Artificial Intelligence Performance … “Also” Security

Samual Axon at Arts Technica published an interview with Apple’s artificial intelligence (AI) chief John Giannandrea concerning the state of AI at Apple.

If you go back enough years, you can see plenty of articles and hear podcasts where I bemoaned Apple’s ability to compete with AI given the fact that they were not willing, for instance, to throw all of our pictures together so they would have one massive server database for the AI gods. Instead, Apple always said they were going to protect user privacy, and while I agreed with the sentiment, I worried about its long term effects.

However, Apple has been turning my opinion around on this over the past several years. This latest article settles my mind entirely on the question. The point that comes through several times is that Apple believes doing AI analysis on a device actually gives the best user experience because the computing is getting done closer to the user.

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“Yes, I understand this perception of bigger models in data centers somehow are more accurate, but it’s actually wrong. It’s actually technically wrong. It’s better to run the model close to the data, rather than moving the data around. And whether that’s location data—like what are you doing— [or] exercise data—what’s the accelerometer doing in your phone—it’s just better to be close to the source of the data, and so it’s also privacy preserving.”
— John Giannandrea

This is the first time I’ve heard someone from Apple explain how their AI model is better because it is faster, and the privacy benefits are icing on the cake. Privacy has always been at the front of that argument. It’s never been the “also”, until now.

I think the reason Apple is starting to talk more about this is the significant lead they have with Apple silicon. I’m just not convinced any other company can pull off AI on the device the way Apple is right now. If anyone at Apple were to ask me, I would say push down the gas pedal with on-device AI as hard as you possibly can.

Day One, Version 5


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Yesterday marked the release of Day One, version 5. There are several new features of note:

The Today View

Previously called the Activity Feed, the new Today View ties in other data available to Day One, like location data, calendar events, and daily photos. If you tap on a calendar event, it opens a new entry with that event title as the Day One entry title. Clever.

PDF Export

The PDF Export feature has a lot more options than it used to. You can export out of a specific journal but only entries with one tag, but no entries with a different tag. Want to export as CSV? It does that now too. It opens up data export.

The Media Picker

Getting photos and videos into your journal just got easier.

They’ve also added Sign in with Apple, greatly simplifying sign in on your devices. I’m testing out several journaling workflows right now, and this update came just as I’m testing out Day One in earnest—more on this to come.

SaneBox — Rescuing Treasure from Spam (Sponsor)



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Spam folders are great—until they are not. If your email client/service decides to start throwing important email into the spam folder, then you’ve got trouble. I had that happen with some customer support emails a few months ago. So I went looking for way to stop an overly aggressive spam filter from upsetting customers without giving up on spam filters entirely.

The solution was with this week’s sponsor, SaneBox. SaneBox adds a pile of email features to your email, no matter what email service you use or what email app you choose. One of those features is the SaneNotSpam folder.



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When your @SaneNotSpam folder is enabled, SaneBox constantly monitors your spam folder, looking for emails that might be inbox-worthy. When SaneBox finds one, it is moved into your SaneNotSpam folder. This means that either the person it was sent by or the service that was sending it was considered by the SaneBox algorithms to be normally inbox-worthy. Either way, it lets me find important email without digging through my spam folder.

There are so many more features you get with SaneBox:

  • Wake up every day to find the SaneBox robots have automatically sorted your incoming email for you so you can address the important and ignore the irrelevant.

  • Defer email for hours, days, or weeks, so it is out of your life until a more appropriate time. They’ve even added a new feature that can optionally auto-reply to snoozed email with something like, “I’m sorry, but I’m underwater right now. I’ll get back to you in a few days.”

  • Set secret reminders so if someone doesn’t reply to an important email, SaneBox gives you a nudge to follow up.

  • Automatically save attachments to the cloud (like Dropbox).

  • Use their SaneForward service to automatically send appropriate emails to services like Evernote, Expensify, and Kayak.

  • Move unwanted email to the SaneBlackHole and never see anything from that person again.

The list goes on, and MacSparky readers love this service. Why not straighten out your email by getting a SaneBox account today? If you sign up with this link, you even get a discount on your subscription.

Focused 105: Living the Multipotentialite Life, with Jay Miller



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Jay Miller joins Mike and me on this week’s Focused to talk about balancing many interests, transferring your focus as you switch between them, and what it means to live the multipotentialite lifestyle.

