Mac thunderbolt 2 drive dropping -- remember ScanSnap AOUMonitor and don't touch Amazon Cloud Drive.

After months of reliable use my Elgato Thunderbolt 2 hub is dropping my USB3 external SSD; just like the OWC T2 hub did in my initial testing.

We know Yosemite (and El Capitan) have issues with Thunderbolt hubs; there’s something frail in Apple’s infrastructure [1]. But it had been working… So after power cycling everything [3] it’s time to look for things that have changed recently.

The first place to look is my Login items. I find something called “Mountain”. It’s missing though. Weird. Part of something I’d tried then removed. Deleted that.

I also find AOUMonitor. That would be related to my recent ScanSnap update. Sounds familiar, so I use my Google Custom Search for everything I’ve published. I find Managing unwanted Mac startup apps: ScanSnap’s AOUMonitor and Citrix Receiver. Bang. AOUMonitor is a known bad actor. Delete it.

Next is Google Drive. It’s known to cause problems, but I’m still hooked on it and it’s an old-timer. Despite Google’s decreasing interest in iOS and OS X [2] I have to leave it.

But where’s Amazon Cloud Drive? It’s a newbie that’s also launching automatically. The fact that it’s absent from Login Items tells me it’s poorly written. Over to LaunchDaemons.

System Library\LaunchDaemons looks all Apple — as it should be.

Users\Library\LaunchDaemons has CCC (ok), Office (licensing and update, ugh), Skype (huh? - deleted!), Google keystone (old, part of their update infrastructure I think), TripMode (? delete for now), Barebones (trustworthy).

Users\me\Library is a bit odd.  Instead of LaunchDaemons we have LaunchAgents (really Apple?) [4] and no Startup Items. In LaunchAgents I find simple plists for Synology CloudStation (yeah, I’m suspicious of that one, but need it for now), 1Password (need it), Safari (ok I guess) and com.imobiesilentcleanserver.plist. The last was probably left over from testing imobie’s iOS cache cleaner (didn’t work), so I deleted it.

Alas, I still can’t figure out how Amazon Cloud Drive is starting up. Now I really want to kill it. Google is no help (which is another bad sign). Looking at Log files it looks like ACD is using some .NET infrastructure and it’s generated about 15 Console crash logs. 

Amazon Cloud Drive is a bugger to purge. EasyFind finds a folder in .local/share — yeah, a hidden directory. There’s app.com.amazon.clouddrive.mac.installer.playlist in friggin’ /private/var/db/BootCaches/2B1FD298-BBE8-4207-B1B0-ED420A2DAD74. There’s crap in Application Scripts, Application Support, and too many to mention. Try searching on “Amazon Cloud Drive”, “amazon.clouddrive” and so on. Take your time. 

Really, don’t touch Amazon Cloud Drive. Now I’m getting DOS TSR flashbacks in addition to my SCSI flashbacks.

Lastly, a safe boot to clear caches and then a restart. Now we’ll see what happens. I never did find what was launching Amazon Cloud Drive, but my Console isn’t showing any “Amazon” messages.

- fn -

[1] I’m getting PTSD flashbacks to MacOS Classic and SCSI chains.
[2] Apple is not doing well. 
[3] I’m going to start routinely power cycling my peripherals — they can go weeks without cycling whereas my Air gets cycled every week or two. 
[4] Update: jws explained -  "The difference between an agent and a daemon is that an agent can display GUI if it wants to, while a daemon can't. The difference between an agent and a regular application is that an agent typically displays no GUI (or a very limited GUI)… Agents run in a user context; daemons are userless and purely background, without any access to a window server or other user state. That’s why the daemon vs agent distinction in the Library folder names…

iOS 9.x spotlight bug explained: It's the RAM.

Spotlight has been failing for me since I updated to iOS 9 - no results appear. It got much worse with 9.3. Force-quitting background apps, especially Reeder.app,  helps. It acts like a limited RAM bug, but I think there are ways Spotlight may fail.

