

The long long coming (and requested) wiki article is finally here: https://www.reddit.com/mixingmastering/wiki/-14-lufs-is-quiet

I think about this a lot, especially in relation to phone policies. I was born in 1994. My device timeline was this: 7ish we had a small desktop I could share with my brother. 11 I got an MP3 player. 13 I got a desktop in my bedroom that was pretty heavily monitored by my parents. 14 I had a phone. 15ish I got an ipod touch. 19 a laptop and ipad for college. 20, my first smartphone.
So I wasn't without internet, but I didn't have full access for most of my childhood. I couldn't just pull out my phone and play a game. And my most common memory of a being a kid was being bored. I had a brother and the two of us would mostly play pretend, go outside, dress up, and even play with toys. I read constantly, I would spend hours in my room reading. I didn't put this in there but when I was 10ish I got a digital camera and it was all I wanted for Christmas for a year. It didn't even take video it would probably cost like $30 now. Boredom was a huge motivator for me. I was constantly creating, solving problems, going out to discover new things, because I didn't want to be bored.
I feel like this was a universal experience. My mom also felt bored a lot as a kid to the point she told us that if she said she was bored her parents would make her chop firewood. I feel like boredom is the brain's need to seek new things, it is the thing that makes you get up and learn.
But now, kids never seem to be bored. They have literally an entire universe in their pockets. And unlike handheld games that we had as kids they have unlimited options. My family had a playstation and a wii and my brother played video games all the time, but even then he had to figure stuff out all the time. He couldn't just look up how to win. He had to play his way through it.
I feel like my students literally cannot handle a single second of boredom. It doesn't even register to them that they're on their phone to avoid a ten second wait for someone to pass out papers. I've worked with kids on the autism spectrum too and I've noticed those kids are often effected the most. And while a lot of places talk about social media I feel like there is an epidemic of idle games. Especially with boys they play games that are barely interactive. It's usually just pressing a button and leveling up. Sometimes they play something online together like paper.io or shellshockers but more often than not it's something very passive, just setting it on autopilot and leveling up. It's not substantial. I once trued to explain the productive struggle to a kid by asking him if he ever had tobpractice to get good at a video game. He literally told me that he just looks up how to win. And if he can't win he just moves to a different game. It's all rewards.
How are you seeing this play out at your schools? Do you think the lack of boredom is hurting our kids? Do you think idle games are a problem too?

Think you know a thing or two from your generation? Then have we got an event for you! Come join us Friday April 12 for a FREE trivia competition. This is not just any trivia competition though so you will need to build your team of 6 or less very, very carefully. Questions will be targeted at Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z so you will want to vary the age range of your team (18+ only) to have a better shot at getting the questions right. A good team mix should consist of those who listened to music on 8 tracks, cassettes, ipods and smartphones! No biggie if you don’t have a full team, just show up and we can help match those who need more teammates. Even though this is a FREE event we will have prizes awarded for the first-place team!
The doors will open at 6 and there will be TACO BAR set-up and available for $10. You heard me, a TACO BAR in Marlow! Snowstorms, Eclipses and now a Taco Bar! What an amazing April! You know we are going to have some killer desserts as well! As always, coffee is free, and we will have various sodas and bottled water available to purchase. This is a BYOB event so feel free to bring your preferred beverage if you are over 21!
The questions are going to start at 7ish or once everyone has their food and teams settled. Want a taste of what to expect?
World of Warcraft also has several references to other video games. An item 'The Gunblade' and a flower merchant 'Aerith Primrose' (referencing Aerith Gainsborough), along with several Norse gods appear in which Square Enix game (series)?
The quest 'The Green Hills of Stranglethorn', the achievements 'Hills Like White Elekk' and 'The Old Gnome and the Sea', along with the quest giver 'Hemet Nesingwary' are all cultural references to which famous storyteller?
As a part of the quest 'The Nefarious Clam Master K', Clam Master K must be defeated. This is a reference to the late Jam-Master Jay who was the DJ of which hip hop group?
The quest 'This One Time, When I Was Drunk' is a reference to which 1999 comedy movie starring Jason Biggs and Alyson Hannigan?
How’d you do?! Yeah me too! You can see the importance of stacking your team with different ages so dust off your grandparent or grandchild, elderly neighbor or some neighborhood gamer and get your trivia face on! The only thing you need to bring is a cool team name, lame names will be penalized 3 points right from the get go.
See you there!!!!
​
Details!
Marlow Odd Fellows
5 Church St
Marlow, NH

