Adventures in Jeffland

I haven't really thought this through

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The Way I Don't See It

One of the things that draws me toward technology is that if something doesn't work they way you want, you can probably do something about it. Have a hard time reading dark text off a light background? Enable dark mode or run your own stylesheet. Have a cluttered background in your office on zoom calls? Put a different background behind you. Fixing a problem is a very rewarding feeling. Running into a wall fixing problems is the opposite of that.

Some problems are dumb but I'll just live with them. My HomePod Mini loudly repeating every command back to me, even if it is 2am, is not ideal. Siri being willfully unaware of Google/Nest products on the same network, also is shit. Those are the pitfalls of buying things inside the "walled garden." But there is a series of problems that I am running into that are increasingly unacceptable: Text size.

I am one of the sad souls in a pub, shining a phone flashlight on the menu. Even sadder, I am probably looking at the phone screen, using the camera zoom to magnify. I now have reading glasses in nearly every room in the house and both cars. Turns out you can buy them in bulk. But I don't always have reading glasses on me, because if the text is big enough, I can manage. I like to control font size per device, per app. I set VS Code has a reasonable font size, same with my my email app. But a few things don't let you control text at every level I need it. And because nearly everything in my life is Apple, I'm often grumpy with them.

Current walls include:

The fact that I can't control the text size tells me that Apple isn't valuing that. And they should. I can't imagine I am the only person who is starting to look over the garden wall for solutions.

#pwas |