From Apple Discussions it doesn’t hit devices with 2GB of RAM, it’s a problem for 1GB devices with lots of indexed content and/or memory hogging apps.

Jason Heiser has figured out what’s wrong (emphases mine). It’s a capacity/RAM problem:

Apple discussions April 5, 2016

My iPhone 6 updated to iOS 9.3.1 an hour ago and Spotlight Search is still broken for me.

I downloaded iOS Console and looked at the console output when trying to perform a Spotlight Search. Here is what I saw:

Apr 5 15:42:18 jPhone searchd[286] : (Error) IndexGeneral in si_playBackMobileRecords:2343: played back 0 records
Apr 5 15:42:19 jPhone searchd[286] : (Error) IndexGeneral in si_playBackMobileRecords:2343: played back 0 records
Apr 5 15:42:19 jPhone diagnosticd[83] : unable to find offset 0x81448aac in shared cache for arch 'arm64'
Apr 5 15:42:19 jPhone diagnosticd[83] : unable to find offset 0x814467cc in shared cache for arch 'arm64'
Apr 5 15:42:19 jPhone diagnosticd[83] : unable to find offset 0x81649da8 in shared cache for arch 'arm64'
Apr 5 15:42:19 jPhone diagnosticd[83] : Invalid offset 2170854824 into shared cache for arch 'arm64'
Apr 5 15:42:19 jPhone ReportCrash[288] : platform_task_update_threads failed 1
Apr 5 15:42:19 jPhone ReportCrash[288] : Formulating report for process[286] searchd
Apr 5 15:42:19 jPhone ReportCrash[288] : report not saved because it is non-actionable
Apr 5 15:42:21 jPhone UserEventAgent[26] : jetsam: kernel termination snapshot being created
Apr 5 15:42:21 jPhone ReportCrash[289] : Saved type '298(298)' report (2 of max 25) at /var/mobile/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/JetsamEvent-2016-04-05-154221.ips

According to this, the searchd crash log is not being saved because it is "non-actionable." However, a log for "JetsamEvent" is being created at roughly the same time. I looked at this file on my iPhone and JetsamEvents appear to be a low-memory (RAM) issue. Here is the top portion of the crash report.

{"timestamp":"2016-04-05 15:42:21.21 -0500","bug_type":"298","os_version":"iPhone OS 9.3.1 (13E238)"}
{
"crashReporterKey" : "88540025a9600afa364c269a2c5bc8a91370b1ca",
"kernel" : "Darwin Kernel Version 15.4.0: Fri Feb 19 13:54:49 PST 2016; root:xnu-3248.41.4~28\/RELEASE_ARM64_T7000",
"product" : "iPhone7,2",
"incident" : "D0ED493F-7687-49D9-AFB9-BEE80BD93082",
"date" : "2016-04-05 15:42:21.21 -0500",
"build" : "iPhone OS 9.3.1 (13E238)",
"timeDelta" : 95,
"memoryStatus" : {
"compressorSize" : 50489,
"pageSize" : 4096,
"compressions" : 824422,
"memoryPages" : {
"active" : 101577,
"throttled" : 0,
"fileBacked" : 37711,
"wired" : 49311,
"anonymous" : 114469,
"purgeable" : 0,
"inactive" : 48272,
"free" : 2459,
"speculative" : 2331
},
"uncompressed" : 172172,
"decompressions" : 362924
},
"largestProcess" : "searchd",

According to this, the "largestProcess" was searchd when the crash report was generated. Further down in the crash report is searchd's information:

{
"rpages" : 129777,
"states" : [
"daemon"
],
"name" : "searchd",
"pid" : 286,
"reason" : "highwater",
"fds" : 100,
"uuid" : "7b301993-286d-3da5-a497-b729984d3229",
"purgeable" : 0,
"cpuTime" : 2.481274,
"lifetimeMax" : 84765
},

Apparently the maximum for searchd is "84,765" but it reached "129,777." The reason is "highwater" which I assume means searchd exceeded its RAM allotment. So maybe my Spotlight index is too large. Too many iMessages, too many songs, too many emails... Who knows.

