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iOS 9.3’s Night Shift, Day One

I upgraded to iOS 9.3 yesterday. I had been waiting excitedly for Night Shift to be released. I set it to turn on at 12:00am and off at 11:59pm. Everything white turned yellow. My impression after one day of use: I love it.

I’ve been using f.lux on my Windows PC (on at the max all day) and on my MacBook Pro (on automatic control based on time of day) for a few weeks and I really find it pleasing.

4 April 2016: Still running Night Shift (on max — whites very yellow) all day, every day. I still love it. It’s a little odd when taking photos or video as I don’t know how the color will be in them.

17 June 2016: I still leave my iPhone 6 and iPad Pro set to max Night Shift 24/7.

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So, Apple Watch. Huh.

Alright, here’s what happened. On the day Apple released the iPhone SE and some new Apple Watch bands (but no new Apple Watch), the guys over at Meh.com put Apple Watch Sport on sale. Ugh. I’d been wanting something (okay, an Apple Watch) to remind me to stand up every hour. This pushed me over the edge. I didn’t want aluminum and I didn’t want the black finish either, whether over aluminum or steel.

So I went to Amazon. Ultimately, I found an Apple Watch 42mm (steel) with its original brown leather band for $305 shipped (no charger). I bought a 2m charger from Apple for something like $40 and I was set.

Both watch and charger arrived last night. So far, I like it.

Update: According to checkcoverage.apple.com, my Apple Watch’s warranty expires 1 November 2016. Not bad.

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Hello, MacBook Pro 13″.

A couple weeks ago, I was nosing around Craigslist and found an offer for a “newer used” current-model Retina MacBook Pro 13” with a Broadwell 2.9GHz i5, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 3 years of AppleCare (expires 14 August 2018) and $99 (total waste of money) one-on-one Apple service add-on. I jumped on it. Its existing owner, Raj, said he was getting into photography and decided to get an iMac for not much more money than the MacBook Pro. For $1250 cash, I now have myself a beautiful new upgrade for my 2010-release MacBook Air, about three years earlier than planned.

As configured (Raj said this was not a refurb), this was a $2,048 model (not including the one-on-one service). I’m very happy.

I’d have preferred a quad-core i7, but the only way to get that is with a 15” model and I’m not certain I want that size. It would be okay, but it seems a bit big for me. Anyway, this was a deal I felt I could not pass up.

20 June 2016 Update: I still consider this a stupendous deal. The machine runs perfectly and I have zero complaints.