E-walking and iPhone cameras

5 things worth sharing this week

After a week off the format of sharing five things we're back with some posts that I'm excited to share.

I'm partially annoyed as I tried writing this post in Ghost for the first time. But as I'm always reminded, any web based writer isn't intended for writing. It bogs down after you've got more than a few pieces of media or a few hundred words, and halfway through writing this an error caused me to lose several paragraphs. So back to Tot or Apple Notes it is. I just wish I could find some kind of Mac based writer that had a 100% translation to a web based publishing platform, with the exact markdown format I've written.

The iPhone camera has been good enough for quite a while

What I’ve come to realise is the iPhone camera has been good enough, even great for quite a while. I wouldn’t upgrade my camera every couple of years so why my phone for just camera specs? When you look at the price of a phone these days there isn’t much between buying a digital camera body and a new phone.

The featured image in this post was taken on an iPhone X seven years ago. It's not perfect. I'm not a photographer, but I enjoy it as a hobby. The photo represents a moment in time I appreciate, and it's forever available as a result—all from a device I was carrying with me on a fun walk in winter while listening to a great novel.¹

Now, compare that against a photo I took this weekend in the same region, on my iPhone 16 Pro Max.

They're not true comparisons, of course. But I like both.

The trick I've learned, with photography, is to take a ton of pictures. Try things, see what looks good. Eventually, after a few hundred photos you might find one or two you like.

Yes, every time I upgrade my phone I appreciate the new camera tech. Better lenses, improved zoom, better low light, higher contrast. Lots of these things lend toward having more fun with photography. But, the lessons I'm trying to learn from framing, lighting, and subject matter are more important than the tech I carry.

E-walking

Despite all the electronics, it’s surprisingly lightweight. The X Ultra uses titanium alloy and carbon fiber construction to keep the system at just 1.8 kg (4 lb), plus a 410 g (0.9 lb) battery pack. That 72Wh battery claims to deliver up to 65 km (40 miles) of assist when cycling or 30 km (18 miles) when walking, and the system can even regenerate energy on downhills for up to 10% extra range.

I've written a bit about e-bikes recently. I don't own one, but I've used a friend's enough to know that I'll get one eventually. The new Rivian spinoff ebike looks intriguing. Well, this weird looking device powers your legs for walking or biking.

Last weekend I hiked one the tallest peaks in our region (see photo above). It wasn't a hard climb, but it was still a slog through packed snow halfway up our hike; taking us a few hours to ascend. We met people along the way doing better or worse, but all still excited to get out and see the views.

Along the way I thought about this e-walking device. It wraps around your legs and helps propel your motion. You still have to walk, you still have to move, but it removes some of the energy necessary and makes it easier. I really want to try one.

I'm currently 38 years old. Thankfully my legs work just fine and I can do about anything I want in terms of hiking or running. But it's not a given. Years ago I ran a marathon and crossed the finish line alongside an 80-year-old woman (and she was doing a bit better than me).

If there's a way to extend the timeline for what I'm able to do, or for others who love to move and get outdoors, then I'm all for it.

Several of the people I bumped into while hiking the mountain would likely have loved something to make it a bit easier to move—and I don't see it as cheating at all. Just like you burn tons of calories on e-bikes, an ironman-esque device helps you do the human things you'd do anyway, given the right equipment.

Canceling YouTube Premium

I canceled my YouTube Premium subscription recently. We were paying $23 a month for the family plan and I thought it would be worthwhile, as an experiment, to see how things would be without it.

Mike takes extreme measures to gain back the benefit of YouTube Premium, without the cost. It's an interesting experiment. I've tried YouTube Premium on and off, including a recent test on YouTube Premium Lite. It's great. Getting rid of ads is a relief.
But I haven't stuck with it because it's not how I want to use my screen time.

For me YouTube is a thing I use, a tool, a way of consuming information. It's not something I want to maintain as a device for entertainment—that's part of the reason I despise it for podcasts. A podcast is a form of media intended for casually listening to while having your phone turned off, or doing a secondary action on the phone.

So removing friction from YouTube, for me at least, is beside the point. I'm fine if it's a complete pain to use, every time Google glares a stupid modal in my face it's a reminder of the life I want to live outside my screen, and the fact that their primary goal of engagement can't have a complete hold on me.

How to have only one blog

I really really want to reduce my blogging footprint to a single place, but I can’t seem to figure out how to do it. I mean, I know how to do it. It’s just that there are several ways to do it, and I can’t decide which path to take.

Jack takes a different direction in this post than I thought he would. He focuses on the tech challenges. But the actual question that I've wrestled with is more the philosophical challenge. Like many writers, I want to write about more than a single topic. I enjoy writing on fiction, non-fiction, work, religion, tech, philosophy, and a dozen other topics. I intentionally, restrict this blog to only a few of those categories, and am often tempted to spin up new newsletters and blogs for new purposes (something that Craig Mod seems perfectly happy to do with his popup newsletters). That's probably still the right move, but I do wonder if a single blog with all the things would be interesting.

Pictures, not photos

or the new release of the Pixel 10 Pro (and the 10 Pro XL, which is mostly the same phone, just larger), Google has introduced something called the “Pro-Res Zoom,” a process by which, once you zoom in with the camera over about 30x zoom, after you’ve snapped the photo, Google will run it through an “AI” processor, not to bring out the details that are actually there, but to make up details that seem reasonable to assume are there, based on whatever processing algorithm Google is currently using.

Speaking of John Scalzi, we're already at the point where AI images and video are impossible to tell from "real" for nearly all of us. Do we just accept this—that things we see are illustrative?

I'm not sure.

We've already been dealing with this for over a hundred years (where it's hard to trust visual media and know if it's real), but the problem has compounded so fast that it will be hard to figure out how we prove anything going forward.

1. I can still remember parts of the story I listened to based on where I was in the walk.