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Fly

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Broken Daily Notes Workflow thanks to iOS 18

As an enthusiastic Obsidian user, over time I’ve built a rather complex system consisting of about 15 different shortcuts that are triggered sequentially by a master shortcut. At the end of each day, these shortcuts collect data from various apps and add them to my daily notes in Obsidian. It was undoubtedly a challenge to develop this system, and without the Actions for Obsidian plugin, it would have been impossible. It’s definitely not elegant, but rather a bit of a hack, though it worked wonderfully for the past six months or so.

Despite my love for Obsidian, I must admit that the difficulty of importing data into the app, along with the non-native user interface, represents its biggest drawback. Nevertheless, I was extremely satisfied with my solution—until iOS 18 came along.

With the update to iOS 18, my carefully crafted system broke down. About half to a third of my shortcuts stopped working correctly. The errors occur mainly with internal iOS functions but also in conjunction with integrated actions from third-party apps like Chronicling. But it’s obviously Apple who broke it and there is nothing the developers can do about it at the moment. Every error causes the shortcut to stop entirely. Rien ne va plus—nothing works anymore. Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time looking for workarounds, disabled certain functions but at the end I came to the conclusion that running the shortcuts on my Mac, which I haven’t updated yet, worked the most reliably—even though this introduced new challenges to my workflow, as certain apps just aren’t available there. (Looking at you, Apple Health.)

This situation has made me reflect. I even considered switching back to the native Notes app from Obsidian. Partly because I also wanted to take a look at Forever ✱ Notes, which has made the rounds through the Fediverse in recent days. It’s paradoxical: Apple’s poor software quality is driving me to avoid third-party software and return to Apple’s own apps?! No, that can’t be the solution. 🤷‍♂️

For now, I’ve given up and am hoping for iOS 18.1. Next year, I’ll probably hold off on updating not just my Mac but also my phone to the new release.

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PSA: No More macOS 15 Sequoia Monthly Screen Recording Permission Reminders - I haven’t tried it yet because I haven’t updated to macOS Sequoia myself, but I’ll definitely keep that in mind for that day in the future.

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TIL that you can open the current macOS Finder window in Terminal by right clicking in the Path Bar in the bottom of the Finder window. So far I only used to drag the proxy icon on the Terminal icon in the dock.

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Latest Tech Temptations

In recent days, a lot of new hardware has been introduced, and for all these great new devices and gadgets, I consider myself part of the potential target audience. Apple has presented new iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods. Thanks to Apple’s decision to slowly and gradually roll out the promised AI features and not at all in Germany in the long run, the innovations of the iPhone 16 are limited for me. Therefore, I have decided to use my iPhone 14 Pro for another year, especially since I was recently able to replace the battery thanks to Apple Care. So far, I always had the Pro model, but this year, for the first time, I had the impression that it is actually aimed at professional photographers/videographers, and I no longer belong to the target audience. If I were to order a new device today, I would choose the regular iPhone, and who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky, and next year the iPhone 17 will even have Always On. That would probably be the only feature I would really miss. (120 Hz is guaranteed to be great, but I actually don’t see the difference in daily use; which in my case is an advantage.) It’s similar with my Apple Watch. Although I could justify a new one, since my Series 7 is now almost three years old, I recently got to replace the battery and see no urgent need for an upgrade. I’m already eyeing the Ultra anyway, and this time it hasn’t received any technical improvements. And since I already own AirPods Pro Gen 2, I followed the announcement of the AirPods 4 with interest, but there is no risk of FOMO 🥳.

Apart from Apple, the new Retroid Pocket 5 and Retroid Pocket Mini have been announced. Despite my interest in a dedicated retro handheld with an OLED display, my Steam Deck OLED and the other devices I already own are enough for now. The constant new hardware releases in this area are increasingly annoying me. When ordering, you already know that you’ll be presented with a slightly improved device in a couple of weeks. The manufacturers don’t allow you to have the feeling of truly owning the perfect device for even a minute, and it gives the impression that they are deliberately putting imperfect handhelds on the market 😡.

