Linked List: October 3, 2022

Monday, 3 October 2022

David Smith: ‘Testing an Apple Watch Ultra in the Scottish Highlands’ ★

David Smith:

While I was putting together this review I kept coming back to the analogy that the Ultra is like a pick-up truck. Useful in regular, daily life but capable of heading off-road or carrying gravel from the garden store. It still drives like a regular car, but can do more. The Ultra has retained its “Apply Watch-ey-ness” while expanding its range of uses, which is exactly what I want. If they had instead made a dump truck (which in this analogy are the highly specialized, sport specific watches) it certainly would have been able to carry more gravel than a pick-up, but also been way less useful overall.

I like this analogy quite a bit.

I also greatly enjoyed the video Smith shot documenting his expedition. His written review is a fine article, thoughtful and succinct, but his video gives you a real feel for his hike. It’s visceral. What a wonderful era we live in when we can all shoot and edit our own little personal documentaries like this. It’s a little over half an hour long, and I enjoyed every moment of it. Grab a beverage, get comfortable, and watch it.

Fantastical ★

My thanks to Flexibits for sponsoring last week at DF. Their calendar app Fantastical and contacts app Cardhop are two of my very favorite apps. Both apps work and look great on the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and of course, Mac. You can try them for free, and see for yourself. And one simple subscription for Flexibits Premium, all features are unlocked in both Fantastical and Cardhop, across all platforms. And a Premium subscription gives you access to Fantastical Scheduling, a new feature that makes scheduling meetings with multiple participants so easy, I dare say it’s fun.