Cocoa Switch

Boris Yurkevich — Fri, 01 May 2026 08:21:19 +0100

Anthropic silently installed a spyware bridge on my machine

Paper books

Boris Yurkevich — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 17:37:43 +0100

I have gone back to reading physical books. It all started from a holiday when I decided to take nothing with me except my iPhone, Nintendo 3DS with the Phoenix Attorney Trilogy, and a Stephen King paperback I bought a few moments before boarding my plane. I didn’t miss any of my devices; I had amazing sleep and I enjoyed time playing the game I wanted to finish for a long time, and reading a paper book — something I never thought I would do again. I switched to digital books after I got my PocketPC computer, and since then have been using e-readers, Kindle, and lately just reading from my iPhone. But it all changed since I realised that I can’t decide what I should take with me on holiday. It was just taking too much of my energy. I had this idea to only take a book with me.

Lately I’ve been seriously working on my sleep routine. One of the important steps is a rule I have. No screens after 8 p.m. These evenings I find myself reading a paperback, and I hope it’s good for me. It is certainly enjoyable although I do miss watching TV with my wife after the kids are asleep. My behaviour sets a good example for my kids; subconsciously they started to copy me and are spending more time with a book than usual. This rule — no more screens after 8 — worked better than Screen Time restrictions. Perhaps I could use my Kindle, but something tells me that an act of physical owning and reading a book is a superior experience.

Boris Yurkevich — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 08:11:33 +0100

Another iOS dialog alert with buttons in a wrong order.

Safari. iOS 18.7.3

Boris Yurkevich — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 11:48:15 +0100

Finished reading: The Institute by Stephen King 📚

During the winter holiday, this was the only piece of entertainment I decided to take with me for a winter break. Not counting the Nintendo 3DS and iPhone. I also opted for a paper version.

Overall, this was the fastest read since high school. I went through the first half while on holiday, forcing myself to focus on the book. I read somewhere that reading from a paper medium shows higher brain activity. It’s a concern considering how much time I spent writing and reading in a digital environment.

In terms of the book, it can be called a classic, and if you like King, you will love this one. This book literally gave me a nightmare where I felt like a prisoner at the Institute.

By the way, they are making a TV show about it. Read the book first, and do not watch the trailer, which spoils the finale, of course.

Written in LinkEdit and Posted from Vision Pro.

Boris Yurkevich — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 18:22:46 +0100

Synth Riders on visionOS is really fun.

Boris Yurkevich — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 13:37:14 +0000

You don’t have to update to iOS 26 just for security reasons. There’s a way to install 18.7.3 with a beta profiler.

Boris Yurkevich — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 15:54:19 +0000

Playing Half-Life 1 on Mac, using Mac Virtual Display is awesome in Vision Pro. It’s feels immersive. You can’t run it from Steam, but there’s a workaround.

New Mac Setup Checklist

Boris Yurkevich — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 20:31:13 +0100

Once in a while, I get a new Mac for work, and I have to go through the same setup.

System Settings

Desktop & Dock → Click wallpaper to reveal desktop → Only in Stage Manager

Desktop & Dock → Show suggested and recent apps in Dock → Off

Desktop & Dock → Mission Control → Group windows by application → On

Desktop & Dock → Windows → Close windows when quitting an application → Off ¹

Desktop & Dock → Double-click a window’s title bar → “Fill”

Accessibility → Display → Show window title icons → On

Accessibility → Zoom, and then turn on “Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom.” ²

Settings → Appearance → Show scroll bars → Always

Control Centre → Clock Options… → Display the time with seconds

Control Centre → “Automatically hide and show the menu bar” → Never

Safari

Settings → Advanced → Show full website address → On

Xcode

Settings → Automatically trim tracing whitespaces → On

Settings → Navigation → Navigation → With Option → Use Next Editor Pane

Settings → Navigation → Navigation → With Option And Shift → Use Separate Editor Pane

Settings → Shortcuts | New → Window Tab → command + T

Settings → Shortcuts | Navigators → Show Navigator command + 0

Settings → Shortcuts | Navigators → Show Inspector command + option + 0

Settings → Shortcuts | Navigators → New Tab → Blank

Settings → Shortcuts | Navigators → Show Coding Assistant → Blank

Finder

Create “Developer” folder in your home directory, this is the right place for your projects.

I don’t know why “Close windows” is on by default; perhaps it’s a recent regression. There’s so much work that went into the restoration of user state, and this toggle makes macOS behave like Windows. ↩︎
I’d also recommend turning off “Smooth images” under “Advanced…” so you see individual pixels better. Marcin Wichary, at Unsung ↩︎

Boris Yurkevich — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 18:41:30 +0000

Since I returned my Vision Pro, I miss it and can’t wait to buy it again.