The "report not saved because it is non-actionable" for searchd's crash report is worrisome. I fear this bug is nowhere on Apple's radar. We might be marginal outliers without recourse for a long time.

There are two workarounds for the bug:

1. Force-quit background apps — may help free RAM. Try again.
2. Siri works for launching apps even when spotlight fails.

I think setting all Spotlight indexing option to On helps — I have a feeling there’s a bug with rendering results that is worse if the rendering process has to manage exclusions. Restarting your phone daily probably helps too.

Update 7/30/2016

A correspondent who saw the same behavior as mine reported that Spotlight was working 8 days after he did a phone wipe and restore. I did the same and it’s working now 7 days later.  That doesn’t mean it will work forever, but 7 days is a long time. I’m now on iOS 9.3.3. I have seen a trustworthy report that the upgrade to 9.3.2 fixed the problem for some, for me it took the OS update and a wipe/restore.

 

iOS 9 secure notes with Touch ID are no more secure than your device passcode

If you enable Touch ID access to an iOS 9.3 Note.app Secure Note, the password on the note doesn’t matter. The note is no more secure than your device passcode.

Because if you know the device passcode, you can just add a new fingerprint to Touch ID. That will unlock the secure note.

So if you want to truly secure a Note with a strong password you can’t enable Touch ID access. Otherwise you might as well leave the note unsecured. You are better off using a strong password for your phone and using Touch ID for fast phone access.

Bandwidth use over 5 min video call: FaceTime << Facebook Messenger < Skype

As part of my Father longterm care iPad videoconferencing project I compared cellular data use during an approximately 5 minute videoconferencing call made from my iPhone (LTE) to an iPad Air 2 (WiFi). To measure data use I “reset statistics” for Cellular data before, then refreshed the view after concluding the call. I turned microphones off.

The results were:

FaceTime: 7.5MB (repeated, this is correct)s

Messenger: 32MB

Skype: 46MB

FaceTime gave the best image quality. The data use with FaceTime was so low I repeated the measurement with a similar results. Data use can vary with image activity by up to 25%.

I was very surprised by my results. FaceTime had excellent image quality despite exceptional compression. Skype is a real data hog.

The user interfaces were quite similar; names on the left, a details pane on the right. I liked Messengers easy messaging integration, but FaceTime was a 1 touch call from the left side.

My sister and I can do FaceTime, but my brother has an Android phone. I’ll suggest he try Facebook Messenger as he uses Facebook and the data usage was less than Skype.

Can I send an iTunes gift card to someone in another country? How about buy an app through iTunes?

No.

At least not as far as I can tell between the US and Canada. Unless you have both an Apple ID and a credit card and a billing address in the other country.

In my case I’m trying to buy Picmatic.app, a $2 app, for my father’s (Canadian Apple Store) iPad. I think the only way to do this from the US is to have someone in Canada buy an iTunes gift card (contrary to Apple’s weirdly dated online documentation this works for apps too) and send me the card number. Then I can enter the information.

I don’t think I can buy an iTunes Gift Card in the US and use that; cards are country store specific and Apple IDs are country specific (changing countries is a royal pain — yeah, DRM sucks).

Anyone know differently?

Father longterm care iPad videoconferencing project: Securing the iPad

My father has been doing well in a Quebec long term care facility for veterans (in Canada that has historically meant WW II, he’s in his 90s). Things are getting tougher though — the facility is shifting from federal to provincial control. Great staff are leaving and programs will be stressed.

I see him every 3-4 months, but in between I was surprised how well Skype worked with him. He does much better speaking when he can see me than he does on the phone. It seems to be related to knowing when to try speaking and when to listen. He also seems to hear Skype sound better than mobile phone sound. (It’s likely much higher quality.)

