Updating to iOS 26.2

This morning I pulled my iPhone off the charger and saw that it wanted to update to the latest version of iOS. It is always important to keep your smartphone updated to the latest version of the operating system. This ensures you have up-to-date security fixes and helps prevent hackers from taking over your phone. Unfortunately I have been reluctant to upgrade to iOS 26 but it looks like a necessary evil if I want to keep my phone safe and so I spent part of the day doing the update.

The first problem I have is that my phone only has 64GB of storage. I've managed to fill most of it with photos and videos. I went through the photo/video library and moved a lot onto my desktop Mac where I have significantly more space. Then I had to go into my recently-deleted folder and remove everything in it to free up space on the phone. I went to install the update and removed enough so that the update process could temporarily remove a couple of apps and reinstall them at the end of the update process. That concerned me a bit but I let the update move forward.

The process of going through hundreds of photos and videos took a toll on my battery so I made sure to plug the phone in to keep the battery from getting too low. Then I just waited for the update to complete and focused on work tasks. I got back to the phone and noticed it back in working order but I'm not a fan of the new user interface (UI).

For some reason, the engineers at Apple love the new "glass" look where you can see through elements on your screen. That makes it so the time on my lock screen blended in with the background image so well, telling time is difficult. I immediately needed to fix that. While I always wear a watch, sometimes it is hidden under multiple layers of clothing while I ski. For that case, I just pull my phone out to see the time. Fixing the clock involved long pressing on the lock screen and selecting the "Customize" button on the bottom. Then I selected the time widget (that is the technical term for the part of the screen that shows the current time) where I had the option of changing the color. I tried white but it blended in too much with the screen. After playing with different colors for a bit, I noticed 2 small buttons under the colors. One said "Glass" and the other "Solid."  I switched from glass to solid and that made the time so much easier to read regardless of what color I chose.

There are a few other UI changes I will need to make. While Apple thinks they know what I will like, they are wrong and like to screw things up. Like many of the software developers I have worked with over my career, the ones at Apple suffer from hubris and think they know more than they actually do. Most the time, they leave a way for me set things the way I like. On occasion though they really screw things up which leaves me questioning my loyalty to Apple.

Research on a New Computer

A friend has asked me to work with him on a new project. This will be outside my normal work and is something completely different from what I do at my regular job. Therefore I don't want to use my work computer for the project as that is not fair to my current employer. This new project needs to run on an iPhone and so I need to invest in a Mac as that is the best place to develop iOS applications. Yes, I know you can develop on Windows, but I have another personal project where I would like to use a Mac and so buying one solves two problems for me.

My natural tendency is to go out and get the best computer on the market. Fortunately I realize that I really don't need that much processing power. Remember that this is a side project and isn't my full-time job. If it was, then I would have no problem spending the extra money.

Today I went through Apple's website and compared the iMac and Mac mini. My second project requires a 4K monitor and so I don't want a laptop. While I could add a 2nd monitor, that just adds to the cost of the machine and I am trying to spend as little money as possible. So I ran through the website and configured 2 comparable machines in each style of computer. I erroneously assumed that the Mac mini would come in at a less expensive price. That is true, but once I add a 4K monitor, even with a highly discounted one, it is about $200 than the iMac. Furthermore, the iMac has a slightly faster processor and I can get it with twice as much memory than the max configuration for Mac mini. For the record, both computers come in at under $2,000 with 16MB of memory, 1TB disk drives, and Intel i7 processors running at or above 3GHz.

I have to say that I am surprised as I expected the Mac mini to be the less expensive choice. There are a number of other things on the project to research before I purchase the computer and so pricing may change in the near future. Apple has a tendency to announce more hardware choices towards the summer and that may influence prices a bit. If that happens, then I will adjust accordingly.