Overcast.app: the upload feature in premium is not very useful

I like to listen to medical and historical podcasts on my commutes. I have years of material in iTunes and limited listening time, I don’t need new subscriptions. I just need to queue up selected podcasts on my device. I prefer not to waste cellular data and I’m not interested in listening from newer to older (in fact many medical podcasts need to be sequenced the other way).

iOS Podcasts.app worked for this, back when I could choose a Playlist in iTunes and sync it. Today’s iOS 11 Podcasts.app is pretty much worthless.

So today I tried Overcast. I can select the podcasts I wanted in iTunes and drag them to the desktop. I subscribed to Overcast.app premium so I could upload them for download into Overcast (no iTunes support).

That’s when I found uploads are one … at … a …. time. Not to mention slow, but really I could live with slow. Overcast.app is even less useful than Podcasts.app

I wasted $10. I’ve canceled subscription renewal.

Simplenote for Mac search has been fixed

Two years after Simplenote.app for Mac was released with broken search it is now fixed in version 1.2. A product I rely on is not only alive, it’s even improved.

This was a significant rewrite and there is still lots of basic work to do. Tags don’t autocomplete (I think they used to in the prior release and they do on iOS). You still can’t apply tag changes to a group of notes. There’s no export of notes as text files from App. There’s no markdown support (not a priority for me but iOS version has it) and of course no support for images. 

I haven’t used it long enough to spot any sync errors — recent versions of Simplenote were very reliable.

I hope this is a sign that Simplenote has a future. Now if they would only figure out a way for me to pay for it…

Sending multiple Contacts to an iOS user from iCloud Contacts

Found this works

• Select multiple in iCloud
• Click gear bottom left to export VCF
• Email VCF to iOS device
• Click on attachment - get option to Add all members

I’m sure there are other means. Note this does seem to require a computer. I imagine works same from Mail.macos.

iTunes cannot sync voice memos ...

“iTunes cannot sync voice memos … because the Voce Memos app is not installed … You must download the Voice Memos app …”

Got this error message in iTunes today. I haven’t used voice memos.app in a long time (I use iTalk.app) and didn’t notice Voice Memos.app was no longer on my iPhone.

So why am I only getting this now … and why did a search on this phrase only find some phishing/spam page? Why does searching on Voice Memo Apple find only a bunch of third party apps? Why isn’t Voice Memos.app on my iPhone?

1. I don’t know why only now … maybe an iTunes update?
2. I don’t know why Voice Memos.app didn’t get installed when I updated to iOS 11 — might be a bug there.
3. It is on the app store, but Apple’s app search/discovery is an unholy mess. You have to search for “Voice Memos” exactly. Shame we can’t search iOS App Store from the #$#@% Mac any more

One good thing — I ran across Apple’s Music Memos.app — which I’d missed. It does sound useful.

Canon EOS Rebel SL2: switching the paired iOS (or Android?) device (WiFi, bluetooth)

Older Canons cameras had a lovely IR remote. Worked great.

Now they use a Bluetooth remote — or you can use a complex remote app on an iPhone called Canon Connect.app.

It’s awful.

If you do ever get your camera paired to your iPhone you’ll run into trouble when you switch phones. How do delete the old pairing?

I think you don’t - at least, not directly.

Go to Wireless Communication Settings. Then Bluetooth Function (not Wi-Fi).  Their you check/clear connection info and then do Pairing again. The Wi-Fi info will then get set when you use the Cannon Connect.app to connect to the Camera’s built-in hotspot.

The trick is you start with Bluetooth, the Wi-Fi settings are stored thereafter.

Facebook's disappearing Pages feed

I remember when you could get an RSS feed for a Facebook wall. Years after that when away there was an RSS feed for Page posts, but I think that’s gone now.

Up until a year ago there was some obscure way to see the Pages Feed (all Pages) in Facebook Mobile, but I think that’s gone too. 

AFAIK the only way to view a page feed on mobile is to save the URL to the Home Screen. Go to https://www.facebook.com/pages then click on tab feed then save. Safari will sync un/pw via keychain across Safari on devices.

Looks like Facebook only wants Pages to show up in the news feed, and then only for a price.

Spotlight bugs in iOS 11.2: Empty contact on search.

I think the spotlight/contact bug was introduced in 11.1. It’s not fixed in 11.2.

If I search in spotlight for a Contact name, or search on Contacts field of phone app, I get an empty (Null) Contact as a result. It has no content.

Turning Search (spotlight) off then on for Contacts restores search, but only transiently. I have 2,162 Contact Cards, I did find one that was empty and deleted it.

I’ve now removed all Contacts from my phone (iCloud) and restored them. I’ll see if that works.