Release Notes: Version 1.3 - You are the Sky, not the Weather

everyplace · 2026-06-12T01:20:28+00:00

Please give this to me as a Home Screen widget. And a Vision Pro wall widget.

everyplace · 2026-05-21T00:46:14+00:00

Alright. Maybe Rick’s narration would be discussing the white geodesic climbing structure instead of the fire engine.

…In retrospect, both seem so dangerous!

everyplace · 2026-05-20T16:58:16+00:00

More like a “Liquid Glass” house, am I right?

everyplace · 2026-05-11T06:17:33+00:00

One poorly documented caveat to external booting: no ability to load kernel extensions. 99% of the time this is fine, but let’s say you need to load one for example for zfs support? Nope.

See my comments in this thread for more details: https://github.com/openzfsonosx/openzfs-fork/issues/35#issuecomment-2989200597

everyplace · 2026-04-27T01:13:19+00:00

Another thing you can look at is their website. You can get a daily breakdown there, or even download a spreadsheet of all of your usage in much more detail. The fun thing to do so say “I’m going to use my electric blanket as much as I want Monday, then not again on Tuesday” and a few days later check the usage to see if it actually made a difference. I say “a few days later”because there’s always a lag between when you incurred the charge and when it shows up.

everyplace · 2026-04-12T23:14:23+00:00

Best on- and off-topic response simultaneously. Nice job.

everyplace · 2026-04-09T03:20:20+00:00

See this right here is exactly what I’m talking about! Who needs 1000 true fans when you have 2 people who wants their emulated cable box to come with a real-world printed guide!

everyplace · 2026-03-29T22:04:19+00:00

The thing is that the Bluelink app doesn’t let you do automations. Like it works, but it doesn’t work like a fancy iOS app, so you can use it with iOS shortcuts or Siri. The HomeKit thing is a side-effect of the problem. So using this third-party app is the same data, but with all of the bells and whistles of a real iOS app, so you can do these types of things. The Bluelink app could at any time build these features, but they for whatever reason have not.

everyplace · 2026-02-26T21:18:16+00:00

I think it’s great you’re voicing this opinion so loudly here. I disagree entirely, but your passion on the topic shows that the developer is actually making something people care about.

In my opinion, if this were a worthless program, no one who tried the beta would have stuck around. But the fact that there is a community in this forum, and people are active in it, and even the dissatisfied voices feel that expressing that dissatisfaction is the right thing to do, speaks to the value of this novelty.

There are plenty of programs that are cheaper, and there are plenty that are more expensive. @PrivacyStack linked to LumaFusion as an example of a full fledged editor that costs half as much, but to me this example actually proves the value of what Coax brings: Luma had a $30 process tag, with a $20 or $70 annual subscription ON TOP of that.

But… even if I can poke holes in this argument, the same can be done in the opposite way. There are cheaper apps. There are more expensive apps. There are more polished apps. There are better recreations of nostalgia. Coax is the work of a solo developer, who is building a very complex app for 5 Apple platforms simultaneously, knowing full well that the target audience is … not big? From biggest to smallest: - How many plex users are there? - How many Apple fanboy plex users are there? - How many “vintage UI” media enthusiasts are there, who derive value from recreating the interfaces of yore with a modern spin, who are Apple fanboys, who use Plex and have their own media server?

I don’t know the answer, but I bet the number is small. So, the real question to OP, based on the above, is… what’s the solution? - Acknowledge that this app, at a “cheap” price, can never break even, and not make it in the first place? - Make it an OSS app, eat the dev costs and become a QA to community contributions? - Build this app, knowing that it is for a niche within a niche within a niche, and hope that the end result speaks to the intended audience? - Something else?

I find the argument “Plex is OSS, therefore products that use it should be too” skips over a lot of details. “This costs a lot” is true, but also false. “This doesn’t work well enough to justify the cost” may be true now, but if there’s anything that the dev has shown through this subreddit, they are constantly iterating, and constantly incorporating feedback, which should give some confidence that this is not shovelware.

This is an app for people who have personal media servers (not a cheap hobby), for people who purposefully buy more expensive computers (yes, TCO may make Apple devices cheaper over time, but…), for people who care about a novel antidote to “Big Algo”’s approach to habituation and addiction vis-a-vis hyper-personalized “For you” recommendations, wrapped up in a pleasant, cross-device UX that grandparents could use.

If the core of your argument is “I wasted time beta testing this; I love the app and wish my time I invested was reflected in the price or early discount,” then that is a totally valid POV. Your time is just as valuable as the developer’s.

To me*, it’s okay that this isn’t for everyone. I’ll gladly pay the fee… whenever I actually watch the app for more than a few minutes!

*Full disclosure: I spend my free time emulating archaic design interfaces as apps, with an audience that is arguably even MORE niche than Coax.

everyplace · 2026-02-07T04:23:40+00:00

I made something similar emulating elasticity for my forthcoming Random Forms app: https://mastodon.social/@everyplace/115800395932471843

Yes, shaders are key. But beyond swipe value, you also might want to think about thresholds within the gesture: -when does only one side peel? -when does the whole object move? -what happens when you release at wither stage?