Speaking of retro and must-have: Analog Pocket has announced a new special edition. This time, there are beautiful GBC colors at the usual prices and not totally overpriced aluminium models. Although it tempts me, I try to curb my collector’s instinct 😅.

The announcement of the PlayStation 5 Pro initially triggered me as well, but I came to the conclusion that my current PS5 in combination with my 4K OLED gaming monitor is completely sufficient. Spending €800 for slightly better graphics is something I actually can’t justify to myself.

It’s different with the Switch 2. I’m curious and will probably buy it, provided Nintendo doesn’t make any major mistakes 🤞.

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Finished reading: Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King 📚

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What's Up With My Username?

I think we now live in a time where people don’t really wonder about things like usernames anymore. But maybe some of you have wondered about mine?

I’ve only been using esamecar for two or three years. Before that, I had a series of others, but for most services, I usually used the same one at the same time. I still somehow remember two of them. As a child or teenager, I naturally wanted a username that mainly sounded cool. Any appended numbers, like year of birth, were an absolute no-go for me. I’ve also never really been a fan of l33t speech. So the options were a little more limited. But, initially, it wasn’t necessary for my username to be globally unique. It was enough if it wasn’t used in the BBS network or in the Usenet groups where you were active. I believe, but I’m not 100% sure anymore, that I came up with Zodiac at the beginning of my BBS days and then years later realized that there were other people on Usenet who were much more well-known than me and had the same name. So I needed a new one.

After that, I had the username paxton for what feels like decades. I was a big fan of Bill Paxton from a specific, quite well-known sci-fi movie. But there were already others who had made a name for themselves earlier in the world wide web, and I don’t mean the actor, who probably wasn’t really hanging around in the interwebs at those times.

Therefore, I was looking for the next username and, because I became a scientist, decided on “Racemase”. Racemase sounds like an artificial term, many Americans pronounce it like “Race Maze”. But it’s actually the German term for an enzyme from the group of isomerases that enables the conversion between the two enantiomers of a substance. Anyway.

I don’t know exactly when and why, but I probably messed up and registered one or two accounts with this username and then forgot that I did and couldn’t remember the email address I was using for password recovery. Suddenly, I wasn’t able (re)register for those online communities with my chosen username when my interest returned. So I needed something new again, as I don’t wanted to be racemase68 on PSN.

And since I was very uncreative, I simply started writing racemase backwards, and now I often use this completely artificial word esamecar as an username for English-speaking communities and continue to use racemase for German-speaking ones. Let’s see how long that lasts.

Now, you know 🤷‍♂️🤣.

Update

  • 2024-08-15 19:31: Slightly rephrased some paragraphs and eliminated a few typos.
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The biggest problem with owning multiple gaming platforms is choosing the right one for a particular game. Those are the really tough decisions in life, I guess.

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TIL that when Safari on macOS suggests a username for a login and you have a Touch ID enabled Mac you can just directly use the sensor. In the past I always clicked on the popup with the mouse to select it first, and then used my finger on the sensor.

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What caught my attention in week thirty-two, 2024

In continuation of week 31, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the thirty-second week of 2024:

  • 🖥️ If you’re tired of always having to find a tiny free spot on an macOS app window to move or resize it, then this app might help: Swift Shift - Manage your macOS windows like a pro.

  • 🖥️ BetterDisplay - Unlock your displays on your Mac - was updated to version 3.

  • 📝 Quick Note Taking - Type made the rounds. Lout has (of course) already written about it. I like the idea, but the app does not support ISO formats for date and time and it1 does not fit into my personal Obsidian workflow, as I would have to configure a new note daily. However, I can imagine that the app could be great for many people. I will stick with Drafts in combination with Actions for Obsidian, though.

  • 📷 The image uploader for micro.blog Mimi Uploader was updated.

  • ☀️ A hat that produces energy? Sure, why not: EcoFlow Power Hat.

