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All Things Apple (was MacBook Air, but things evolve...)
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
I’m all in favour of free open-source software but I like things to “just work” without recompiling or having to go to the terminal to run commands. That’s why I like MacOS, it is a lazy man’s operating system.
For the Vision Pro, I don’t think I like to have screens interposed between me and the world. The whole idea of “infinite screens” doesn’t appeal to me that much, I can get my work done perfectly well on just one, and the idea of total immersion in a virtual world is only of passing entertainment value. I may well decide to bypass this entire product line from Apple.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
There are certain aspects of Apple’s business which I like and admire.
The commitment to product quality, good design, privacy and the environment
The philosophy of making things “just work”, and requiring user input only when necessary
The ecosystem of cloud-connected services, which are simple and easy to use
The iPhone and the Mac for me are the pinnacle of Apple’s achievement
And then there are things which I am not so fond of.
Their attitude of charging premium prices for products
The sometimes egregious charging for upgrades
The obsoleting of old products through a lack of software updates
I’ve never been very fond of the wearables like the AirPods, the Apple Watch and so on, and I’m slowly getting a feeling that I will add the Vision lineup to that list. I just think it is a shame to spend your time in a virtual world all the time with screens and a computer plastered to your face.
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
This ad for the Vision Pro is called ‘First Timer’
It seems to be pretty easy to use, even for people not hugely into tech. Still it makes you wonder if the guy in the ad might not have been better off with an iPad, rather than a virtual environment.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
This review is the last one I’ll post, and it’s a bit different from the other one as it’s from Casey Neistat who took his Vision Pro outside in New York, on the subway, on a skateboard…
Another reviewer said, “Tomorrow’s ideas, today’s technology”. It’s a little glimpse into the future, held back by the compromises of today’s technology. But I think we can wait for the future to arrive on its own terms…
I just bought a new Mac Mini from the Apple Store in Boulder. The purchase was not a pleasant experience. But my new Mini is here, ready to replace my 2012 Mini (which looks essentially identical). But it can’t. My Apple Cinema 30 screen, with its spaghetti of connectors, will not connect to any port on the back of the Mini. So, we’ll buy a new monitor too, and THEN we’ll have a new computer.
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited February 5
Not even with dongles, @Steve_B? You can buy a HDMI source to DisplayPort connector for about 20 dollars online here, which is definitely cheaper than a whole new monitor. Not sure if that is your best option for display clarity and so on but if price is the problem then it may serve you.
The local computer guy who makes house calls and specializes in Apple has made a few visits to my house over the decades. Last time, in 2020, he sold me a little adapter so my Cinema screen would display high resolution with the 2012 Mini. That adapter also works on the new Mini, “works” meaning that it plugs into one of the sockets, but the new computer doesn’t have the right kind of power output for the old screen.
So , now a new screen is here for the new computer, and the old computer screen and all will become the Downstairs Computer.
The new computer accommodates the updated software needed by the printer so now our printer finally works again. Otherwise there is basically zero functional difference between the two computers. Oh, except that it turned off my old versions of MS Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. It does come with Apple programs that are said to do much the same thing, but I haven’t used the Apple suite since back in the days of Claris Works.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited February 14
An original iPhone still in the packaging and shrink wrapped from 2007 sold for 61000 dollars a few months ago. It retailed for 499 dollars back then, that’s about 120x a return. Not bad, if you just leave it sitting on a shelf for all that time.
My dear Jelly wants to get an iPhone so badly. She really likes to share her art and give lessons. I thought a good phone and a tripod would be a good present. Perhaps wait for iPhone 15 pro?
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Now is a pretty good time to buy an iPhone 15 Pro, if you shop around and do your maths you can save 150-200 euros on the price compared to if you buy from Apple. The 15 Pro has been out for about 5 months, you’d have to wait until October to get the 16 Pro.
