iOS 12: "family sharing" is still for children only -- ask to buy disabled at age 18 in US

The “Share purchases on iPad with family members” chapter of my iOS 12 iPad user guide tells me Family Sharing is still limited to children, and still not suited for use with special needs adults.

The problem is that “Ask to Buy” is available only for 18 and under. Since all purchases go to the “Family Organizer” Ask to Buy is the only way for the Organizer to control what family members purchase intentionally or accidentally. Since it’s turned off at age 18 “Family Sharing” is effectively for parents (who presumably share expenses) and children (who can have Ask to Buy).

This means that Family Sharing is not helpful for special needs dependents (guardianship status).

This is unchanged from iOS 11.  I’m not surprised, Apple doesn’t want Family Sharing to be widely adopted beyond the target group.

iOS 12 Books will not sync to Sierra or High Sierra Books

I updated my iPad to iOS 12. Books gave me this notification:

Changes you make to your library on this device sync only to devices running iOS 12, macOS 10.14, or later.

I downloaded the iOS 12 manual to my iPad and, as promised, it doesn’t show on Sierra iBooks.

Took me only a few minutes to find the first problem with iOS 12.

It’s a gift!

A similar problem happened with Mavericks.

AT&T mobile app: A bug with data usage display and an unexpected feature

We share 6GB of A&TT mobile data between four of us [1]. Normally this is enough, but this month #1 son went over his quota. He pays for the overages, so it wasn’t a big deal, except that MyAT&T.app on my iPhone wasn’t tracking the usage. “See all usage” showed we were using a total of 6GB of data even though we’d used over 8 GB:

When you add the above numbers you get about 6.1 GB. Turns out there’s a bug in the app — it basically stops working when you hit your data limit. There’s a similar bug in a couple of places — “Change my plan” says I’ve used 6.00GB this month, in truth we used over 8GB.

To see the true state of things look down to the bottom of this screen (may need to scroll) and tap “See all my usage” (compare to “See all usage”, above). You get an embedded web page and if you scroll down you see the true current use.

Scroll further down that page and tap a link called “Manage data” (elsewhere it’s Manage my data usage”). You get some useful features I didn’t know existed …

Stream saver reduces video streams to 480p, it’s on by default. This screen also lets you turn data off completely for an individual user; I didn’t know that was an option. It might be useful for working with an uncooperative dependent burning data, but it also disables Find iPhone and Find Friends. So it’s a bit of a mixed blessing.

With the data overages it’s tempting to pay $16 more (basically cost of one overage) and go to the 10GB plan, but typically we’re under the 6GB level and almost never go over 7. So it’s more economical to stay at 6 and buy overage GBs periodically. I have found everything is using more data so we might need to change in a few months.

[1] #2 son uses so little data he gets by on a @$50 a year H2O prepaid plan.

Thoughts on replacing FileMaker Pro 11

Once upon a time database apps were priced and sold as a consumer product. Those were the days when computers were marketed as a replacement for a recipe book.

There were dozens of consumer oriented database products then, priced from under $15 shareware apps to around $100 for relatively full featured commercial products (AppleWorks, etc). Some of these products, particularly on the Mac, were astounding (though high end ones were priced as business products).

That era seems weird now. It definitively ended when Apple discontinued Bento. Shortly afterwords FileMaker was priced as a business-only product. Panorama X has followed a similar path. Tap Forms is sold at a consumer price, but it failed my basic trial tests.

The era of the affordable personal database app has passed. The only commercial remnant on any platform is Microsoft Access — somehow Microsoft can’t quite kill it. LibreOffice Base began as Microsoft Access clone and sort of runs on macOS, but parts of it still require Java.

My only current use case for FileMaker Pro is that it runs my personal password database. I could move that (yay data freedom!) to Microsoft Access in a VM, but Windows 10 is a monstrous amount of baggage to keep around just to run a personal password manager.

I could finally migrate to 1Password. Emily and I use it and I have to periodically dump data into it manually from my old password database. I wonder how long that product will last with Apple incorporating credential management into the operating system though.

Or I could adopt the lazy choice and stay on Sierra and FileMaker Pro 11 a while longer. I like the sound of that one.