  • 🚴‍♂️ I really like my Lumos Ultra Fly Pro bike helmet and the matching Firefly are used in a variety of ways within my family. I also really like their announced new, smaller Firefly Mini.2

  • 🍏 I really hope that Apple manages to get a grip on macOS Sequoia Permission Madness.

  • 😢 I have once again been annoyed by poorly translated apps: Automated Translations in Apps: A Threat to Quality and Credibility.

  • 🌡️ For many months now I bake bread (yeast and sourdough) several times a week. I distrusted the temperature display of our oven and was therefore looking for a reasonable thermometer I can place inside my oven. I came to the conclusion, that this is one of those categories of items for which there is only trash available to purchase. Ultimately, I bought the meat thermometer Meater 2 plus. I suspect that my Meater will never see the inside of a raw piece of meat and I dislike their target group marketing and even more dislike their advertising campaign (woman lets food burn and star chef, of course a man, rushes to help 🤦‍♂️) BUT I still found the product very interesting. My Meater now measures the dough temperature, supposedly to the decimal point. (The reading of the ambient temperature seems to be completely off as well but the internal readings seem to be awesome.) It does leave an ugly hole in the bread, but the endpoint (96-98 °C, depending on the dough) can be determined pretty well. (For the first loaves, it was 5 - 10 minutes longer than the maximum duration stated in the recipe; so I have already learned something about our oven.)3

  • 👋 After actively ignoring Gruber in my podcast and RSS feed as well as social media for a while, I have now deleted all sources.

  • 🕹️ DOOM + DOOM II was released - The legendary action FPS is enhanced, combined, and now available on modern platforms! Nice move: Existing owners of DOOM (1993) and/or DOOM II on any of the above platforms receive a free upgrade to the new combined game, and can still access their previously owned versions. So, I could download the new version for my Steam Deck, Switch, and PS5 for free. (Of course, I own a legal copy of Doom and Doom II for all these platforms.)

Have a sunny week ahead! ☀️

Update

  • 2024-08-14: corrected paragraph about Type

  1. Lou was kind enough to point out that it is possible to define ISO formats as custom formats. ↩︎

  2. You can never have enough (pocket) knives, flashlights, bike lights, retro consoles, and gamepads 🤦‍♂️. ↩︎

  3. Of course, a few days after my purchase, the successor was announced 🤷‍♂️. ↩︎

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Automated Translations in Apps: A Threat to Quality and Credibility

Apps that clearly contain automatically generated translations that no native speaker has reviewed are so disturbing to me that I can’t use them1. I don’t think the developers realize the damage they are doing to their software. Such apps come across as incredibly unprofessional to me, and I find it very difficult to spend money on them because I judge the quality of the entire project based on this sloppy usage of automated (AI) translation, which is now so easily accessible. Two examples that come to mind: Appraven and Twos. Unfortunately, there are so many more.

  1. Sometimes I give them a second chance by switching the language to English, which is thankfully possible on iOS and macOS. ↩︎

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macOS Sequoia Permission Madness

9TO5Mac reports that Apple is apparently planning to present its Mac operating system users with a copy of Microsoft’s Vista disaster:

With macOS Sequoia this fall, using apps that need access to screen recording permissions will become a little bit more tedious. Apple is rolling out a change that will require you to give explicit permission on a weekly basis to these types of apps, and every time you reboot your Mac.

I really hope this gets sorted out during the beta phase; otherwise, I will try to stay on Sonoma as long as possible. For years now, I’ve been waiting to upgrade until at least the first .1 release because Apple’s software quality hasn’t exactly inspired confidence. Additionally, Sequoia only has one new feature that genuinely interests me: iPhone Mirroring. And this won’t be available for EU users initially anyway. (The integrated AI stuff doesn’t interest me on the Mac at all, so I’m not sad about not having it in my operating system for the foreseeable future. I think it will be several years before it’s useful for anything until then I just use third party app for ChatGPT.)

But I currently use 15 apps that are allowed to record my screen:

The idea of approving these weekly or after every restart is not very appealing to me. Additionally, Apple apparently plans to make running apps installed from outside the App Store more difficult. Thanks a lot for nothing.