The cheapest new iPhones get is just before the launch of a new one, my father bought an iPhone 14 for 710 euros a few weeks before the launch of the 15 models.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
In case you hadn’t noticed, the US Department of Justice has filed an antitrust suit against Apple, accusing them of being a monopolist in the US market. There are a number of different aspects to this, from the way iMessage functions to promote lock-in, to the way different Apple products interact and make it impossible for competing products to gain feature parity.
The lawsuit will likely run for a number of years, plus appeals for more years. But the results could be serious for Apple, up to and including the break up of the company.
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
There’s a new video out showcasing the AI Pin from Humane, it shows that AI is moving into some really useful areas. Maybe this will be the answer to the smartphone…
Apple will be around for a while. Even though we have 5 or six appalling Apple devices, I will be staying away from Iglass or other 'must have/attach to' devices. Ai pin is another Apple wannabe. Hope they do well but not for me.
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@lobster said:
Ai pin is another Apple wannabe. Hope they do well but not for me.
I’ve been spending some time thinking about this, and in fact I think AI Pin is a logical evolution of the smartphone into a true digital assistant with a minimal physical presence. It stands and falls by how natural the AI feels, when it becomes good enough it will take off. I think having an AI sidekick to take care of all the boring details would be very cool.
There are still some big limitations, such as the time it takes to do things. In the video the presenters continue talking while waiting for the pin to respond, but I think that in practice these waits would become a bit frustrating. I’m not going to jump from my iPhone as an early adopter, but I’m certainly going to keep an eye on it.
... yeah, keep an eye on it for sure, they will probably use an Nvidia chip on it and have to compete with Chinese knock offs. It will take some time to get the CosmOS up to speed for developers. Again it is a future design. I saw the early videos about 6 months ago. Was good to see the improvements and I particularly liked the talking egg case ...
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It seems the technology trade war between the USA and China is ratcheting up a notch. Chinese government already had a ban on iPhones, now they’ve banned x86 chips built by Intel and AMD and Windows on computers used in the government. They’ve supplied a list of homegrown processors and Linux-based os’es for use by government departments.
Intel makes approximately 27% of its revenue in China, for AMD it is lower at 18%. So this could be a substantial revenue hit for them. The American government mandated a move to use American-made computer technology in its departments recently, a move which affected trade with Taiwan for instance.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
There’s a new “Why upgrade your iPhone” section on the Apple website, for comparing older models to more recent ones.
You may be interested in how AI is the next big 'Babble Bubble of Hype' (bitcoin is collapsing). Every so often these 'improvements' are exposed for what they have been hijacked for ...
Don't say no one told you ...
That seems to be putting it mildly. Marques Brownlee, a major reviewer with 18m YouTube subs, called it “the worst product he has ever reviewed”. So yeah, the tech is not ready.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
There was an Apple Event announced with a tweet “Pencil us in for May 7th”, and a series of artistic logos. The hint is a new Apple Pencil, and probably new iPads and maybe Macs too. The other implication is that the WWDC keynote, which is on June 10th, is probably packed full of software and AI stuff.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Here is the Apple Event stream… new iPads, new Pencil, new M4 processor.
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
My mother has terrible jaw pain, which she thinks might be down to the amount of surfing and typing emails that she does on her iPhone, which she has to hold in a particular way. So she is thinking of buying a new base iPad for some €439…
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited May 9
Hmm… I don’t have his computing needs but it’s an interesting perspective. Thin, light, simple, with pro software, it might well outperform the thin-and-light laptops. The thing is, most of the software on the App Store is not technological utilities, but actually focussed on real use cases such as manipulating fotos. So you get a different computing experience which is less about the nuts and bolts of the platform.
Still, spending $3600 on an iPad is a lot of money…
I think these new iPads are a very strong series of products.
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
I’m coming to realise that buying new tech items has a lot to do with your personal circumstances and what exactly you are going to use it for.
