This site began in 1999 as Mac Night Owl. But when Apple began to embrace other consumer products, such as the iPod, I felt it was time for a change. Thus the switch to Tech Night Owl.

I founded my tech radio show in 2002, and changed it appropriately, to Tech Night Owl LIVE. That decision didn’t come easy, because the radio network for which I was a part, MacRadio, was stuck in the past and couldn’t understand the change, so I split and went my own way. MacRadio didn’t survive for too many years thereafter following my departure.

After I discontinued my tech radio show in 2019, I sold the original technightowl.com and related domains to raise cash (you don’t want to see what they’ve become!). But I continued the blog under the Mac Radio name, since I still had macradio.net in my domain arsenal.

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In the old days, I had to own the fastest Mac, at least after I got my first writing gig about Macs and Mac software. It wasn’t that I was so flush with cash, but it was a business expense, hence deductible on my tax returns. So it was with great pleasure that I upgraded every year or two.

Even before then, I had to have a Mac at home.

It all began in 1989. I was working for a prepress outfit that provided typesetting and design services. They had been using Macs ever since one of the major desktop publishing apps, QuarkXPress, debuted. Without getting into the QuarkXPress/PageMaker/InDesign wars, where the latter eventually won, Quark was chosen because it was designed with the traditional typographer in mind because of its precision. With PageMaker, it was more intended for designers who placed elements in position on a design table.

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As is usual for me, this is a long story, and it’ll take a little while for me to get to the point.

So, n the days of the Classic Mac OS, which seems a century ago (and more or less it was), I used Claris Emailer as my email client of choice. It was originally created by Fog City Software and acquired by Apple’s subsidiary Claris, which also (and still) publishes FileMaker.

I settled upon Emailer because of its support not just for regular Internet email, but to such online services as AOL and CompuServe. Indeed, it was reportedly the only email client licensed to manage AOL. As a former member of AOL’s forum staff, at the time this was the best possible solution.

To me, the features beyond the basics were not important. Being able to manage my growing collection of messages was upfront and center.

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So let me sum it up for starters: Is it very likely that smartphones, tablets and personal computers have become so good that the new, improved models are offering features that few of us really care about? Does that, in effect, make you less likely to upgrade your device?

Let’s take a look at the path and the results.

After expectations from Apple rumor sites and speculators that there would be new Macs in the fall of 2022, it didn’t happen. Instead there were some new higher-priced iPads. So the basic (?) iPad now comes with a larger 10.9-inch display, an ancient A14 chip and the usual camera and connectivity enhancements.

It also starts at $449 U.S., a $120 increase over the previous, 9th generation model, which remains in the lineup at its original $329 starting price. Is the upgrade worth the bother? Well, if you have an older iPad that doesn’t run current operating systems, or really crave the growing laptop-style features from iPadOS 16, perhaps.

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