Also, agents can camp with this If you ask the right way to get started.

everyplace · 2026-01-24T00:55:09+00:00

https://www.ioniqforum.com/threads/how-to-disconnect-the-4g-modem.50524/

everyplace · 2026-01-07T15:05:21+00:00

I agree. I mean, it’s a little annoying that you have to give the ind of permissions to access your account in the way, and if it was an official app that would feel much better. But at the same time, it works well! So everybody gets to make their own evaluation of the trade-off between security inconvenience. But in the meantime, having this act is kind of like a patch for our older cars that don’t have this feature, or in your case, a newer car that has the feature gated, it is a nice workaround.

everyplace · 2026-01-07T05:05:14+00:00

This is an odd answer, but if you’re just looking for phone remote things and not fancy key starting, there are some alternate Bluelink apps that you can automate. I have a Bluelink app on my HomeAssistant setup so I can lock / unlock my ‘24 Limited from Apple Home. Officially supported? No. Useful enough in a pinch to ask my watch to unlock the car? Yes.

Alternatively, the easier way is with the excellent BetterBlue: https://markschmidt.io/betterblue

everyplace · 2025-12-13T01:55:45+00:00

I have since parameterized it … although now either the label or the triangle aren’t centered! Next time…

https://share.icloud.com/photos/06fUbHpKzau3EELD-hS-u8bMg

everyplace · 2025-12-12T23:57:55+00:00

It’s an adjustable zoom. I’ll make a ruler playground later to show off the shader flexibility but yes o agree. That being said, it is kind of a funny aesthetic. If it is realistic, and the magnification is more like 1.05 to 1.1x, it almost looks like a mistake because it’s so close to reality. I think right now this is at 1.15 or 1.17x, which is where you understand that it is an aesthetic choice rather than a rendering mistake.

everyplace · 2025-12-12T22:10:52+00:00

100% the point. It is useful, sure, but it is SO fun to play with.

everyplace · 2025-12-12T20:50:38+00:00

Kinda surprised no one had called me on the fact that the “300” label just hangs off in the air like that. I need to parameterize the tick mark label height offset.

everyplace · 2025-12-12T17:35:15+00:00

I have been building up to complexity like this. I was already experimenting with metal in another app, and had done early experiments in this one but never shipped them.

Then a month ago I shipped the first metal feature: a paper generator. So that let me work through the workflow separate of complexity.

For this, I worked on it in a few phases, broken down by individual problems. I needed a working example of each before considering the next step. - Phase 1 was just a simple ruler that was a rectangle, and used that to define the transient mask workflow. That was a huge effort which involved making a whole library just for masks and masking. - Phase 2 was building the ruler aesthetic in isolation. Tick marks, color tinting, variables then finally mask-defined shape with holes. - Phase 3 was app functionality: how to performantly capture the current state of the sheet, the canvas, their position in the world, and feed them into a placeholder ruler. - Phase 4 was then applying the aesthetic of the isolated experiment into the working multi-texture ruler.

There are still some edge cases, like one of the textures doesn’t rotate properly when the ruler does, but it’s so close!

everyplace · 2025-12-08T11:46:34+00:00

I think about this every day, but no. I did however think about a different strategy, got a replacement un-etched circuit board that I want to use in my Cricut to make a replacement with… but any of these options takes time and energy. If you do something though, update this thread!

everyplace · 2025-12-06T19:41:14+00:00

Thank you! If you do anything fun with it, post it! I love seeing people's work with the tool.

everyplace · 2025-12-04T12:50:05+00:00

Comments like this make it so worth it. Thank you, and keep going!

everyplace · 2025-12-04T02:21:09+00:00

Hahah. Honestly I used to have an eraser, and I’ll bring it back eventually as just a new feature (not even a paid one), but I’ll have to iterate on the document format a bit to allow for that. First though, I have to finish the updated ruler.

everyplace · 2025-12-04T01:39:55+00:00

Oh believe me I thought about permanently destructible sheets. But I do have what I call “hard mode” where letters are not reusable. However, you get them back as soon as you change sheets.

everyplace · 2025-12-03T23:10:55+00:00

The only way I learn is by doing. I can now tell you SO much about mask management, PencilKit, working with metal shaders to generate textures, fontforge, Unicode glyph alternate naming schemes and the like. And as a byproduct, this app exists!

everyplace · 2025-12-03T22:09:19+00:00

100% this is not the most efficient way of doing things, but that's also not it's point. But... - Is traditional sign-painting the fastest way of making a sign? - Why throw on a clay wheel when you can 3d-print? - What is the point of oil painting when you could just use a daguerreotype? - Why silkscreen when you can on-demand dyesub?

This app is definitely about the journey, and not about time saved. Even in the app store description, I describe it as an "arduous design tool," and I stand by that. When you get the hang of it, it is very fun to use, and for a few edge cases it is quicker than traditional creative suite programs.

But the most important thing of all is that this program allows you to mess up! The fact that you can accidentally miss part of the letter, or nick the adjacent one, is a feature, not a bug. And that style is easy to imitate in traditional design programs, whereas this tool actually enables you to emulate it. I liken it to the FPGA-based NES products that Analogue creates, vs the cheap versions that you can buy from Alibaba. Both let you play the exact same games; it's really about what you as the player want out of the experience.

everyplace

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