This episode of Focused is sponsored by:

  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code FOCUSED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

  • Ahrefs: SEO tools and resources to grow your search traffic. Get a 7-day trial for just $7.

Exiting Basecamp (Sort of)

A few years ago, I was looking to solve a problem that, in hindsight, didn’t need solving. Specifically, I wanted to have a system in place for legal clients to have easy access to their digital documents. After some research and trials (why are nearly all legal-focused software/services terrible?), I ended up choosing Basecamp.

I have read several books by Basecamp’s founders, and I believed (and continue to believe) in the company. So I spent time and money making the transition of many legal files into a Basecamp install and spent client attention getting them into the system. This was no small investment for me. Basecamp costs $1,000 per year. Moreover, it is a web service and not particularly automation friendly. I figured out work-arounds, but my traditional bag of tricks did not work, and everything I did in relation to my legal files took … just … a … little … longer.

OmniFocus recently reminded me that I am a few months away from my annual Basecamp renewal, so I spent some time looking into my usage. In doing so, I realized that only 3% of my clients were using it as I envisioned. I spoke with a few clients about this, and one explained to me, “Dave, I’m paying you for a service. Don’t make me learn software to do so.”

In short, my Basecamp experiment crashed and burned. So over the last few months, I have been pulling my legal data out of Basecamp, and I am now sorting out a more traditional, local file system for that data. There were other benefits available on Basecamp that I will miss, specifically the ability to easily combine documents, notes, email, and other data on a per-transaction basis. So now I am neck-deep in JavaScript and creating tools in Drafts, Hazel, Keyboard Maestro, Shortcuts, and all the other bits to replicate those features locally. It’s all working out, and it probably would not surprise you to learn that I am enjoying building out the new automation.

There is, however, a plot twist. The purpose of the Basecamp experiment was to solve a perceived problem with the law practice, but since I had the account, I also started using it for administration of the MacSparky bits. My virtual assistant liked Basecamp and, from the beginning, it was a very convenient place for us to work together. I spent some time looking at other collaboration tools and none of them are particularly appealing. So while I am going shut down my paid account, I will remain in Basecamp with a free personal account, limited to three projects. That is plenty for us to keep things rolling at MacSparky.

Plan on future posts here about automation and file management since now I am neck-deep in it.

The iMac Update

Apple released an update to the iMac today. I’d rate this one as “slightly more” than a speed bump.

  • The processors are now 10th generation Intel CPU’s for all models.

  • Spinning drives are gone … almost. There is no model sold solely with a spinning drive. The low end is a 256GB SSD. Although the Fusion drive still lives.

  • The FaceTime camera is upgraded to the same 1080p camera in the iMac Pro. I’ve shot video for some of the Field Guides with that camera. It’s a nice upgrade, particularly during these strange times.

  • The iMac now has the T2 chip. Hooray.

  • You can spec the RAM up to 128GB and the storage up to 8TB (for just an additional $2,400.00).

Overall, a nice update. It’s nice to see Apple giving spec-bump updates to its hardware. That said, there are lots of rumors about a redesign of the iMac in the pipeline. I’m guessing that will arrive with the first Silicon iMacs. IF it is going to be a touch screen, wouldn’t it be cool if they put it on a hinge like the Microsoft Surface Studio?

If you need a new iMac, these look great. If you can wait, I can’t help but think things will get interesting later on.

Time Saved. Time Lost.

I have been thinking about how the coronavirus pandemic has changed my life. There are lots of big and small ways. Have you thought about how the pandemic has changed time for you?

There were things you used to spend your time on, but where are you now saving time? That long commute is on hiatus. The drop-in visitors to your office to “shoot the breeze” is much less likely. If you think about it, there are lots of ways you may be saving time now that you weren’t before.

On the flip side, what are the new time sucks in your life? These days “Zoom Meeting” is becoming just as dirty of a phrase as “Powerpoint Presentation” was before all this madness started. 

Everyone has their own accounting of time gained and time lost over the past several months, but if you’re not aware of your own, you should be. A half-hour commute to work equates to five found hours per week, 20 hours per month, 240 hours over a year. That’s six weeks in your pocket. You could do a lot with that time. The question is whether you will recognize you have it and what you will do with it.