Even with the old regime though the Skype conferences often failed. Tech complexity and organizational issues forced us to discontinue them.

So now I’m going to try bringing him an LTE iPad Air 2. I’ll get a Rogers SIM card when I visit in a few weeks and we’ll see if it works from his room. If all goes well it will cost him an extra $10-$15/month — and the iPad cost [1].

Dad’s lost a few wallets from his room. I think most longterm care facilities see this kind of problem. Visitors can have issues. So we need to secure his iPad. Other than photo display I think he’ll only be using it for conferencing. So it needs to be secure [2], continuously powered up, stored somewhere he can sit, and not take up much room. The secure device needs to leave speakers and camera clear.

After some thought I ordered the $33 CTA Digital Universal Anti-Theft Security Grip with POS Stand for Tablets - iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4, Galaxy Tab, Note 10.1, 7-10-inch Tablets (PAD-UATGS) (grip and stand). It seems solid enough, it will keep the iPad off his desk, and there are screw holes (but no screws included). It may screw into his (antique) desk, but, even though it’s not shown in the picture, the lock comes with a cable. So I might be able to secure it to his desk in a less damaging and harder to remove way.

Of course the iPad Air 2 is way too thin for this device. It flops around. There’s supposed to be an included adapter strip, but mine was missing. I don’t think it would have worked — this home made setup seems a lot better. I had some TrueValue gripping pads (549104, TV23148) lying around…

I put those inside the corner retainers:

and it works pretty well:

So the first step is complete. Next step will be to test some of the conferencing options for data use and usability with various iPad accessibility features enabled: Skype vs. FaceTime vs. Facebook Messenger (Hangout is not very useable.)

I don’t expect Dad will use it by himself, we’re hoping a friend who helps with him will get things set up. I want it to be useable for them though.

- fn -

[1] (Rant) Incidentally, the iPad Air reminds me what a mixed bag Apple is these days. Nice device in many ways, but when I brought my mother an iPad six years ago one of the features she loved most was it could be used as a high quality digital photo frame. It was easy to launch from the lock screen. She loved that.

So, of course, Apple pulled it from the lock screen around iOS 7 and then ditched the replacement with iOS 9. There’s exactly one half-decent alternative, an app called Picmatic. Not to be confused with spammy copycat apps of the same name in the kinda broken App Store.

I don’t know if Apple is merely senile, or if the app had to be reworked for iOS 9 and it got ditched in a last minute panic to get that half-baked release out the door. Either way, the good news is that now that Ive has retired there’s only Cook to launch.

[2] Would it have killed Apple to incorporate some sort of secure lock feature in the iPad? Ok, yes, it would have.

Synology Time Machine backups: How to increase a user quota

After my Synology NAS updated itself to version 6 one of my Time Machine backups stopped working. It might have been coincidental. Time Machine claimed I only had 350GB free and it needed 1TB, but Synology claimed I had enough free space.

Whatever.

The fix was to increase the quota size for the user who owned the Time Machine disk image belonging to my MacBook Air.

Except I couldn’t do it. I could edit the user easily, but the quota information couldn’t be edited. Clicking on the row did nothing. 

Click-click.

Google helped. It’s a UI issue. There’s nothing in Synology’s UI to tell you to click specifically on the quota number. If you do that you can edit it.

It’s probably a good idea to turn Time Machine backup off while you’re doing this. In any case it’s fixed my problem.

How to update Synology Cloud Station Server Clients (Cloud Station Drive) after Synology NAS 6.0 update

Looking back, 2009 was kind of a bad year. Somewhere around then we were in the tail end of the Great Recession, Google had turned Evil, and, in retrospect, Apple’s glory days were behind it.

I miss the old Apple. It wasn’t perfect, but it shielded me from a lot of hassles. Like dealing with the complexity of my Synology NAS.

I bought the NAS because Apple’s Time Capsule is broken. Next I started using it as a post-server replacement for Apple’s perennially broken network shares. That’s all I bothered with. I didn’t want to bother my NAS, and I didn’t want it to bother me.

