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Apple Store Waikiki Closing

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As reported by Ryan Ozawa, the Apple Store in Waikiki is scheduled to close in January of 2024. In the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center for 16 years, I did think it was an odd fit for Waikiki when it first opened, but yet, the store seemed to be doing just fine.

Maybe the crowds were really tourists looking for (free) technical support more than out-of-state buyers. Personally, the Waikiki location has been my third choice of Apple Stores behind Ala Moana and Kahala. But I must say the volcanic rock facade is one of the better designs I’ve come across while visiting other Apple Stores around the world.

Rona Shopping at Ala Moana

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While shops continue to reopen at Ala Moana, many still remain closed. So when shopping at Ala Moana, it doesn’t have the same feel to it. Returning shoes at Footlocker, you are greeted by these signs and maybe a line if there are more than 15 customers inside.

The inside of the Starbucks Reserve is like a mixed maze of graduation celebration.

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But the saddest sight had to be this – the former location of Banana Republic.

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For years, Banana Repeblic held that corner spot marking the near end of the mall before the Ewa Wing ever existed. More importantly, Banana served as the hidden pathway between the second and third levels using their wooden staircase.

Rona Pseudo Openings

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Although Ala Moana shopping center is technically open for business, it’s not quite there yet. Many stores remain closed.

The Apple Store is open, and there are several workers outside explaining how to get inside and also taking your temperature.

Stricter Apple Pay?

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Was it the macOS 10.14.4 update that has made password security much tougher for the end user? Whenever Safari’s autofill attempts to fill out a form, I’m not prompted to provide a fingerprint or enter a password. Previously, the autofill did its magic.

From a security standpoint, this is probably better, but when you’re in a time crunch trying to cop kicks, this delay is deadly. Seemingly I can’t quickly log into PayPal OneTouch without having to authorize this access. To make this worse, PayPal and Safari has failed authentication many times today showing a white screen and not actually finishing the transaction.

A bug or a ploy to further the adoption and use of Apple Pay??

Siri on my Apple Watch Told Me I Overate

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How was your Thanksgiving weekend? Hope you ate and shop well. I must have eaten very well based on what AI-entity Siri told me via my first generation Apple Watch. Simply put, I overstuffed myself and my watch.

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See the face of the Apple Watch separating from the body? Yup, a sure sign of overstuffing. Or perhaps yet another of my Apple devices boycots Thanksgiving?

But really, there is a known issue with swollen batteries for the first generation Apple Watches as I have learned. Amazingly, I text chatted with an Apple support rep on Thanksgiving day and was authorized a return to a service center. A FedEx box arrived on Saturday to ship out the working-but-separated watch. I shipped out on Monday and unbelievably by Wednesday, I had a replacement (first generation) Apple Watch on my wrist.

Thanks Apple! And Siri, I’ll try to cut back my eating during Christmas and New Years.

Apple HomePod Showing Up at Target

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It was a matter of time, but Apple’s HomePod music and smart home system is now showing up at Target. It’s still priced at $349 but using the Target REDcard 5% discount is as good as it gets on Apple devices.

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If you’re thinking of picking one up in store, I would call the location first and double check inventory. Although online inventory may say in-stock, the stores may not actually have the HomePod available to sell. Units could be processing through the shipping channel.

iPhone Battery Replacement Update

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Update 1/5/2018: Battery changed out after making a return “appointment.” Servicing took about 90 minutes. Store is full of customers wanting to check out their iPhone battery condition. iPhone 6 feels noticeably faster with the battery replacement.

Update 1/4/2018: Battery has arrived in store and need to schedule an appointment when to bring the phone in. I also got an email stating stop by anything (within 7 days), but it’s better to call back and actually set a time for the repair (1 to 2 hours).

After hearing that Apple updated its iPhone battery replacement program to begin immediately rather than late January, I made an appointment for Sunday, December 31, 2017. Unfortunately, the Kahala Apple Store Genius Bar had already exhausted its supply of in-house batteries on Saturday.