1
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Apple has decided to allow retro console emulators on the App Stores of the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, which is leading to some interesting new combinations of older console games and newer Apple hardware, which is a lot more capable than for example the Raspberry Pi 5.
The kind of consoles that get emulated are the NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance. The ROMs for the games can largely be downloaded, semi-legally. One limitation is that Apple still doesn’t allow Just-in-Time re compilation of code, so consoles like the GameCube, Wii, PlayStation 2 and other more modern consoles aren’t supported.
I know my cousin has gotten some retro gaming toys for his kids, in the general trend that there are a lot of classic games which have a bit less eye-candy quality but where you can download an entire library of games for a handheld device for peanuts, while the device itself costs a couple of hundred euros.
Here is an article from Ars Technica about how the emulation on the Apple TV is turning out:
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited June 10
Apple WWDC 2024 keynote… big update on these operating systems, might be worth waiting a few dot releases to see how the bug counts turn out. Also news on “Apple Intelligence”, where I think they’ve done a good job. Be really interesting how Siri turns out, it could become the star of the show.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It looks like the new ‘Apple Intelligence’ capabilities will only be available on the iPhone 15 Pro and all Mac and iPad models with an M1 processor or better.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
The new Apple Intelligence features might not make it to the EU until next year, and the new Siri will likely only be available from the 18.4 iOS update, which will probably drop in March 2025.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited July 19
Seems most people are not enthused by the new AI features, and are unwilling to buy new hardware for it. This is mostly looking at Microsoft’s new Copilot+ PCs, but may also apply to Apple Intelligence. See this poll in the article on Extremetech…
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
According to Apple’s most recent financials, services profits have become increasingly important to the company. Profit from services has approached the total profit from devices, as Jason Snell pointed out in this great blog post.
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited August 6
And Google lost a major antitrust case, which means they are now a monopolist abusing their position in the market. This means they could be forced to break up the company or sell part of the business.
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
I dunno, Apple are one of very few major companies to have principles that don’t revolve around money. They do care about privacy, ecology, design, elegance.
“Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
— Apple
Allowing their 'partners' to over work themselves... whilst displaying their latest eye bands, wristbands or rebel logo bits and bangles...
For example, I was learning the excellent Swift language, which was going to be open source. In fact, it meant you could write for their closed devices on a Linux machine. Hype and semantics? Yep, they are masters of it. And I mean slave masters.
Are Apple, Google, X-twitter, Facebook Meta, like most tribes, corporate, spiritual and land based?
You should ensure your Sangha (if software users), is moving in that direction (at least). Or are they using what they are given? Donated or the latest smartwatches?
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Tomorrow evening the Apple Event to announce the iPhone 16, and currently there’s lots of talk about how iOS is slowly becoming different in Europe.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
So the Apple Event announced iPhone 16 in four flavours, Apple Watch Series 10 with sleep apnea detection, AirPods 4th Gen, and a new feature for the AirPods Pro, a hearing test and functioning as a hearing aid for those suffering mild to moderate hearing loss.
There was a lot of talk about Apple Intelligence, which has meant iPhone ram being boosted to 8 gb across the board, and there’s been a lot of talk about features being integrated into text processing, image processing and so on.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
The new Camera Control button (on the right side of iPhone 16, under the Power button) is kinda cool. It is flush with the frame but it’s a real button, with support for a ‘light press’ mode and haptic feedback to make it feel just like a DSLR shutter button. It provides instant access to the camera app by just one click, requiring a second press to take a photo. The light press brings up a menu, and the button has integrated touchpad sensitivity, allowing you to control the menu by sliding across it.
The idea was that so many things in the new Apple Intelligence encourage you to take pictures of your environment and get them explained or analysed, that it was felt to be important to lower the barrier to taking photos from a number of actions to just one.
I really like this new button!