Then, inevitably, there was an update. It took me a while to figure out that Control Panel:System:Info showed the version number: DSM 6.0-7321. 

Oh, great. A complete version update. I #$@$#!# never install those. I’d turn off auto-update, but at this point the damage is done. I’m going to need the big bug fixes; I’ll turn it off in a month or two.

Meanwhile both Time Machine and my Client-Server NAS file sync are broken. I’ll fix Time Machine next, this is about fixing the file sync.

Notice I’m not naming the file sync? That’s because Synology, a Chinese company, uses English words inconsistently. They add and remove “Cloud” to everything and seem to move software names between products on a whim. I think I’ve seen File Sync, Cloud Station Drive, Cloud Station Sync, Cloud Station Server and Cloud Station Client used to refer to similar or identical things.

What I wanted was to update “Cloud Station Drive” running on my Mac, which is actually Cloud Station Server Client, to a version compatible with “Cloud Station Server” running on my Synology NAS. Notice neither of these actually have anything to do with a “Cloud”, they’re both LAN specific.

This document helped: Sync files between NAS and computer Network Attached Storage (NAS)

 Here’s what I did:

1. Quit outdated client on my Mac.
2. Start Synology Assistant to locate FLNAS (IP Address), open it.
3. Go to Package Center, All, find Cloud Station Server, click Open (alt: click the four-square-icon next to question mark to see running apps)
4. Click Overview (sometimes this is empty, quit and start over again)
5. Download Cloud Station Drive
6. Install

It seems to be working. I’ll use the DMG to update my other machines.

Next up: Fix Time Machine. It and Synology are disagreeing about how much space is free in the user-quota for my MacBook Air …

Update 8/23/2016: Synology Cloud Station Server / Cloud Drive is broken again. I think it’s worse in El Capitan than Yosemite. I’ve given up on it.

Using iOS 9.3 Notes.app to safely store passwords and other credentials

I wrote this as part of a book project aimed at caregivers for special needs teens and adults, but the recommendations work for most non-geek users. The trick is printing copies of the Note; it’s too easy for an errant edit to delete credentials. Of course one could also store PDF copies on an appropriately secure encrypted drive or drive image, but that’s way outside the scope of these recommendations …

Managing Explorer credentials with iOS 9.3 Notes.app and Android alternatives

Guides need to create “strong” passwords for Explorer email accounts, bank accounts, Amazon accounts and the like. One way to create a strong password is to combine two randomly selected words form a dictionary, capitalize one or two letters, and mix in some numbers and a symbol like $#&:;. Avoid letters and numbers that can be confused with one another, like l and I or O and 0.

There’s no way any of us can keep secure credential information in in our heads. We have to write it down, and, because you really don’t want to lose password information, you need to have two copies.

The two copies also need to be in different places. Why two places? Well, imagine that you’re storing your passwords on your phone. One day you need to unlock your phone, but you don’t remember the phone password. If the passwords are only on your phone you won’t be able to get to them. Even if your phone is backed up the backup won’t help you, because you won’t be able to restore it without the phone password.

…1Password is too complex for most Guides and Explorers though. What about just keeping credentials in a Note on your smartphone?

If a Guide is using and Android smartphone this can be a risky option. As of early 2015 many lower cost Android smartphones are not truly secure. Google’s Note application, Keep.app, doesn’t support Note encryption. So on an Android device I’d recommend using 1Password.app or one of its competitors — unless you are confident the Android device uses strong encryption and it is secured with a strong password.

If a Guide is using an iPhone with iOS 9.3 or later Apple’s Notes.app is a good, simple way to store an Explorer’s credentials. The iPhone itself has quite good security, and you can create an additional Notes.app password and use it to lock one or more individual Notes. iPhones that support TouchID (fingerprint unlock) make it easy to access locked notes. Just be sure to add the Notes.app password to your document and to print out the Note when it changes.