The Genius did run through a hardware diagnostic as a formality but didn’t find anything wrong with the iPhone 6 or its battery. He did say that we could change the battery for $30 regardless of the battery condition. We now have to wait about three to five days for a battery shipment then return to the Apple Store when notified.

From that point, it’s a one-hour service to swap out the battery. Not bad for $30.

And while you’re at the Apple Store, don’t look at different bands for the Apple Watch. Otherwise you might give in and get something like this deceiptively multi-colored “black” Sport Loop. Although described as black, the band has iridescent qualities showing off red, blue, green, and even more colors. It’s super nice and actually very comfortable!

Unplanned Wifi Bridge Comparison

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Well, I surely hadn’t planned this and really, didn’t want this. But I spent a few days doing an unplanned comparison of wifi bridges. Now, these devices are reaching legacy status since many devices now have wireless networking built-in. But for those devices that only have wired Ethernet, they need a bridge to change from wired to wireless networking.

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NetGear WNCE2001-100NAS

Initially, I had been using the NetGear WNCE2001-100NAS without issue. Okay, there was that one time I needed to reflash one unit, but after that, it’s been dependable. Setup is easy if not too basic. But once set, these worked (and continue to work). I can’t complain about wifi speed and range. Would like to have the power adapter use some kind of USB connection (to the device) rather than that tiny connector. But, but, but NetGear no longer makes these, and old stock online is super duper expensive.

So I went looking for a replacement…

IOGear GWU627

First up was IOGear’s GWU627. Easy to setup but too unreliable. Sometimes I can’t ping the device, sometimes, I can’t connect to its web interface. Speaking of its web management interface, it’s horrible. It’s overly simplified, geared for a single purpose bridge configuration without any options unless you find its secret menu at:

192.168.1.252/menu.asp

From this link with a minimal UI, you can change some settings including the hardcoded IP address of 192.168.1.252. I’ll give the GWU627 credit though, once configured it booted up quickly and got to work. But then it didn’t work so good. Ping tests were all over the place – less than 10 ms, greater than 100 ms, timeouts. Wow. When actually used in its use case, this bridge just couldn’t handle the network demands and stalled out, never allowing the bridged wired device to finish its updates. Not good.

TP-Link TL-WR802N

tp-link-tl-wr802Next up, a coworker had a TP-Link Nanorouter, the TL-WR802N. This inexpensive, tiny white box is very flexible can can function in many networking scenarios like a traditional wireless router, a hotspot router, a range extender, and as a client (client mode is essentially a wifi bridge). The web interface of the WR802N is very thorough with all the options exposed. It took me an extra try to set up Client mode with a static IP, not the default DHCP setting. But then the WR802N didn’t bridge. I could ping the static IP given to the bridge but could not ping or connect to the bridged device. I tried and tried. I even saw posts online describing similar issues but with a fix in the form of beta firmware. After contacting technical support, I was sent an updated beta firmware the next day. Sadly, this didn’t fix my problem. I’m pretty sure I’m configuring the WR802N correctly also testing DHCP settings and connecting to different wifi networks, but no matter what, I couldn’t connect through the device’s wired Ethernet.

Apple AirPort Express

Lastly, I brought in my second generation Apple AirPort Express. To cut this short, it worked. The wired device connected wirelessly. The wifi connection was reliable and performance was consistent and stable. Unfortunately, the AirPort Express is the most expensive device out of the three.

So where does that leave me? I probably need a few of these wireless bridges and while the NetGear WNCE2001-100NAS fits my needs perfectly with respect to cost, performance, and setup, this device is simply too hard to get at a good price. So barring any other discoveries, the Apple AirPort Express is it.

 

 

Dozy iOS 11?

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Anyone else experience a “very sleepy” iPhone after installing iOS 11? I’ve encountered at least three times that my iPhone 7 doesn’t want to wake up right away. It’s usually after I put my phone to sleep then try to wake it immediately. The screen stays black. I know the iPhone is still on since the home button still provides haptic feedback (the “button” doesn’t do anything when the iPhone is off).