Replacing Filemaker Pro 11: Tap Forms fails within minutes of testing

Filemaker 11 is not compatible with High Sierra. I checked out Tap Forms. It failed because …

1. Tap Forms Mac 5.app stores its database files in ~/Library/Containers/com.tapforms.mac/Data/Documents. I prefer not to use apps that store data in unorthodox places, it makes backup and restore too difficult. It’s much to easy to lose track of files and uninstall is more complex. This is, however, an Apple design practice — MarsEdit does the same thing.

2. I choose a csv file to import and I renamed the fields in the import dialog as below.

.

After import the fields had the original names.

I found two significant problems in 5 minutes of testing. The first is a design choice I dislike for this type of app. The second is a bug - an obvious bug found on the very first thing I tested.

Tap Forms is not a viable choice for me.

Also, uninstalling is the usual pain — but that’s a longstanding Apple issue.

Google Voice: "We could not complete your call - Please try again."

I’ve been using Google Voice for eons — starting before Google acquired GrandCentral. It saved me thousands on my daily mobile calls to my mother in Canada.

GV must be a real money loser for Google though — the interconnect fees to landlines are a real cost [1]. So it’s not surprising that it’s a bit of a mess — between GV legacy, GV current, Hangouts [2] and heaven knows what else.

Today I tried a GV call from my iPhone and got “We could not complete your call - Please try again.” In my case this is a bug that happened because the GV number associated with the Google ID I was using did not have an associated mobile phone (I’d moved that phone to a different GV account). I think Google Voice.app for iOS used to permit that, but it doesn’t now. To use Google Voice.app now you need to have an associated verified mobile phone with the active GV account.

So I moved my two mobile numbers to the two GV accounts I wanted them on. Now if I try to use Google Voice.app with an account that doesn’t have a verified mobile number it gives me a more appropriate error message (that’s why this was a bug — wrong error message).

I’d be happy if GV would figure a way to make money from me, it is a great service.

- fn -

[1] Funny thing and cautionary tale: In the early 90s we were sure that by the year 2000 voice calls would be so cheap they wouldn’t be worth metering. That was only sort of true. Never underestimate the power of discontinuities.

[2] GV sort-of migrated to Hangouts, but that seems to have stalled and perhaps reversed. Hangouts seems to be dying, caught up in Google’s flailing messaging strategy.

IOT: Switching a Chamberlain MyQ WiFi garage door opener WiFi network

When our garage door opener died our service guy installed a LiftMaster Contractor Series Garage Door Opener. I think it’s an 8155W, 8164W or 8165W.

You can enable smartphone app access to monitor and control the garage door — assuming your home WiFi extends that far. Yeah, it’s Internet of Things (IOT) device.

There are obvious problems with doing enabling wifi access:

• Chamberlain security is probably fairly typical. As in … lousy. Assume whatever credentials you use to setup this account are now public. Also assume that the garage door is accessible by anyone who wants in badly enough.
• Even if there are no known exploits in the device OS (hah-hah) it will never get updated. So there will be exploits eventually.
• It’s made in China. Presumably it comes with a backdoor.
• The standard setup is to connect it to your home network. Which means you are, basically, toast.

On the other hand an additional remote is $50 and you can set alarms if the garage door is open after, say, 10pm.

Our garage is not connected to our home, but our Apple AirPort Extreme does reach it. So, despite the risks, I did an initial experimental connection and installed the LiftMaster.app.

It worked ok, so I enabled the Guest network on my AirPort and decided to switch it over. I couldn’t find documentation on how to switch to this network though.

The web page of an error message did give one way to force it to connect:

MyQ Wi-Fi Garage Door Opener: press and release the round yellow Learn button three times on the opener's motor unit. The motor unit's blue LED will be blinking on and off and the opener will beep once.

It turns out there is documentation in the product manual (available online), it just doesn’t contain the keyword “reset”. Instead it uses “erase”. To erase/reset the WiFi network you need to use the controls on the opener, not the remote. There’s an “up arrow” called an “adjustment button”. Press and hold it until 3 beeps are heard. Then start over with the WiFi. (I ran into some issue and Chrome seemed to work around it, so if Safari doesn’t work for you …)

The garage opener is on my Guest network now, so theoretically isolated from my home network.