Unrelated, I stumbled on Bryan Johnson’s interview in Wired. For the past two days, I’ve been taking better care of my sleep; I completely changed my diet. I feel great, and my willpower has improved.

Boris Yurkevich — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 17:40:50 +0000

Apple Icon Composer does not support visionOS and tvOS. For these platforms you still need to use Assets catalogue with its own “AppIcon”.

No signal issue

Boris Yurkevich — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 18:49:17 +0000

Modern TVs are so irritating. They cost a lot of money, have their own OSes, AI processors, eco features, and certifications. And yet my LG G5 can’t turn itself off when there’s no input signal… It knows there’s no signal, it shows it, and it does nothing. Just wasting power. Presumably, to show ads… Which don’t show because I don’t connect mine to the internet. And yes, I checked, there’s no setting to turn off the TV when there’s no signal.

Update.

My TV does turn itself off, but after a long delay. I have not measured it yet, but it could be 10-30 minutes. What I want is this delay to be either zero, or no more than 1 minute.

Boris Yurkevich — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 09:24:29 +0000

My new job doesn’t allow iCloud, meaning I can’t use Apple Vision Pro MVD with my work MacBook. This limitation should be fixed in software.

Boris Yurkevich — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 16:38:44 +0000

I was looking forward to Metroid Prime 4, but now I’m very concerned. overcast.fm/+ABE99W8p…

Managing online subscriptions

Boris Yurkevich — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 14:39:04 +0000

I made a decision to give anyone who demands monthly recurring payments from me a dedicated card. Whenever I know I would like to make a payment, I transfer the exact amount. Keeping zero balance at all times. It saved me many times. Most of the big corporations¹ do not care about you; they only care about profits. Countless times, again and again, the same story repeats. I see a company trying to charge me for a subscription I didn’t mean to renew. Thanks to the zero balance, the payment fails. I go to their website and cancel the subscription. They tell me the subscription is cancelled, and at the same time, they continue to attempt to take the money from my account. It got me curious. What I think is happening is that they enrolled you into next month before taking the payment. So if you cancel payment after a failed payment, your cancellation date will not be today; it will be once a month in the future. For these cases, I had to waste technical support time and ask them to stop trying to charge me.

This approach has also saved me when renting electric bicycles. The timer on my bike didn’t work, so I couldn’t stay within my first 20 minutes and went slightly over budget, which increased my bill significantly. Luckily, the extra charge payment has failed. They still trying to charge me to my amusement.

What’s funny there’s even a subscription services to manage your subscriptions. I am not going to mention them; that is just ridiculous.

Only exceptions: Apple and Nintendo. With exceptions to Apple Music, Apple clearly states that I can continue using a subscription after cancelling. Other companies are trying to make it as obscure and scary as possible. “Are sure you want to cancel? You will lose all benefits…”. I can be wrong, but Nintendo gives an option to not renew the subscription during payment. I have never seen this anywhere else; more businesses should do this. ↩︎

Zero angle keyboard

Boris Yurkevich — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 21:20:12 +0000

I don’t like the incline angle in keyboards. I even looked into expensive mechanical options, all of them have an angle. Most of the people used to the angle, even though it’s not ergonomic. I was watching Adam Savages video about The Seneca keyboard. To my delight, it’s zero angle. But it’s $3,600, and you can’t even buy it.

Wallets on social media

Boris Yurkevich — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 21:59:44 +0000

There are a lot of modern wallets out there which look like a sharp rectangle. You should not buy them. I had one of them and I used it for many years. It felt great, so small. I felt smart using it. Then I thought that Apple Wallet and Apple Pay should replace even that small thing. But it didn’t happen. I have noticed that I am losing stuff. Because I don’t have a consistent place to keep cash, stamp cards, coupons, notes, COINS (I never have a point when I need one). I keep putting them in different pockets. It’s not a good system, I can never have them when I need them most. And when I try to find them at home, I can’t even do that. After a decade not having a wallet with me, I realised that I need my big fat wallet back. I need to use George Costanza’s wallet and keep everything there.

One time I had some guests and I gave them my contactless cards to use as a transport tickets. To my shock, none of them were working. I think it happened because I stored them together in a big box at home. I would buy a new wallet which would have isolated compartments for each card, which prevent RFID, magnetic stripes, and NFC from interfering and even damaging each other. But I have not found a wallet like this. Funny, some of them advertise RFID protection, putting isolation outside the wallet, instead of using it inside where it should be.