Well, let’s wait and see 🤞.

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What caught my attention in week thirty-one, 2024

In continuation of week 30, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the thirty-first week of 2024:

  • 🖼️ I’ve mentioned the image viewers Lyn and PicArrange before, but this week Musebox made the rounds. I will take a closer look at it when I get a chance.

  • 🔄 Speaking of alternatives: Diffraction might be a (currently free) alternative to Acorn.

  • 🔍 And if you only want to find (even the smallest) differences between two images, you can check out ImageDiff.

  • 🖥️ Somehow, mini apps for the Dynamic Island of various MacBooks were making the rounds this week. I came across NotchDrop (FOSS), MediaMate ($7), Notchnook ($25), and DynamicLake Pro1 ($14). Since I mostly use my MacBooks with larger monitors, I currently don’t need these apps. But maybe in the future.

  • 🌐 There is a public beta for Söka 2.0 available if you’re interested.

  • 📑 GoodLinks also received an update and now supports highlighting text on web pages after subscribing via IAP. Since I am very happy with Readwise Reader, which admittedly is very expensive, I don’t need it. If I weren’t, I would definitely take a closer look at this feature.

  • 📱 Many people were excited about Unread for Mac. I don’t want another subscription and will stick with Reeder for now.

  • 📰 Speaking of RSS, Tapestry is slowly taking shape and looks promising. However, the concept only works for me with a very limited selection of resources, and I find it very difficult to choose the right ones.

  • 📁 Nimble Commander - Free dual-pane mac file manager with classic design, charged for power users. A possible alternative for those who don’t have a license for Forklift2, Path Finder2, or Commander One2.

  • 🔍 There are countless different apps that help you find files on your Mac in addition to Spotlight. There is now another free app that promises to do just that: File Find by Pixel-Master - Search and find files fast and easily.

  • 🎨 This looks cool: Pixelorama - a powerful and accessible open-source pixel art multitool. Unfortunately, I am not talented enough to use such an app.

  • ☔ Carlo discovered Merry Sky. Looks cool, too and like a free, supercharged web version of Looks Like Rain. Well, probably the other way round - but what the heck 😇.

  • 🎮 I like the idea of a game controller that can be used with your mobile phone and a Nintendo Switch: GameSir G8 Plus Bluetooth Mobile Controller.

  • 🤦 I first thought it was a joke because it’s so cringe: Friend. Maybe they just want to get the addresses of people who urgently need psychological support? (They already have their own addresses, though.)

  • 🎧 I was about to throw away our Beats Solo3 because the ear pads were starting to disintegrate. Luckily, I learned that you can buy replacements very cheaply and mount them yourself. And If I had studied the instructions more carefully, I wouldn’t have almost destroyed them during the process 🤦‍♂️.

  • 💍 There were increasing rumours this week about The Apple Ring and Health Tracking, presumably in response to Samsung’s Ring. I would also find such a device very attractive. After my first COVID-19 infection at the end of last year and the resulting break in my streak of closing my rings every day for several years, I’m no longer as keen on achieving this, but I still pay attention to them. On the other hand, I’m getting bored with the design of my Apple Watch(es), which I’ve been wearing on my wrist for almost 18 years now. Therefore, some variety in the form of other watches or none at all would certainly be welcome. Samsung will surely not integrate its Ring into the Apple Health universe (although this would probably be possible even without DMA). So, I just have to wait for Apple or just ignore my rings.

  • 🚴 Due to my wife’s shoulder surgery, we unfortunately had to cancel our vacation. We will now have to go hiking in the French Alps another time. However, I still took three days off from work and did what I would have done on vacation: ate very well, read a book3, finished a game on my Switch, but spent only little time on the computer overall. Oh yes, I finally went for a bike ride again, which I hadn’t had time or motivation for lately.

Have a wonderful week ahead! 🙋‍♂️

  1. Lou took a closer look at the app and also provided a discount code. ↩︎

  2. also available on Setapp ↩︎

  3. many thanks to Hiro for the tip! ↩︎

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Finished reading: Der Astronaut by Andy Weir 📚

∞

There are a number of household product categories where it feels like you can only buy junk, even if you were prepared to spend more money.

