Show Notes
In this week's Chit Chat Across the Pond, Adam Engst of TidBITS joins me to talk about his decision process on choosing an iPhone 17 over the 17 Pro. One of the things I like best about Adam is how, just like me, when he starts digging for an answer which should be knowable, he's like a dog with a bone and won't stop until he succeeds.
The main decision point between the 17 and the 17 Pro is whether someone really does care about the 8X telephoto lens vs. the macro lens. We tried to figure out how many photos we really took with the 5X on the iPhone 16 Pro, but that turned out to be a much harder task than you would think. We tried Apple Photos smart albums, but for reasons you'll hear, you can't really do it that way.
Using the open source command line ExifTool from exiftool.org/... (also available through Homebrew) and his able assistant ChatGPT, he was able to create a script that queried our Photos Libraries to determine how many photos we had taken in the last year using the different camera/lens combos on the iPhone 16 Pro. While you hear us talking he hadn't yet perfected his script but he eventually beat it into submission!
Of course, Adam has written up an article describing this descent into madness and even published the script if you care to download it. You can find his article at tidbits.com/....
Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2025_09_25
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More from Chit Chat Across the Pond
Adam Engst is the owner and writer of the longest-running Apple newsletter, TidBITS. Writing is literally his business. Imagine what would happen if he couldn't write. That's exactly what he faced when he broke one wrist and badly sprained the other.
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CCATP #839 for July 23, 2026, and I'm your host, Allison Sheridan. This week our guest is Adam Engst of TidBITS. Back in April, we talked about his first long road trip with his new Hyundai IONIQ 5 electric vehicle. It's been a few months, and with the aid of some tools, he has a new strategy to talk about in planning extensive driving adventures.
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