I'm on windows and got an iPod touch from 2007, iTunes is being buggy as hell, and I keep having to use task manager to close it, it keeps telling me to set up an apple music plan and I'm tired of it, any ideas on how to get music on a 2007 iPod touch on windows 11 WITHOUT iTunes?

Hi everyone! I just joined, and I'm happy to be here. Hope there is some great advice to be had. Like many, I'm looking for the next step up. Here's my current stable in order of how much I use them: Apple iPods Pro gen 2 Bose QC35 gen1 Sony WH-1000 XM2 Thinksound USP1 iem
I've been wanting a set of serious headphones for a long time. I'm about to finish grad school and family is asking for gift ideas, so it seems a perfect opportunity. :) Budget is sub $1K. I have a pretty good ear, I used to be a submarine sonar technician in the US Navy, and I really want a balanced, neutral set of headphones with the highest affordable accuracy. What I have is pretty pleasing sounding, but I know all are exaggerating the bass quite a bit, especially the Bose. The most neutral of what I have now are the thinksound iems, but I have to admit that in the modern world I don't often used wired headsets anymore, no matter how nice they sound. My opinion could change for something with a nice long, heavy duty, soft, coiled cord, preferably removable and able to fit old style 1/4" stereo connectors. I'm usually listening either in a comfy chair in my living room next to my hifi stack, or in front of my computer. As for power, I have a little chi-fi tube preamp that will work at my desk. I'm open to buying a real DAC/preamp for headphone use if called for. I've also picked up a great old Yamaha CX-630 preamp that I'd like to plug into when I want it loud but don't want to annoy the wife. As for sources, I mostly stream from apple using a Sonos Connect or computer. I really enjoy vinyl for the ritual and have a nice turntable with lots of LPs. I've recently acquired some (lower) audiophile grade stuff including a Sony ES series cd player and tape deck, each of which has headphone jacks and dedicated volume control integrated. Be nice to have that as an option.
As for music (be kind, please) Favorite bands are The War on Drugs, The National, Pink Floyd, and Genesis, probably in that order. Other beloved artists in no particular order: Peter Gabriel (listening to I/O while writing this), Tears for Fears, Taylor Swift (screw you all, Midnights, Folklore, and Evermore are awesome), Neil Young, Yes, Rush, Gary Clark Jr., Brandi Carlile, David Bowie, Arcade Fire, Dave Matthews and his band, KG&LW, Tame Impala, Phil Collins, Metallica, Low Roar, and NIN. I get occasional wild hairs for classical, then I go for Beethoven's symphonies, Orff's Carmina Burana, Holst's Planets, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and almost anything I can find with big pipe organ. (Maybe I'm a closet bass head?...)
Thanks for any recommendations. I appreciate your time. -Dan