Off the top of my head:

  • kitchen scales,
  • draining racks,
  • kitchen thermometers, and
  • laundry baskets.

Which ones can you think of?

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Finished reading: Brüssel sehen und sterben by Nico Semsrott 📚

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What caught my attention in week thirty, 2024

In continuation of week 29, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the thirtieth week of 2024:

  • 📝 Might be handy, but not sure if I will actually use it: WeExpire - Create emergency notes that can be read by your trusted contacts only after your death.

  • 🖥️ Apparency for macOS - The App That Opens Apps - received a nice update at the beginning of the month.

  • 🖼️ PicArrange for macOS as well; although I have not yet found whether the text-based image search happens on-device or sends anything to the cloud.

  • 🤖 Meta released Llama 3.1 and it does indeed produce much better results with e.g. Ollama.

  • 🌐 Apple Maps launches on the web in new public beta - practical.

  • 🎮 Along with a few new applications, Fortnite is now even coming to the AltStore PAL. Let’s see if Apple will “coincidentally” allow it back in the regular App Store. It’s also a shame that Apple has managed to make the update and installation process so broken on my system that it barely works without restarting or reinstalling the AltStore or the apps.

  • 🎁 The German computer magazine c’t had a review of the WOWCUBE ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM - a very cool idea. Maybe a possible Christmas gift? I’m curious whether their software platform will flop or survive.

  • 🔠 Might come handy someday: Free Anagram Sentence Generator for English, German, French, and Spanish.

  • ✅ I’ve mentioned One Million Checkboxes in week 27, here you can read a little bit more about the author’s journey Dealing with unexpected popularity.

  • 🗳️ My Mastodon timeline has become much more interested in American politics since certain events. I follow this with some interest. However, I couldn’t initially understand the sudden memes about a certain person’s couch. Thanks to JD Vance couch memes, explained: Why AP pulled its story, now I know.

  • 🚑 My wife had shoulder surgery again. It’s no fun; now six weeks of complete rest are prescribed, and we really hope that the collarbone, or rather the implanted metal plate, holds this time. We had to cancel our vacation because of this. It’s a shame, but her health definitely comes first.

  • 🧱 I have quite a huge LEGO collection (> 700 sets and > 2200 minifigs) but stopped collecting a while ago, mainly due to space constraints and of course because it was becoming increasingly expensive. But I might be tempted by this set: LEGO 71438 Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi.

  • 🕹️ I’ve preordered Thank Goodness You’re Here! for the Switch.

  • 🎮 Of course, I am enjoying Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition on my Switch quite a bit and found this guide helpful. You can download a free PDF copy if you have a myNintendo account. Additionally, I am currently playing the remake of Dead Space on the PS5.

  • 🎥 And fittingly: Watched The Super Mario Bros. Movie - it was very light entertainment, but not bad.

  • 📺 I think someday I should really watch all episodes of Double Fine PsychOdyssey.

I wish you lovely summer days! 🌞

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What caught my attention in week twenty-nine, 2024

In continuation of week 28, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the twenty-ninth week of 2024:

  • 📱 Just in time for its tenth anniversary the rewrite of Overcast was released. I had canceled my subscription months ago, but since it hasn’t expired yet, I downloaded the new version and used it over the past week. It seems significantly more performant than before, but its UI is still confusing. I think I’ll switch back to Apple’s Podcast App, which I am also not really satisfied with.

  • 📑 With Showdown, a free presentation app based on Markdown has been released. I’ve been using Deckset for a while, and then there’s Hyperdeck or, of course, iA Presenter, all of which can do similar things.

  • 📱 The first beta of Tapestry for iOS by the Iconfactory was distributed to Kickstarter backers; it is still just a concept; I am curious to see how it develops.

  • 🤖 Sindre’s AI Actions for the Shortcuts app now supports GPT-4o mini.