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
The Studio Display is on sale at Amazon US for 1295 dollars, which is a more reasonable price compared to other 27” displays. Really that’s the price it should have been at all along, considering that not so long ago you could buy a whole 27” iMac for 1800 dollars.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It’s a week of Mac announcements, Monday Apple announced a new M4 iMac, Tuesday a new M4 Mac Mini, and today probably new M4 MacBook Pro’s. These all feature a base 16 GB of ram, at the same prices as before.
I think the M4 Mac Mini is a particularly sweet deal. It is blazingly fast and even in the base 16/256 config pretty capable for most things. At 599 dollars it’s the Mac for most people.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Here are the three short announcement videos. And rather than shoot inside Steve Jobs Theater, they filmed at the new Observatory building — a smaller setting for smaller announcements.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It seems the M4 has proven to be a major leap in performance. A lot of reviewers are finding major gains especially for the M4 Pro relative to the M3 Pro.
Most people would be better suited long term to a Linux with an 'Apple Like' interface. Still a learning curve though.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Interesting @lobster … it still seems mostly a command line driven system, not really ready for use by most people. But good that it is distributed as a Virtual Machine.
My father has taken the jump — he is moving from his old 400-euro, base spec PC from 2019 to a brand new M4 Mac Mini, he is picking it up from his local Apple Store today. It’s a little more expensive, at 719 euros including tax, but he thinks it will last longer, be much faster and provide more up to date technology.
His old PC wasn’t being updated anymore because it’s processor didn’t match the Windows 11 minimum spec, and Windows 12 is just around the corner.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
This reminds me of something I wrote yesterday. A few years ago Apple made changes to macOS to make it more similar to the iPhone OS. For example all the system preferences were unified and put into an iPhone-style ‘Settings’ application. It wasn’t very popular at the time.
But in hindsight it has proven to be a genius move. Because for most people, the first computer system they encounter is their smartphone, and why would you not then make it easy for them to use a more powerful computer by making its systems similar? If you know your way around an iPhone you can operate a Mac.
There is now a unified design language behind iPhones, iPads and Macs. The iPhone is pre-eminent, it sets the tone. For my dad, he needed an Apple Watch to track his health and especially his heart function, and to do that he needed an iPhone. So from there it was a short step to changing his computer to a Mac.
Comments
I’m all in favour of free open-source software but I like things to “just work” without recompiling or having to go to the terminal to run commands. That’s why I like MacOS, it is a lazy man’s operating system.
For the Vision Pro, I don’t think I like to have screens interposed between me and the world. The whole idea of “infinite screens” doesn’t appeal to me that much, I can get my work done perfectly well on just one, and the idea of total immersion in a virtual world is only of passing entertainment value. I may well decide to bypass this entire product line from Apple.
There are certain aspects of Apple’s business which I like and admire.
And then there are things which I am not so fond of.
I’ve never been very fond of the wearables like the AirPods, the Apple Watch and so on, and I’m slowly getting a feeling that I will add the Vision lineup to that list. I just think it is a shame to spend your time in a virtual world all the time with screens and a computer plastered to your face.
This ad for the Vision Pro is called ‘First Timer’
It seems to be pretty easy to use, even for people not hugely into tech. Still it makes you wonder if the guy in the ad might not have been better off with an iPad, rather than a virtual environment.
This review is the last one I’ll post, and it’s a bit different from the other one as it’s from Casey Neistat who took his Vision Pro outside in New York, on the subway, on a skateboard…
Another reviewer said, “Tomorrow’s ideas, today’s technology”. It’s a little glimpse into the future, held back by the compromises of today’s technology. But I think we can wait for the future to arrive on its own terms…
I just bought a new Mac Mini from the Apple Store in Boulder. The purchase was not a pleasant experience. But my new Mini is here, ready to replace my 2012 Mini (which looks essentially identical). But it can’t. My Apple Cinema 30 screen, with its spaghetti of connectors, will not connect to any port on the back of the Mini. So, we’ll buy a new monitor too, and THEN we’ll have a new computer.
