A Paramount+ Update

Well, they finally got me. After granting me with well over a year of free access to the service due to a technical glitch, my Paramount+ suscription has expired.

My wife and I were settling in Monday night to watch the latest episode of The Equalizer when I was greeted with a message saying I needed to resubscribe. "Oh wow," I literally said out loud. "They finally figured it out."

To be fair, I had been trying to rectify the situation from day one. I only cancelled my original subcription to Paramount+ so that I could activate the plan that comes included with my Walmart+ account. But every time I checked the Paramount+ account page over the past year, it confidently told me that I'm still subcribed. That is, until Monday.

It seems that I'm not alone in receiving this message. Other former subscribers have written in to let me know that they, too, were able to access the service long after cancelling, but it all ended recently. The fact that we were all subscribed through Apple TV Channels and received cancellation notices around the same time makes me think this must be a system-wide fix.

So I was finally able to do what I'd been trying to do all along: I logged into my Walmart account, chose the option to link it to Paramount+, and reactivated my subscription. Within a couple of minutes, I was watching Queen Latifah take down the bad guys again, and all was well.

The only downside of this change is that I'm now on the ad-supported tier of the service, which is a significant step down from the experience I'm used to. It felt like watching linear TV again, with the show constantly stopping to show me the same few ads for things I'm not interested in.

Thankfully, Paramount+ did recently add the ability for Walmart+ subscribers to upgrade to the ad-free Paramount+ with Showtime tier for an additional fee. I image I'll be taking advantage of that option before long.

It makes me happy to see these fixes and improvements come to the tech behind Paramount+. Streamers have been too lax when it comes to ensuring their services are built on firm foundations, but I hope this is one sign that the tide is changing.

If the future of TV is streaming – and I believe it is – it's going to need to be even more solid than the technology that came before. Here's to hoping it continues to move in that direction.

---

Update 1: My thanks to Matthew and Steve for reaching out about losing access through their own cancelled Apple TV Channels subscriptions. This post has been updated to reflect that the loophole seems to have been closed system-wide.

Update 2: A big thank-you to Rick for pointing out the option for Walmart+ subscribers to upgrade to Paramount+ with Showtime. A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that this was not possible; the error has been corrected.

Extending Everlog →

Today, I wrote about my expanded approach to journaling in the Club MacStories Monhtly Log:

What I found was that I could turn my journal into something much more than just a place to write. Through a combination of Everlog’s built-in features, Apple’s journaling suggestions, and Shortcuts, I’ve crafted a rich timeline of my life that’s easy to put together, beautiful to look at, and so much fun to revisit.

My excitement for Apple-generated journaling suggestions in Everlog has proven to be well-placed. Over the past few months, my journaling practice has continually grown to incorporate more and more of my life. I love where I've ended up with it, and if you'd like to learn more about my approach, you can check out the column on Club MacStories.

A New Role at MacStories

You might remember that a couple of months ago, I joined the team at MacStories when my podcast, Magic Rays of Light, became a part of the site’s family of shows. The response to that move has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive, and I can’t say thank you enough.

Now, I’m grateful to make another announcement: I’ve taken on a new role at MacStories in addition to podcast host. I’m helping out with editing stories for the website and Club MacStories! I’ve been lending a hand behind-the-scenes for a couple of weeks now and am absolutely loving it.

It’s an honor to get to work with our excellent writers so closely and help them in a small way to get their stories out there. I’ve held MacStories and its team in such high regard for so long; it’s a dream come true to have the chance to take part in that work.

I’m incredibly excited to share this news with you and even more excited to take on this new role. It’s been so inspiring and fulfilling already, and this is only the beginning.

You can check out the work that the MacStories team is doing at MacStories.net and on Club MacStories. That’s where I’ll be – in addition to Magic Rays of Light and here, of course.

Thank you for reading and for all of your continued support. It means so much. Here’s to new challenges and exciting things ahead!

Six Months

My son turns six months old today, his half-birthday. How has it already been this long? Where has the time gone? When people told me it would go by too quickly, I knew it was true. I just couldn’t imagine how true it would be.

Seeing Noah grow, change, and learn these past six months has been the greatest pleasure. Nothing brings me more joy than knowing that he’s happy and thriving. He is such a blessing to me and to everyone he meets.

These first six months with my son have been the best of my life. Here’s to many more.

Ebbs and Flows

I’ll be honest: I’m still not over our announcement a couple of weeks ago that Magic Rays of Light has joined MacStories. It’s so exciting and a huge honor to be part of such a great team. I’ve had to pinch myself a few times just to make sure that it’s real.

The announcement came alongside a stream of creative output on my part. I published my first articles for MacStories and MacStories Weekly. We shared a huge episode of the podcast to coincide with the announcement. And I got to share a shortcut I’ve been working on for a while that I’m really happy with. It was a productive week—in the literal sense that I produced a lot of stuff I’m proud of—and it was awesome.

Since then, things have been quieter. I’ve gone a couple of weeks without posting here, which is longer than normal. I honestly haven’t written much of anything, aside from show notes and my daily journaling. It’s like that part of my brain took a break and my usual, “I have to blog about this!” impulses haven’t been as strong.

To be fair, I have been focused on making the podcast and adjusting to new ways of doing things on the backend. And work responsibilities have taken up a good deal of my time and energy, not to mention being present with my family. It’s not like I haven’t been doing anything. I just haven’t been writing, and that’s been bugging me.

But should it? Creative energy ebbs and flows, and it shifts to different focuses at different times. Other things have to take priority due to external commitments and, you know, needing to work so I can pay my bills.

I’ve done my best to remove any and all “should”s from this place and just let it be whatever I want it to be. No pressure, just something to enjoy, share, and hope that others enjoy as well. That’s what a personal blog is for.

So I guess I’m writing all of this (1) to explain why things have been quiet here for a bit and (2) to convince myself that that’s okay. It’s alright to take some time off, purposefully or otherwise. So long as I keep to the commitments I’ve made, I can go with the flow on the rest.

I get the feeling that the flow is pushing me back in this direction and that I’ll have more to share here soon. (Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been tinkering with another shortcut.) Either way, I’m happy to be along for the ride, and I hope that you are, too.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to reach out anytime or say hi on social media. I’m usually around, even if I’m quiet, and I’d love to hear from you.