My DSLR is over a decade old, a Canon 700D that I usually pair with a prime lens. Either my 50mm f/1.8 or 24mm f/2.8 lens. Sometimes with a telephoto lens. I never use the 18-55mm kit lens.

The photos always have more character than those taken on my phone.

So maybe out phones should do less. Or I need to take more advantage of the tools at my disposal. Especially given I spend time and energy lugging them around.

I also post a small selection of non-family photos to Flickr and have started to occasionally use Grain, although it's been rejecting my uploads the last few days for some reason.

The program is really good and I'm now a massive advocate of the whole thing. I did try continuing with the graduation programs but found that the app would crash meaning I lost audio feedback and couldn't log the runs in the C25K app.

Custom workout

I found the custom workout feature for workouts on the Apple Watch to be really useful. I've set one up to start and end with 500m of walking around 4x 1km intervals. This gives me audio feedback and a clear goal to aim for rather than just running for a certain amount of time as the C25K doesn't actually use any of my Apple Watch or GPS data to determine speed and distance. It's all about endurance.

Tracking my progress

I don't have a real goal in mind, only that I want to keep it up and remain consistent. I've started tracking my post-C25K runs plotting them on a chart:

The lower the line, the faster I am (average pace) and at the time of writing I continue to surprise myself as I hit personal bests. The green line shows my 5K time, it continues to tumble and I've knocked about 3 minutes of my time. The whole thing is skewed by the including of 1km of walking, but it's a necessary warm up and knowing I will have a cool down just makes it easier to get through it all so they'll be staying.

Just knocking a few seconds of each time shows progress and as my weight falls slowly, running should just get easier and easier.

If you're reading this soon after publishing, you'll see one of my previous runs was not in keeping with the others due to a long gap between that run and the one before. Consistency seems to be key.

You'll be able to get Waylist for 99¢ (50% off) during that time and it will return to it's normal price afterwards. Tixato has just become a paid game, but will be on sale and be free to download, returning to it's normal price from August.

Waylist does not require a subscription, it's a one time fee to get your hands on the app. Tixato is also a one time purchase, but you can get it for free during the sale.

If you'd like to know more about Waylist, a fully-featured travel planning app, you can check out some videos on it's website or you can get Waylist in the App Store.

Waylist and Tixato in the App Store

You can visit the Indie App Sales page using the link earlier in this post or head straight to the Waylist and Tixato App Store pages to take advantage of the promotion.

Well worth a read, it made me stop to think for a minute how this looked in my own life. Shameless plug for Waylist, but part of the reason it exists was to be able to share my own experiences in other countries with others.

The Gallery in Waylist started as curated list of locations that I've visited and the locations I sought out to visit while there. I spent a lot of time curating each guide in the Gallery and will continue to do so as it grows, but nothing lands better than the ones built on my own experiences.

I continue to be sceptical about AI, but there's room for a sprinkling of it. What there isn't room for is giving into AI above everything else.

Against England, they were awful. Against Spain they were even worse.

There was sweet justice in Enzo Fernandes being sent off and the Spain goal arriving of the back of a tiny lapse in concentration from Simeone.

We did not need 120 minutes of their nonsense. 90 minutes was too much. But Spain stuck to their plan, were disciplined and didn't fall for their tricks. They're world champions for a second time and deservedly so.

My highlight

Top of the list for me is knowing that my son will remember this World Cup. He has recollections of the last final in Qatar as it was at a reasonable hour and he has read a lot about football so has almost encyclopaedic knowledge. He watched the first half last night before he was marched of to bed (and was spared the half-time shitshow), but cheered for Spain as we caught up with the highlights this morning.

I remember the 1994 World Cup final but nothing else about it, it wasn't until 1998 when I really paid attention so he's getting into it a little earlier than I did.

The lowlight

Argentina's behaviour during and after the final. Unnecessary for professionals to behave in that way and even more so when you see them playing after going behind.

The actual lowlight

Immigration issues and wars.

The whole americanisations of the World Cup was sad to see. Ticket prices, hydration breaks, rings and half time shows. This is not what the World Cup is about. The players should be at the centre of it.