  • 🍌 BananaBin was released in version 1.0 and here you can find some other weird but useful macOS apps.

  • 🔋 The battery capacity of my iPhone 14 Pro was down to 79% after just 1.5 years, so I used Apple’s Express Replacement Service through Apple Care+. You have to hand it to Apple, I had the replacement device in my hands the next day. The migration went quite well. My second prepaid eSIM was not as easy to transfer, but it was eventually reactivated. But guess what didn’t work afterward? Altstore PAL along with Delta and Clip1. A knave who thinks ill of it.

  • 🚑 My wife had a collarbone fracture a few weeks ago, had to undergo surgery, and now has a plate inside her. About a week ago, she suddenly experienced severe pain again. It turned out that two screws had come loose. Now she has to be operated on again. I feel very sorry for her.

  • 🔪 The new Victorinox Damast Limited Edition 2024 was released. Additionally, as a big Victorinox fan, I found this video by Jon Gadget interesting. He was invited to the company headquarters after he had posted a critical video some time ago.

  • 🎮 Continued my journey in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening .

  • 🌐 Enjoyed Everybody’s Free (to Make Websites), even though I didn’t even know the original before.

I wish you all a wonderful week and perhaps even relaxing holidays! 🌴

  1. I had to delete Altstore and both apps, restart my phone and reinstall the store and its apps and of course all my roms, settings and save files are gone … ↩︎

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What caught my attention in week twenty-eight, 2024

In continuation of week 27, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the twenty-eighth week of 2024:

  • 🆓 DEVONtechnologies released their free Neo Network Utility app for macOS.

  • 🛠️ Another new app from Sindre: Menu Bar Spacing - Customize the gap between menu bar items.

  • 📄 ‎BeyondPDF - BeyondPDF is your intelligent document companion, here to change the way you search for content in your PDF files. It works locally, without sending data to any AI startup, but so far, only for English texts. I am still waiting for a real use case and therefore cannot comment on its quality yet.

  • 🎥 Telestream - Use Continuity Camera from your menu bar!

  • 💸 There was another series of discounts for software from indie developers as part of the IndieAppSales. This time I didn’t go overboard like at the beginning of the year, but there were still a few very nice new apps to discover.

  • 💰 Speaking of discounts, Skoro 3.0 is still available at a reduced price.

  • 🍎 Apple has approved UTM SE for iOS on the App Store.

  • 📱 Many people in my Apple bubble are impressed by this really cheap and very stylish Android mobile phone. Instead of a used iPhone, I might also buy a CMF Phone 1 for one of my sons if the need suddenly arose. A few years ago, this would have been unthinkable for me. BTW, since the end of last week, the Vision Pro is now available in Germany, and I haven’t even thought about checking out the device in person. That would have been unthinkable a few years ago, too. Due to what I believe to be very poor software quality lately, their behavior towards developers, and childish actions against the EU’s demands, Apple has actually managed to kill any interest I had in new devices from Cupertino. What a shame 😢.

  • 🏳️‍🌈 Niléane from MacStories published an article about her impression that LGBT and Marginalized Voices Are Not Welcome on Threads. She and Federico received the unfortunately expected feedback directly. I don’t understand why people have such a problem with others just being different from them. What are they afraid of? It’s great to see that Niléane received a lot of support from within the Mastodon community and many people took this as an opportunity to donate to various organizations.

  • 🤧 My cold is getting better. I hope that I can finally get back on my bike in the course of next week.

  • 🎮 Analogue announced an Aluminum Edition of the Pocket. Unfortunately, it’s unaffordable for me. Additionally, the Odin 2 Mini looks extremely tempting, and the Ayaneo Pocket EVO with an OLED screen has also been announced 🤷‍♂️.

  • 🎮 Instead, I’ve added the SCUF Nomad Mobile Gaming Controller to my wishlist. (BTW there’s a review at Retro Game Corps if you’re interested.)

  • 🕹️ I finally played through Firewatch and started The Legend of Zelda - Link’s Awakening on my Nintendo Switch.

Have a nice week! 🌞