Courage

It is 7:30 AM.

I grab my iPhone and I place my thumb on the home button. My iPhone pretends that my finger is not my finger is not my finger. I manually type in my PIN code instead. I put on my WATCH. It does not unlock itself automatically, even if I follow the ritual dance of holding my WATCH up while I unlock my phone with my thumb. I end up manually entering my PIN on my watch, too. I go to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.

I go to my desk. I open the lid of my MacBook with Touch Bar. I have my iPhone in my pocket and an unlocked WATCH on my wrist. The Mac should unlock itself automatically. It does not. I place my finger on the Touch ID scanner. Wrong finger. Good finger. Not recognized. I end up manually typing in my password.

I start iTunes. Just like every Monday, it tells me that I need to log in to Apple Music. I do not remember ever having logged off. I enter my username and password. The dialog goes away. iTunes still does not allow me to listen to music. I close and re-open iTunes. I log off and on a few times. I finally reboot my Mac. I discover that the artist I would love to listen to that morning is not available on iTunes Music. I select another artist. I hit play. Music does not come out from the built-in speakers. I plug in my old 2002 Harman Kardon SoundSticks. The music plays.

I select the AirPlay speakers connected to my Airport Express to enjoy some music while I have breakfast. The Mac cannot connect to them. I reboot the Airport Express. After a few minutes I can stream music. After 2 minutes the stream ends. No way to start it again. My coffee is cold.

I sit on my Mac and open a Pages file stored on iCloud, one I was working on my iPad Pro during the weekend. The sync fails and I cannot see the last modifications I made on my iPad Pro. Open and close apps on both devices. I reboot them both. Pages for Mac tells me that there is a conflict between the versions in both devices, even though I have never edited the file on the Mac. I select the version on the iPad. My changes are lost.

My WATCH vibrates. Wife sends me an iMessage. Although she is on my contact list, the WATCH only displays her phone number. I try to reply directly from the watch but I hit the wrong button on the tiny UI and send nonsense. I try to cancel the operation but the “dismiss” button is out of sight. I hit the crown and the side button. The watch keeps nagging me with vibrations for pretty much every single notification that I get that morning. I take it off and leave it on the desk.

I open iMessage on my Mac and the messages of my wife are not there yet. I write my reply to her anyway and hit enter. I am surprised my message shows up as “delivered.”

I open Xcode. I have to debug some iOS code. I plug my iPhone to my Mac. Both my Mac and my iPhone pretend they don’t know each other. Yes, you can trust each other; I told you so every day for the past 5 months. iPhoto opens thinking that I want to sync pictures. iTunes opens and starts downloading updates. I cancel the downloads. I close iTunes. I close iPhoto. Both take a few minutes to close. They eventually close.

By that time I have totally forgotten the bug I wanted to fix on my iPhone app. Ah, yes, I remember now. In the meantime the messages of my wife arrive to my Mac and plenty of notifications pop up on the screen, including things we wrote the previous week.

I open my Xcode project. The certificates, of course. Hit the fix button. I’m surprised it works. I need more coffee. The long compilation times of Swift 3 are perfect for a pause. At least the compiler does not crash.

I come back with fresh coffee. I sit down to write some code. Xcode opens the autocompletion menu at every keystroke. I disable it. I sigh and close Xcode. I open AppCode.

The Touch Bar suddenly stops showing the icons for the volume and the music. I do not know why. The “Esc” key is the only one showing up, which is quite ironic when I think about it. I touch the area where the volume control is supposed to be and everything appears again. I remember when the emoji bar appeared on the middle of the screen the first time I wanted to use it.

I would love to know how long I have until my battery dies, but the time indicator suspiciously disappeared a couple of weeks ago.

Debugging with AppCode requires hitting F7 and F8. I basically turn on the feature that keeps the “F” keys always on in the Touch Bar. And because of the lack of feeling on my fingers, I end up hitting a different key every time that my eyes are fixed on the screen debugging. The keys disappear after a few seconds. They reappear as soon as I touch the Touch Bar.

I sigh. I plug my USB keyboard to the Mac. I need a USB to USB-C dongle. I plug everything in place. The keyboard does not work. I unplug and replug a few times. The keyboard works. I wonder for how long. In the meantime the batteries of my Bluetooth Apple Trackpad die. I change the batteries. My Mac does not recognise the Trackpad anymore. I reboot my Mac. The Trackpad is there again.

I open another application on my Dock. I am told that it cannot be opened. I click again. No luck. I remember that I got it from the App Store. I remember the certificates issue. I delete and re-download it from the App Store. The app opens. I forget why I wanted to open it in the first place.

I try to open an application I bought yesterday on this Mac. The operating system protest, telling me that I have to login to the App Store because the application was bought in another Mac. I log in. The app opens.

I need to print the Pages document I was working on. I turn the printer on, ask Pages to print it. The Mac complains of a CUPS, JetDirect or Ghostscript issue. My coffee is cold again. I reboot the Mac and the printer. I realize there is no paper on the tray. The page prints a blank page. The printer needs ink.

The iTunes icon starts jumping up and down in the Dock. I click on it. It asks to log in to the App Store. I don’t know why. I click cancel. I quit iTunes.

I start Xcode. It crashes and quits. The dialog says “Unexpectedly.”

I shut down Mac, iPad, iPhone, WATCH and Airport Express. I shut down my TV too. Just in case.

It is 9 AM.