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I ranted about this a couple of weeks ago: two ⌘- taps has become my default just to make most sites readable.

When did 32-pixel headlines and 18-pixel body copy become “desktop friendly”?

I’m surprised they went the separate app route rather integrate it into the Create New functionality in Calendar.

Seems like the main reason I’m seeing in the comments is the event management portion of it, but much like the redesigned Inbox in Mail, could have been an interesting opportunity to rethink the UX of Calendar.

twalichiewiczon Apple's naming conventions are a mess

Downgrades across the board. Why would you remove the recognizable IP portion of the names?

twalichiewiczon Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?

https://thomas.design/blog/

Design focus on tech and products

twalichiewiczon iOS 17 will reportedly set the stage for sideloading apps on iPhone

It's understandable that people are eager for the potential of side loading on iOS, as it could provide more direct access to apps without the need for intermediaries / App Store policy misunderstandings. However, it's worth considering the potential downsides of this approach, particularly the risk of app and service balkanization. This is already happening in the gaming industry, where major studios force you to use their own launchers to capture valuable (sellable) data about their customers.

But to play the optimist, perhaps inspiration can be taken from how macOS handles app installation from non-App Store sources:

- You go to the developers website

- You are presented with two links if the app is also available on the App Store with the alternative being direct download

- After downloading the .dmg you are presented with a modified version of the Installer.app UI that runs you through what services the app uses, data that it collects, where it will install, additional options, etc.

- One final confirmation of "Is this from a trusted developer"

- Installer.app runs a virus / malware check against what is going to be installed

- App is ready to go on the phone

twalichiewiczon Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory

Anecdotally I was in a similar mindset about the Apple Watch for a while after the novelty wore off. I found the notification functionality (my main use case when I first got it) incredibly distracting, and having to remember to charge it constantly annoying. So I stopped actively wearing it for a period of time.

It was only once I started using it for its health tracking capabilities and turned off many of the annoying notifications that I started regularly wearing it.

Is it as essentially as having my phone with me when I leave the house? Ultimately, no, and it does require more thought about how to squeeze the most utility out of it (when compared to a smartphone) but I think the reason it’s so popular is the flexibility it affords:

- Sport tracking watches are great at tracking everything down to a fine detail BUT you wouldn’t want to be seen wearing them out to a dinner

- Traditional (non-smart) watches look very nice as a fashion accessory BUT are useless for fitness and integrating other data into the faster-to-read watch form factor

twalichiewiczon Microsoft Designer

The current design ideas in MS products are terrible so I doubt how much AI can help that.

I AM curious to see how design tools evolve to work with all this new AI tech being integrated. I wonder how long is left before pixel pushing is just for final polish and a designer's role shifts to focus on properly explaining the nuance of a problem to a chatbot.

Soon we'll all be Celery Man (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maAFcEU6atk).

twalichiewiczon No News Is Bad News at Tesla

https://archive.ph/wvVLw

twalichiewiczon Show HN: I trained an AI model on 120M+ songs from iTunes

Nice work on this! As people have commented already, seems to provide more "very similar sounding sounds" versus recommendations.

I tried Glass Animals - Heat Waves, and after clicking through the recommended songs it's eerie how similar they sound to each other. As I would let the preview play and start the next song I sometimes thought my click didn't register because of just how similar one song would be to the last (https://maroofy.com/songs/1508562516 for those who want to see for themselves).

twalichiewiczon Uber Eats Nationwide Shipping

I think the increase in these services (GoldBelly, DoorDash National Favorites, etc...) also coincides with the COVID-driven increase of home food deliveries along with the modern restaurant/food social media lifecycle (think: Eater, Food Insider, Munchies, etc).

So, right after someone in SF watches a video describing in great detail how amazing a new NYC chicken sandwich pop-up is, they're almost certainly willing to pay a premium to try it.

twalichiewiczon macOS Ventura Preview

Having played around with Stage Manager today, the best way I would describe it is "Spaces within Spaces". I didn't find turning it on very intuitive, but otherwise I think it's pretty clever.

I already rely on Spaces for day-to-day organization (one per task) but each individual Space can become really hectic when you have several things to reference simultaneously (e.g. wikis, specs, Figma, Zeplin, screenshots, etc...). This cleaned everything up nicely without having to drag windows off the edges of the screen or risk minimizing / hiding and having them show up elsewhere.

It really needs a way to magnify the little previews though, either by hovering to peek them or just magnification the way it works in the Dock.

twalichiewiczon Ask HN: Why are fonts on websites so small?

I've actually had the opposite experience generally. Something like "Default for Display" on my 2019 MBP makes everything seem so large and zoomed in that most websites are zoomed out to around 75%. (Now that I think about it, I do the same on the iPhone 13 Pro!)

It's not even just websites, I feel like the default padding around macOS windows is MASSIVE on low resolutions. Tons of wasted space.

I think generally we've gotten a bit lazy with "true" responsive design when it comes to taking advantage of the space provided, but I also know first hand how difficult it can be to make one design work for everyone. I guess the real solution is to make it easy to adjust designs for personal preference, or even better, a way to templates the process so that certain elements are resized the way you like it.

twalichiewiczon Poll: Do you prefer the office or work from home?

I think my views have changed over the course of the pandemic— originally I was thrilled by not having to commute, being comfortable, having an easy way to take a break.

Now in 2022 it sort of feels like living at the office, and the lack of separation between the two can be annoying. The flexibility to pick when I want “intense focus” time at the office has been working really well for me. (Thank goodness my company allowed us to be hybrid.)

twalichiewiczon Ask HN: Software you hate but can't replace?

I’ve had pretty serious connectivity issues with the ‘21 A4 as well: having to turn on and off the MMI, Airplane Mode the phone to try and reset, and even when it DOES work, there’s a noticeable delay between car on and CarPlay being available.

Let’s not forget the fun prompt of whether you want to use the car’s data plan, which if you haven’t subscribed will make your phone unable to stream music.

twalichiewiczon Ask HN: Software you hate but can't replace?

I noticed most of the replies in this thread refer to mobile / desktop software, but nothing compares to the hell that is car infotainment system for me.

Using the Audi MMI is painfully clunky, inconsistent, and riddled with subscription-locked features. At this point I just immediately wait for CarPlay and avoid touching anything in the car’s native OS.

Honestly they could probably just save a lot of development time by just having a dumb monitor / audio setup that you’re plugging into.

EDIT: Oh, and the Messages.app on macOS makes me pine for the days of iChat.

twalichiewiczon Send your email right to the other person's spam

Reminds me of that Nathan For You episode where he created a way for party planners to “accidentally” get invitations lost in spam:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p9KeopXHcf8

EDIT: As elektor pointed out, this was already mentioned in the footnote on the site. :-)

twalichiewiczon Akamai Edge DNS was down

Posted this is the thread about the travel websites being down, but seems Fidelity is entirely impossible to sign in to / trade right now.

twalichiewiczon Travel websites are down? Airbnb.com, Expedia.com

Fidelity (both the website and mobile app seem to be having login problems), I wonder if it’s related?

twalichiewiczon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2019)

Location: San Francisco

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Product design, UX / UI design, brand design, design systems

Résumé/CV: https://thomas.design/src/files/Thomas_Walichiewicz_Q3_2019....

Website / portfolio: https://thomas.design

Email: twalichiewicz@gmail.com

I'm a product designer (Psychology / HSI background) with 6+ years of experience working with companies from startups to Fortune 500s. Looking for interesting work! :)