The shocks

Italy not being there was one, Cape Verde and Curaçao doing so well another but Germany and Netherlands departing so soon.

World Cup 2030

I hope Infantino is long gone and I hope the host nations take Canada and Mexico's lead.

No need for hydration breaks (temperature dependent) and certainly no need for half-time shows. Oh and I'd advocate for a reduction in sponsorship of the tournament. License away, but making money for FIFA should not be at the expense of hosting the greatest tournament in the world.

I had no idea finder could snap to file and folder name lengths!

A great look at the MacBook Neo and what it might inspire in those that use one.

If I hadn't started with Swift Playgrounds on my iPad mini then there's a good chance I wouldn't have launched 1 app, let alone 3.

Use what you have, try your best, be inspired and push whatever you have to it's limits. You'll be surprised with what you can achieve and what can be achieved.

If you haven't tried any yet, then please do give them a go and let me know your thoughts. Waylist is a paid app, so if you'd like to get it for free I do have a very small number of promo codes I can share.

Waylist and Team Sheets both currently have 5 star ratings but with limited reviews so I'm looking to learn more about App Store distribution from that angle.

Playing noughts and crosses (tic-tac-toe) with my son, I realised I could re-use the same mechanism to combine the two concepts and create a new strategy game based on tic-tac-toe and so Tixato was born.

Currently free, you'll find Tixato in the App Store. The price will increase come August but I'd love to get people playing and any feedback would be appreciated.

It's a game designed to be played in person, just place your device between two people and you can begin playing. It starts as a simply game of tic-tac-toe, but after the first grid, your next one is influenced by the last. As you move through, you'll find the centre grid might have been influenced by the previous 8 playable grids. First to 5 wins.

You can more details on the game play on the Tixato product page and I will be putting a product demo video together soon to really show of the simplicity and the strategy behind Tixato.

I'll share more soon, but having graduated the Couch to 5K program, I've found that the graduation programs crash half way through leaving me coachless. The Apple Fitness workouts aren't perfect, but because I'm using set distance goals, it's easy enough to see how much effort or time I have left.

Having disabled split notifications in the fitness app on the Apple Watch... I now need to figure out how to get them back which will stop me checking my watch constantly mid-run. It's a great way to check in and make sure it's all going smoothly.

I ... went up a level with RAM. With Apple Intelligence, which may tax the RAM day-to-day, I thought it was best to get the most I could now as it can't be upgraded.

I made the right decision and with macOS Golden Gate around the corner, Siri AI is going to be RAM hungry I'm sure. Even Xcode on it's own demands a lot of resources and with more agentic features it's only going to want more.

Looking back, I'm sure I was trying to hit 36GB of RAM in my configuration but if I remember rightly, the step up from 24GB was 48GB which is where I settled. A great choice in hindsight.

RAM itself has become an expensive commodity and forced Apple to increases prices outside of an upgrade cycle. Looking at a SSD for myself, one I bought for less than £100 two years ago now costs twice as much but is only available in half the size. That's a 4x price increase per gigabyte.

I also work on a MacBook Air for my day job. It has 24GB of RAM is highly capable. Given I am not writing much code, you could argue it is overpowered. My own MacBook Pro is approaching the point of being appropriately resourced and so I am patting myself on the back for the decision I made in late 2024.

You can also look back at the 2022 and 2018 editions.

Overall, I'd say Adidas win with their kits and all my favourites are by the German supplier.

Curaçao

They may have been hammered by Germany in their first ever World Cup game, but their away kit is a thing of beauty. Adidas claim it's yellow but I'd say it's a deep beige.

Germany

It was Germany who inflicted that defeat on Curaçao, while wearing their home kit inspired by previous designs. But it's their away kit which looks way better to me.

Spain

Completing the hat-trick for away kits, it's Spain's! Similar to Curaçao in main colour, but it features a single star for their 2010 World Cup win.

Japan

You won't believe it, but it's another away kit. This time for Japan, it's pretty beige again but having seen this one in the flesh, it's a fantastic shirt.