This approach is simple and secure, and it’s safe as long as a Guide keeps printed copies. It’s easy to accidentally delete critical information when editing a Note, and of course phones get lost and broken. Paper backups are reliable.

There’s an additional important advantage of printed backups. When someone becomes disabled or dead their family will really appreciate the printed copy.

Airport Utility: How to load an external configuration file for a brand new AirPort Extreme

The AirPort Utility tries too hard to be friendly. It wants to do some fancy migration from an older device that’s running, but I’d already exported that configuration file and removed it. Everything was connected, I just wanted to import the configuration file.

I couldn’t!

The trick, of course, is the option key. Cancel out and look for “Other Wi-Fi Devices”. Option-click the new one. You get a ‘power user’ interface (same one with option clicking any device in AirPort Utility). Now you can import the .baseconfig file you exported previously.

It came up perfectly, except it had some odd default password initially. I changed it to my admin password and updated.

My 2014 AirPort Extreme just died.

I liked the ME918LL/A AirPort Extreme for 17 months. It covered most of our house with a single device and it was pretty reliable. Around 17 months it started to spontaneously power down. I suspect an issue with the power supply, Apple has a long history of wonky power supply problems.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's eventually a recall program. I purchased it with an AMEX card, so I’ll now see how good their extended warranty program is. (It used to be quite good, but AMEX has outsourced the program. If it fails me on this one I’ll deprecate my AMEX card.)

In the meanwhile, sadly, I’ve ordered another Airport Extreme. (Sigh.) I really couldn’t find a better option — Eero is quite expensive, unproven, and it comes from a startup that’s got a 20% chance of surviving. Google's hardware is outsourced and of unproven quality.

Apple’s Airport Express has a great reputation of reliability. If you can make do with the Express I’d recommend it over the Extreme. If you live in a country that mandates 2 year warranties then the Extreme is a good buy. If you live in the US either use an extended warranty credit cards or pay extra for Apple Care. Once you add the Apple Care costs the Extreme is more expensive than Google’s router.

Yes, WiFi services suck. They really shouldn’t. I need an electrical engineer to explain to me why so many of my WiFi solutions last 1-2 years. (I have a 6+ yo Airport Express still running …)

PS. Interesting that Amazon no longer sells the Airport Extreme or the Express. I had to buy direct from Apple.

iCloud Photo Library, Photos.app and my Aperture plan (plus Aperture Exporter)

I recently migrated my daughter to Photos.app and iCloud Photo Library. I ran into some minor issues and one significant bug, but I liked it well enough to pay $1/month for the 50GB tier. It did take hours for her few thousand images to upload. My hope is that she’ll start managing (deleting mostly) her images this way. The full res images are stored in a Photos.app Library in her account on my Air as well as in iCloud; the local Library gets backed up with offsite rotation.

So now I’m trying it for myself. I’ve never liked or used “My Photo Stream”, so I didn’t have to turn that off. I just enabled iCloud Photo Library with an empty Library then added the images from my phone. It’s impressive to see crops and burst select changes made on my phone update my Photos.app Library almost instantly.

Incidentally, turning this feature on disables iTunes photo sync. I didn’t even realize I had 125 orphaned images on my phone from when I used to do iTunes photo sync.

I’m not even dreaming of moving my 350GB Aperture Library to iCloud though. Here’s my current Aperture plan: 

1. Migrate the family Mac to El Capitan after next release and test my Aperture Library against that machine. I assume it will work well enough but I need to do my own testing. I know of a few problems with El Capitan.
2. Once I’m somewhat satisfied I’ll move my Mac to El Cap and stay there for two years unless (unlikely) Aperture runs in OSNext. 
3. Meanwhile I’ll be using Photos.app to work with my iPhone 6 images and perhaps RAW or JPEG images from my dSLR. I’ll “Develop” them there and, when they are “ready”, I’ll move JPEGs (not RAW) into Aperture and delete them from Photos.app on my Mac and my iPhone (replaces importing from iPhone). Yes, this appalls some photographers but I care about archives more than image editing options post initial work. 
4. Somewhere around 2018 I’ll flatten all my keywords (I use Aperture’s inheritance model queries -- which were too advanced for market really) and migrate to Photos.app 2018. Assuming Photos.app is still around in 2018.

