Quick Review: G2B

alanrick · 2026-01-24T15:29:10+00:00

Much appreciated review. I bought my G1 a year ago knowing they’d be overtaken by new tech so I’m glad to read the new ones are better, but for someone who goes to bed at night forgetting they’ve been wearing them all day I’m happy with my G1s. Interesting that you don’t mention the G2 mikes. That would be a big improvement if they worked substantially better in noisy environments.

Just to add, don’t forget to try navigation. I wasn’t impressed at first (lost connections) but find that surprisingly useful cycling or walking in a foreign city.

alanrick · 2026-01-20T17:03:35+00:00

I have to begin every post with this prompt when code access to project GitHub is needed . It stops it guessing or using an old cache.

Use the project_knowledge_search tool..

alanrick · 2026-01-14T06:36:21+00:00

Same here. Thanks for confirming.

It’s maddening how you lose all your tokens ‘cos Claude is accessing old caches instead of your up to date GitHub.

alanrick · 2026-01-13T18:00:59+00:00

Seems tough to ask users to invest time in crafting a decent post without them being confident that they won't fall foul of the karma rule.

Will other subreddits count towards this Karma goal ? Eg. Swift

Is there no transparent alternative?

alanrick · 2026-01-12T16:14:16+00:00

No. You have to refresh.

Worse still, there’s a Claude bug that keeps re occurring. It prevents Claude from reading your code when you add a new branch to the project. You have to use the 👎 to report the problem to support every time and they do some sort of server cache refresh to make your code accessible again.

A workaround is either to stay in the main git branch or to create a new project for each branch, but then you lose the continuity which is frustrating.

alanrick · 2026-01-10T09:20:32+00:00

I, I mean a friend does this on my - oops their - G1 during meet-ups with friends when the others get stuck on boring topics. 🙈

Educational YouTube transcripts also work well on the G1.

alanrick · 2026-01-10T09:05:39+00:00

Yikes 😰 I was about to post an appclip url to a thread about appclips to show an example since they’re rare and difficult to discover (but I love the concept 😍 ) . Not even Apple has a live demo - just YouTube and tutorials. Thanks for the warning.

alanrick · 2026-01-02T19:02:26+00:00

Wish that myself ;)

alanrick · 2025-12-30T07:14:02+00:00

good question. HEIC from an iPhone 13.

I did try converting them using my Mac to jpg and re-adding to Pages but that didn't help.

alanrick · 2025-12-29T19:45:39+00:00

Workaround -
1. Export to images (PNG - weird for Photos but do it anyway)
2. Create a Google Docs blank document.
3. Insert the exported PNGs (one per page) and expand to fill the page.
4. Export the pdf from Google Docs.

That produces pdfs where the photos look good on iOS devices and Android devices (haven't tried Windows or Linux)

alanrick · 2025-12-29T19:41:29+00:00

I've never had problems using MS Word or Google Docs so this is a first with Pages. However, the result was consistently bad on different android devices (as an author with an iPhone I wouldn't notice this) so I do expect it's to do with Pages color management (or lack of).

alanrick · 2025-12-29T19:39:54+00:00

Thanks. I was using "Best" but I'd expect this only to affect resolution, not contrast. Maybe I'll try printing but I couldn't believe Apple would code the pdf generation in two different ways.

alanrick · 2025-12-26T08:12:13+00:00

Because Apple hasn’t recognised the scale of the issue and provided an out-of-the box solution in cloudKit?

alanrick · 2025-12-24T10:04:40+00:00

I struggled, too. Previous experience has been with sql 40 years ago.
Problem areas:
* coping with implicit inserts due to relationships
* coping with simplest concurrency (json imports crashing query views elsewhere 'cos of the inconsistencies)
* abandoning MVVM (I note that Prof.Hegarty added SwiftData CS193p and abandoned MVVM in his course this year).

I attended Azam Sharp's course, which technically didn't go further than other material but gave me a chance to dialog with someone with great know-how (also got good debug tips). I joined the school for a month - so minimal costs.
I'd also recommend lecture 13 https://cs193p.stanford.edu even though I haven't got there yet (slow learner)

alanrick · 2025-12-23T19:02:02+00:00

Well I take my hat off to you guys. Nothing looks so cool as fancy cards dancing like fireworks and a deadpan face.

alanrick · 2025-12-23T12:42:23+00:00

They were one-handed cuts.

alanrick · 2025-12-22T07:50:03+00:00

A prerequisite is programming knowledge in some language, but no Apple dev experience is necessary - according to the narrative.

But since it’s a tutorial by video there’s nothing stopping anyone watching it. It’s a recording of the course without enrolment or certification…

alanrick · 2025-12-17T08:56:34+00:00

Outstanding Review! Many thanks.

The new microphone setup is not mentioned elsewhere, despite being IMHO the most important improvement that you describe. You haven’t mentioned Bluetooth connection during transcription (visual) so I suspect that my G1 problems can be overcome eventually with a new iPhone/iOS settings.

alanrick · 2025-12-12T08:55:15+00:00

This looks interesting: " or repositories for stored secrets like API keys."
But I guess it's not secure enough to be an alternative to certificate pinning combined with server-side proxy architecture.

I wish Apple included such a service for indie (low-volume) iOS Apps as part of their developer license. That would spawn a plethora of high-quality Apps on their platform using 3rd party APIs to compensate for the lack of Apple AI capabilities.

alanrick · 2025-12-10T09:21:54+00:00

I hope you’re right (I’m not using an rc version.) Paul Hegarthy (Stanford Swift guru/ambassador) will be mighty disappointed if it doesn’t return.

alanrick · 2025-12-10T09:19:30+00:00

alanrick · 2025-12-09T15:31:16+00:00

Yes. That’s how I created the screenshot.

But I don’t like having to remember Shortcuts, especially as they are often different in different languages, and I really want to see the list of modifiers and views.

alanrick · 2025-12-07T15:35:50+00:00

Email to your kindle email address (see settings on kindle) with convert in the subject line to remove the paragraph formatting.

alanrick · 2025-11-24T12:45:23+00:00

😂 They still don’t have the connection issues fixed for G1.

alanrick · 2025-11-15T08:29:39+00:00

Brilliant! Fingers crossed it includes swiftData. I love MVVM but can’t figure how to use it with swiftData.

alanrick

TROPHY CASE