This is not a cry for help or technical advice so I hope the mods don’t remove this. Though I’m open to any help but maybe once you read this you won’t know how to help me anyway.
Honestly, I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m in love with music collection and my audio set up but I just can’t catch a break. I don’t have deep pockets and I’m starting to think I’m just too poor or too unlucky for this hobby. I’ve never been working with the best of equipment but it seems like every time I get things working wonderfully it’s not long before something dies on me.
For my first few years, I was using a Numark portable turntable through an old Panasonic 5.1 surround system. It worked for years and years but as my vinyl collection grew, I wanted to upgrade the system to a higher level better suited for the collection I was amassing. In my ignorance I upgraded my turntable to a Crosley C200 direct drive table. It was better than what I had but obviously still not awesome.
So I started doing research… and I’ve been overwhelmed with my ignorance ever since. We moved and my Panasonic system started giving me feedback/humming issues so I thought it was just time to upgrade. I was gifted a Velodyne FSR10 which I was very happy with. I landed on a Yamaha RS202 for my receiver. And through some conversations with different redditors I landed on a pair of Infinity R253 speakers. I scored a Technics SL-1900 table from a dude on eBay and was running a cheap little Rolls VP29 preamp. And it was really great for a while. I was able to enjoy my system, the sound was awesome and then I even got into tapes when a buddy gave me his Harmon/Kardon TD262 deck.
Then the turntable stopped working, the drive just won’t engage. So I got a temporary table, a Technics SL-QD33 that worked great when I got it but now has issues with the auto return from time to time. Sitting on the Sl-1900 because it’s the perfect player for me and there’s a guy somewhat locally that thinks he can fix it.
Then my preamp started giving me humming issues. No big deal, I’ll get a new one that’s better anyway. I wanted something multi-channel so I could eventually run both tables and make mix tapes using them. So I got an Ampapa A1 preamp after some research and figuring it was probably decent enough for the cost and has multi-channel capabilities. Now the Ampapa is humming and I can’t figure out how to make it stop. Thought I created a ground loop but I’m unable to solve it and now I just think it’s shot.
Then my cassette deck gave out, just randomly stops pushing audio… so I have no fucking clue what’s wrong with it. It’ll work and then it won’t. And then it’ll work again and then it won’t. So I did some patient Craigslisting and was able to acquire a Sony double deck and JVC TDV-621 for like $25. The Sony deck doesn’t work but I think it’s just belts. The JVC deck worked fine when I tested it but then I hooked it into my whole setup instead of my Harmon and the fucker runs slow. Do some research and find out it’s a direct drive deck so it’s not a simple fix at all. Great. No functional tape deck currently.
Then my Velodyne starts going out. At first I wasn’t sure what the deal was. Like it was feeding back but it seemed like buildup when it was off so I would turn it on, use it and the hum would go away… until it didn’t. Do some more research and figure out that the issue is called motorboating, and that some capacitors or something need to be replaced in order to make it stop. Too intricate for me. Still waiting to get it fixed. Scored on craigslist and got a no name 100w sub for $20 until I can get the Velodyne fixed. So far so good.
During this whole time too I’ve been trying to get myself a decent CD player. I started with a Sony 5disc changer that I got for cheap. Needed a new belt which was a very easy fix but then the laser eye didn’t work and the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze to get it going. Then I got a Denon DN-C615 player that I was so stoked on. It worked when I tested it and I got it for a steal. Then I hook it into my setup and halfway through the first CD I’m listening to it starts reading “TOC Error”… won’t play anything now. Still not sure about how to fix it. So I’ve got a Discman and I barely use it because I just want a legit unit.
Also during this time I’ve been trying to get an iPod going that I can hook into the system as well. I had been holding on to my 160GB Classic iPod for probably 15 years while it was broken. Got it refurbished (new motherboard), loaded it with music and maybe a week later the hard drive gave out. Still waiting to do a solid state CF conversion on it. Haven’t found the time to tinker with it and the guy that did the motherboard replacement is unwilling to do the conversion for me. So I’m sort of stuck there too.
Now with the preamp issue I’m just dead in the water unless I stream music through the Yamaha. Can’t listen to tapes except for on my portable. Can’t listen to vinyl without that underlying hum that I can’t stand so I don’t fuck with it. Yes I can hook my portable cassette and CD player into the Yamaha but it’s just not good enough.
I’m frustrated. Ready to throw in the towel. Thinking maybe the electrical in the house I’m living in is the cause of all this but not knowing enough to be able to find or fix the issue. I’m venting but also wondering if anyone else deals with this much adversity in their hi-fi endeavors or has ever felt this way about just giving up. Help welcome but the general consensus is always “buy this” or “get something better” and like I said before, I don’t have deep pockets.
TL;DR I’m an unlucky, whiny bastard with not enough time, knowledge or money to dig myself out of the unfortunate audio situation I’m in.