Incidentally, while developing this plan I tried out my copy of Aperture Exporter. It didn’t go well. AE creates keywords in Aperture for things like image-album relationships; in my case that resulted in very large numbers of keywords. Probably more than Aperture was ever tested to handle, more than enough to prove the UI doesn’t handle scrolling. If I use AE on the future it will be with a temporary copy of my Library, not the original.

Note/Update: 

At least with Yosemite this seems to work, though it’s stretching the bounds of what Apple allows:

• My Photo Stream: turned off in iOS.Photos, OS X.Photos and Aperture. (It’s a useless feature.)
• iCloud Photo Sharing: turned off in OS X.Photos, on in iOS.Photos and Aperture.
• iCloud Photo Library: on in iOS.Photos and OS X.Photos, not available in Aperture. Download Originals to this Mac in iOS.Photos, Optimize in iOS.Photos.

Aperture Tip: getting from Project in viewing pane to Project entry in the Inspector

It works like this:

1. When viewing Projects in the View/Browser pane, select a Project
2. Look for the little i that appears or tap shift-I (project info).
3. Click that. Windows pops up. Look for the Go To Project button. Click it.
4. Now you are on the left side seeing the project.

I’ve been looking for this for about four years. It’s a kludge.

iPad LTE videoconferencing for a longterm care facility resident?

My 94yo father is a resident of a Canadian longterm care facility (veterans). He’s been surprisingly content there — though funding transitions are likely to make it less agreeable. He’s also retained more cognitive ability than I’d expected; not enough to live without assistance but enough to enjoy family conversations.

I live in Minnesota, and unfortunately none of my siblings live near him. We pay for a friend to visit him weekly, that has worked well. He also gets daily phone calls from my sister, but I have a hard time speaking with him by phone. He doesn’t understand my voice very well. Surprisingly, we do much better on Skype video calls. I think the audio quality is better, and by reading my face he is better able to converse.

The Skype calls require facility support that is likely to fade, so I’m now thinking of iPad LTE FaceTime calls. At the end of his life, in a weird twist of fate for a working class man, he has more money than he needs. He can pay for the device and the mobile fees.

I’m thinking of an iPad 2/3 (full size) with a wall or desk mount support and a lock, setup so he’s not backlit. When not in use for videoconferencing it can play a family photo slideshow (it’s dismally hard to find good products for slideshows). I don’t think he’d be able to initiate or receive a call — FaceTime’s UI is far too awkward, but I’d schedule times around a helper visit.

Anyone aware of similar projects? Leave comments here or email jgordon@kateva.org (or app.net @johngordon).

If I do the project I’ll publish on our experience.

Bug: iOS Message.app treats redirected me.com and icloud.com synonyms as different conversations

It took me ages to figure out what was going wrong.

My iMessage conversations with the kids were split into two threads, even though Contacts.app only knew of one person.

Turns out the problem was the old me.com and iCloud.com split.

Years ago Apple migrated its cloud services from an email of me.com to one of iCloud.com. They implemented a redirect, but I’ve come to suspect that the “real” address is still me.com. Or rather that on some Apple backends it’s me.com and some it’s iCloud.com. Turns out the same messiness applies to Message.app and iMessage.

iMessage/Message.app doesn’t know about this redirection. It doesn’t know iCloud.com and me.com are synonyms. So a thread that references daughter@icloud.com is separate from one that references daughter@me.com.

The workaround is to put both the me.com and iCloud.com addresses into the contact. It’s a pain of course, you don’t want to do this for every person you know. I’m doing it now for the kids.

I suspect this is a very hard bug to fix.