Watching all these Facebook and Instagram ads, finally I wanted to say it makes me sick to see letters appearing in the middle of an ad. I can’t turn them off, they obscure the view and it’s just ugly. I understand that the only reason people use them is because we mute our phones and big text forces you to read and you end up watching something you don’t even want to watch. This is disgusting.

Boris Yurkevich — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 18:57:59 +0000

I have tried to post a square photo to Instagram and couldn’t figure out how to do it. It offered me to “POST”, “STORY”, or “REEL”. I don’t even know what those mean. I tried the first option and it was littered with options to add music and text. But it seems to do what I wanted. So if you’ve been wondering how to use Instagram in 2025, now you know.

I will post more pictures here. Here’s Rory Kinnear and me at a mall. He was shopping with his daughter. He was very kind. Can’t believe I met him.

In our reality a company with two developers (Micro.blog) can do a faster iOS photos picker than a billion-dollar company. It irritates me when apps like WhatsApp and Instagram present their own privacy invasive photos pickers, which adds an extra tap to present the native picker.

Boris Yurkevich — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 16:03:22 +0000

South Wimbledon, 8 AM.

Internet is dead (not really)

Boris Yurkevich — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 19:18:52 +0000

Pavel Durov (Telegram founder) put a banner for every user which declares that “Internet is dead”. Tapping on the banner reveals this post.

I’m turning 41, but I don’t feel like celebrating.

Our generation is running out of time to save the free Internet built for us by our fathers.

What was once the promise of the free exchange of information is being turned into the ultimate tool of control.

Once-free countries are introducing dystopian measures such as digital IDs (UK), online age checks (Australia), and mass scanning of private messages (EU).

Germany is persecuting anyone who dares to criticize officials on the Internet. The UK is imprisoning thousands for their tweets. France is criminally investigating tech leaders who defend freedom and privacy.

A dark, dystopian world is approaching fast — while we’re asleep. Our generation risks going down in history as the last one that had freedoms — and allowed them to be taken away.

We’ve been fed a lie.

We’ve been made to believe that the greatest fight of our generation is to destroy everything our forefathers left us: tradition, privacy, sovereignty, the free market, and free speech.

By betraying the legacy of our ancestors, we’ve set ourselves on a path toward self-destruction — moral, intellectual, economic, and ultimately biological.

So no, I’m not going to celebrate today. I’m running out of time. We are running out of time.

Blaming the UK and EU for internet freedoms violations while not even mentioning russia (he’s country of origin), China or North Korea. I have no doubts that he’s a voluntary or forced russian propagandist. And judging by his character and long history of hate posting towards Western culture, I think it’s the former.

Don't be fulled by Identifiable

Boris Yurkevich — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 12:03:40 +0000

I was working on a Caffeine++ update and needed to upgrade the internal database. I happened to catch a bug, luckily before the release, where some of my drinks wouldn’t migrate correctly.

We know that to find a match, we can explicitly point to the id property:

.first(where: { $0.id == object.id })

And we also can write this, which complies. And you would think it does the same thing because object on the left and right conform to Identifiable.

.first(where: { $0 == object })

But in my case, only the first, longer option works correctly. Oddly, the shorter version fails only sometimes. I am not sure why.

Boris Yurkevich — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:42:47 +0000

Mouse with USB-C receiver. FINALLY.

Boris Yurkevich — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 19:14:33 +0000

BlackBerry film (Netflix) is fucking amazing. Why did I only find it now? If you like tech business history drama, you will love it.

Le Creuset Lifetime Warranty

Boris Yurkevich — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 09:34:40 +0000

I don’t have issues with the cast iron stuff, but we have a scratching situation with Le Creuset teflon frying pans. They are not better than any other brand. But paying extra was motivated by the hope of higher safety and a longer life. I think scratches are caused by the dishwasher, but I am not 100% sure. We don’t have enough space in the kitchen, so it’s possible we scratched the surface when storing. And of course, they won’t replace it.

Whenever I see “lifetime guarantee” or even a ”limited warranty”, I try to gather as much information as possible and digitalise the purchase. Because when it comes to claiming the warranty, there’s always resistance. Sometimes they try to confuse us by claiming that warranty only available if you register your item shortly after purchase. And how many people do it? I think it’s just a trick to gather more data on us, and warranty still can be used even without registration. I ending up registering anyway, just in case. The only exception is Apple, I always had good experience in a warranty and even outside warranty situations.

Boris Yurkevich — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 20:47:17 +0000

Live demos only make your product stronger. If Meta AI glasses hadn’t shown a rare race condition on stage, this bug would possibly never have been fixed.

Boris Yurkevich — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 16:19:58 +0000

Here’s a curious find. Install Grok, create an account. Delete app. Delete all Safari data. Reinstall Grok on iOS. You will still be signed in. How is it possible?