After a long delay, the iPhone wakes up but in the meantime, the dozy iPhone feels like it’s not working.

DisplayPort 1.2, MacBook Pro 2016, Dell Ultrasharp U2515H, MST

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So it looks like my “new” MacBook Pro 2016 with TouchBar and Radeon Pro 460 with 4 MB does not support DisplayPort Multi-Stream Transport (MST).  MST allows the daisy chaining of supported monitors.

I got a USB-C to DisplayPort cable from Amazon and connected it to my first Dell UltraSharp U2515H.

The display finally mirrored my MBP, but I had to move USB-C ports seemingly to “wake up” the monitor or MBP. Then I activated the DP1.2 mode on the U2515H since by default DP1.1a is the factory setting.

Then I connnected the video out of the first UltraSharp to the video in of the second UltraSharp. For this, I used the Dell-provided DisplayPort to mini-Display Port cable. I then activated DP1.2 on the mDP port on the second monitor (not sure if I had to do this but thought it made sense).

The second UltraSharp came to life and displayed a mirror of the first UltraSharp. My laptop screen showed one desktop while both UltraSharps displayed a second (mirrored) desktop. The MBP recognized one external monitor, not both.

I also tried using a DP-to-DP cable to interconnect the two DP1.2-compatible monitors together, but that didn’t change the results (yes, I activated DP1.2 for the monitor’s DisplayPort). My MBP is running macOS Sierra 10.12.5.

Now the Dell manual states that only a single external display with resolution of 2560×1440/60Hz is supported by MST, and that’s the native resolution of the Delll UltraSharp U2515H. So there’s that. I tried reducing the resolution of the Ultrasharps seeing if that had any effect, but nope.

So either MST isn’t supported/implemented in the Mac OS X software or Mac hardware or I need to try this again using monitors with lower resolutions. Or most likely, I need to forget MST and go the old fashion route of using two video connections to two monitors.

Holiday Gift Guide 2016: SweetTango Apples

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sweetango-appleYes, fruit is on the Pulpconnection Holiday Gift Guide for 2016 in the form of the SweeTango apple. Yes, SweeTango. A funny name and an artifical origin but a very yummy gift for fans of fruit.

A hybrid of a Zester and Honeycrisp apple, the SweeTango is super crisp and crunchy. On the inside, the fruit has color semblences of a peach or nectarine with hues of pink radiating outwards from the core. Tastes tangy like a Granny Smith but then a sweetness settles in.

Check out your grocer’s apple selection and look for the most expensive apples, and you probably found the SweeTango.

More Pulpconnection Holiday Gift Guide 2016.

Apple Airport Express 802.11g Rides Again

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apple-airport-express-80211g-w-fi-wireless-internet-routerI’ve had the older 802.11g Apple Airport Express sitting in a box unused for a few years. Ever since Apple updated its Airport Utility management software to ignore this older model, it essentially became unusable. Until now…

Well, I guess this solution has been out there for some time, but I only stumbled upon it yesterday. You can still run the older Airport Utility v5.6.1 that can configure the older Express, but you need to use this special launcher. This “app” makes the needed changes so that v5.6.1 can launch on newer Mac OS versions including Ep Capitan 10.11.6.

Word of warning though. If your Express is previously configured, DO NOT factory reset it. This makes things much more difficult. If you do so, the Express goes into a configuration mode with a brand new, generic Wifi network. You need to connect to this temporary Wifi network in order to configure the Express, but when you attempt to do so, the newer version of Airport Utility launches, and of course, this version is incompatible. If you try to launch v5.6.1 simultaneously, it won’t connect with the Express. So if the Express was previously configured, you could connect and make any necessary changes. But if reset, you need to connect via wired Ethernet. Not hard but a hassle, especially if you don’t have all the pieces and parts handy (like a Lightning to Ethernet adapter for a MacBook Air).

I configured my old Express to simply serve as an AirPlay relay with connected speakers. Good enough use for this aged hardware. And yes, it works! I can stream music from an iPhone 7 running iOS 10 via this older Express.

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