Rant ๐Ÿ˜ค The RSS feed for Rant ๐Ÿ˜ค.

  • Follow-Up: I think my HomeKit set up is mostly back to normal. I was a little stupid and didn’t take backups / exports…so I lost some historical data (mostly temperature / humidity / air quality) but at least my Holiday automations are working again. ๐ŸŽ„๐Ÿ˜…

  • My HomeKit set up has been rock-solid for years but the minute I added a Matter plug (the “Meross Matter Smart Plug Mini”), everything breaks…and as it’s Apple land, where everything works perfectly until it doesn’t, fixing it is going to be…unpleasant. ๐Ÿ˜ฑ๐Ÿ˜ญ

  • Follow-Up: The IKEA Sonos speaker is working perfectly (which is more than I could ever say of the HomePod Mini stereo set up) this morning; holiday music is flooding the room whilst I’m debugging some legacy Java code. ๐Ÿค“๐ŸŽ„ (Yes, I had a spare speaker lying around… ๐Ÿคฃ) ๐Ÿ“ท

    Christmas tree with lights and one ornament at the top (a photo frame with no photo for privacy purposes), in front of a record player, with the end of a lamp on the right side of the photo. An IKEA Sonos speaker is on top of the record player, with an 'Ella' record in the middle and a series of objects is on the left side of the record player: three Nintendo amiibo figures (Link, Bowser, and Bokoblin), a Lego penguin, a Jesus stature, and a N64 Lego cube. On top of the cube is a HomePod mini, along with two of the amiibo, and a dried pink rose.
  • I give up, it’s time to throw in the towel on the HomePod set up in my house and just go get cheap Sonos speakers from IKEA. ๐Ÿ˜ฎโ€๐Ÿ’จ It’s hilarious Sonos does a better job at implementing AirPlay than Apple, I’ve had so many issues trying to play to multiple speakers over the past two years. ๐Ÿ˜ฑ

  • Follow-Up: The package was found in the bushes below my house, next to the sidewalk…completely soaked and disfigured from the rain. ๐ŸŒง๏ธ I’m guessing the steps were just too much for the delivery person, all ten of them. ๐Ÿ˜… Also, there is no way that box can fit in my mailbox, so again, someone lied.

  • So, either Amazon is lying, the US Post Office is lying, or someone has taken my new Kindle from my mailbox. ๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ“ญ

  • No SimpliSafe, I don’t “miss you protecting me," if I did miss you I wouldn’t have canceled your service. In fact, if you hadn’t tried to gouge me, forcing me to pay you an extra $15 a month because I had “old” hardware, I’d likely still be paying for your service. ๐Ÿคญ

  • I realize I have an old Kindle (it’s the first version of the Paperwhite) but would it really be so hard for Amazon to auto-sync the time on the device like every other network connected device in the modern age? ๐Ÿคฃ

  • โŒš๏ธ Apple Watch Update: After it crashed at breakfast, I just got a “you’re almost out of battery” notification…and it’s only been three hours since I put it on. ๐Ÿคฌ๐Ÿชซ I’m still paying for this piece of junk… ๐Ÿ˜ฑ๐Ÿ˜–

  • Another day, another issue with watchOS 10.1 on the Apple Watch Ultra v1. I have never been this disappointed in an Apple product before. โŒš๏ธ๐Ÿ˜ฑ Two hardware resets and the issues still persist.

  • This has to be the buggiest version of WatchOS Iโ€™ve ever used. ๐Ÿ˜ญ Even after an erase / reset, the battery is draining too fast. The heart rate complication doesnโ€™t work anymore. Now I canโ€™t get into the widgets, which means a restart. What is going on at Apple?! ๐Ÿ˜ฑ

  • It was just starting to feel like autumn but this week…not so much. ๐Ÿ‚

  • I’ve been bashing my head against the Micro.blog theming system, trying to get it matching the one on my primary website but given the time of day, it’s time to shutdown and try again tomorrow. ๐Ÿ˜ฑ๐Ÿ˜ฎโ€๐Ÿ’จ

  • Anyone else out there noticing an uptick in iCloud email spam? This is getting a little sillyโ€ฆ

  • Is anyone else out there having issues with their Apple Watch Ultra v1 after upgrading to watchOS 10? Even after the unpair / pair dance, my battery is dropping far too fast, havenโ€™t even had the watch on for eight hours and Iโ€™m at 40% left. ๐Ÿ˜ค๐Ÿ˜ญโŒš๏ธ

  • Random Thought: I try to steer clear of politics online, as I really don’t want to deal with hateful comments but that said, if the US Government shuts down, I really don’t think members of Congress should get their paychecks, especially if the vast majority of regular workers aren’t paid.

  • As much as I enjoy the stability and reliability of Apple products (my M2 MacBook Air is the best computer I’ve ever used), I’m done with AirPlay / HomePods. Multi-room audio will just randomly stop working, which defeats the purpose; I never should have invested in the HomePod ecosystem. ๐Ÿ˜ญ

  • Random Thought: Always fascinated by companies who take the โ€œif you want to change your email, create a new accountโ€ approach. ๐Ÿ˜… Who on earth decided that was a great user experience…and what software architect designed it? ๐Ÿคฃ

  • Random Thought: With Twitter (aka “X”) talking about collecting even more data (link to Ars Technica), now seems like a good time to export my old Tweets, remove the Twitter apps from my devices, and import said data into Micro Blog.

  • Yet another reason why I won’t invest any time, energy, or money into the Google ecosystem: Google kills two-year “Pixel Pass” subscription after just 22 months. ๐Ÿคฃ