A needed fix in IOS

I want to ask Apple to fix one small thing in IOS. You know that little “backgrounded task” bar that they show at the top of the screen when you’ve got a live Personal Hotspot connection? Yeah – that thing. Similar ones appear if you background Maps while it is doing turn-by-turn or background the Phone app in the middle of a call.

The problem with “This Thing” is that while it does a really good job of telling you what tasks are running in the background, it gets in the way of other interactions. I’ve gotten used to “touching the top of the app so the list scrolls back to the top” and when I do that when this notifier bar is active, I get “transported” into the settings screen for the Personal Hotspot. Not what I intended at all. I think this is really broken, and I’d really like Apple to fix it. 

On Mastery

“You can reach, but you can’t grab it.
“You can’t hold it, control it
You can’t bag it.”

- U2, “Discotheque”

“Mastery is an asymptote”

I love this insight. It comes from Dan Pink in “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”. Not only does it explains that feeling of the elusive pursuit, it explains why some like to take shortcuts – even though it dooms them to being unfulfilled. Amazingly, the doom is the same if one isn’t a cheat, yet the difference in the state of mind is stark. There is such joy in an honest attempt that the result becomes secondary.