“I found when I first tried to flash

a custom recovery (Step 4 in your guide), that it wouldn’t stick — a reboot simply meant that the stock Android restored the stock recovery. The workaround ended up being surprisingly simple.”

LINEAGEOS INSTALLATION TIPS

Having just installed LineageOS on my Galaxy Nexus three months ago, I thought I’d point out a glitch with some handsets which could stop people dead in their tracks if they don’t figure out the workaround. Your guide in APC #451 (see page 61) did half-mention the solution in a short comment, but I think it might be worth a more complete explanation. I found when I first tried to flash a custom recovery (Step 4 in your guide), that it wouldn’t stick — a reboot simply meant that the stock Android restored the stock recovery. The workaround ended up being surprisingly simple. All that was needed was to use fastboot to reboot to a recovery on my computer. I could then flash LineageOS (and Google Apps), which meant stock Android’s protection mechanism for the stock recovery no longer existed. I could only then actually flash the custom recovery and have it stay there. I’ve never seen this procedure mentioned anywhere, even though I had no trouble finding an explanation of why I had to do it. Hope this helps any other APC readers who encounter this problem.

THE MANY BRAINS OF SIRI

I have an iMac, an iPhone, an Apple Watch and a brand-spanking-new HomePod. Call me a fanboy, yeah, yeah... Something puzzles me about Apple’s assistant, Siri, though. She works really well on my phone, watch and the poddy — picking up pretty much everything I say, even if she can’t answer each of my queries — but when it comes to the iMac, she seems like a totally different piece of software. She sometimes stops listening when I’m halfway through a really simple request (“Hey, Siri, what’s two-and-ahalf times seven?”) and often begins answering when I’m still talking, or she sometimes just doesn’t register I’ve asked the entire question at all and tells me that “two and a half equals 2.5”. Thanks, mate. I’ve given up trying to talk to her on my iMac because of this. It really puzzles me that Apple has spent so much time and energy (well-spent, in my opinion) in crafting their assistant in the more portable devices, leaving their higher-end products somewhat behind. I suppose they’re using the Watch and iPhone as icebreakers, in a way, but if they’ve made such significant progress with the technology — which I believe they have — then I don’t really understand how it’s not then a fairly simple process of bringing all devices up to the same level, to have One Siri to Rule Them All, so to speak, rather than a whole range of different versions of varying capabilities.