Not even with dongles, @Steve_B? You can buy a HDMI source to DisplayPort connector for about 20 dollars online here, which is definitely cheaper than a whole new monitor. Not sure if that is your best option for display clarity and so on but if price is the problem then it may serve you.
Here’s a guy who tried it out…
The local computer guy who makes house calls and specializes in Apple has made a few visits to my house over the decades. Last time, in 2020, he sold me a little adapter so my Cinema screen would display high resolution with the 2012 Mini. That adapter also works on the new Mini, “works” meaning that it plugs into one of the sockets, but the new computer doesn’t have the right kind of power output for the old screen.
So , now a new screen is here for the new computer, and the old computer screen and all will become the Downstairs Computer.
The new computer accommodates the updated software needed by the printer so now our printer finally works again. Otherwise there is basically zero functional difference between the two computers. Oh, except that it turned off my old versions of MS Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. It does come with Apple programs that are said to do much the same thing, but I haven’t used the Apple suite since back in the days of Claris Works.
An original iPhone still in the packaging and shrink wrapped from 2007 sold for 61000 dollars a few months ago. It retailed for 499 dollars back then, that’s about 120x a return. Not bad, if you just leave it sitting on a shelf for all that time.
My dear Jelly wants to get an iPhone so badly. She really likes to share her art and give lessons. I thought a good phone and a tripod would be a good present. Perhaps wait for iPhone 15 pro?
Now is a pretty good time to buy an iPhone 15 Pro, if you shop around and do your maths you can save 150-200 euros on the price compared to if you buy from Apple. The 15 Pro has been out for about 5 months, you’d have to wait until October to get the 16 Pro.
The cheapest new iPhones get is just before the launch of a new one, my father bought an iPhone 14 for 710 euros a few weeks before the launch of the 15 models.
In case you hadn’t noticed, the US Department of Justice has filed an antitrust suit against Apple, accusing them of being a monopolist in the US market. There are a number of different aspects to this, from the way iMessage functions to promote lock-in, to the way different Apple products interact and make it impossible for competing products to gain feature parity.
The lawsuit will likely run for a number of years, plus appeals for more years. But the results could be serious for Apple, up to and including the break up of the company.
The Verge and Daring Fireball carry more detailed reporting.
There’s a new video out showcasing the AI Pin from Humane, it shows that AI is moving into some really useful areas. Maybe this will be the answer to the smartphone…
Apple will be around for a while. Even though we have 5 or six appalling Apple devices, I will be staying away from Iglass or other 'must have/attach to' devices. Ai pin is another Apple wannabe. Hope they do well but not for me.
I have a basic iphone. NOT SURE HOW MUCH LONGER IT WILL WORK without an overpriced upgrade. Apple already tries to get me to use the minority reports type Safari browser instead of Firefox Focus on my phone. Pah!
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/21/tech/apple-sued-antitrust-doj/index.html
Want something for the Dharma future?
https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/
I’ve been spending some time thinking about this, and in fact I think AI Pin is a logical evolution of the smartphone into a true digital assistant with a minimal physical presence. It stands and falls by how natural the AI feels, when it becomes good enough it will take off. I think having an AI sidekick to take care of all the boring details would be very cool.
There are still some big limitations, such as the time it takes to do things. In the video the presenters continue talking while waiting for the pin to respond, but I think that in practice these waits would become a bit frustrating. I’m not going to jump from my iPhone as an early adopter, but I’m certainly going to keep an eye on it.
@Jeroen
... yeah, keep an eye on it for sure, they will probably use an Nvidia chip on it and have to compete with Chinese knock offs. It will take some time to get the CosmOS up to speed for developers. Again it is a future design. I saw the early videos about 6 months ago. Was good to see the improvements and I particularly liked the talking egg case ...
It seems the technology trade war between the USA and China is ratcheting up a notch. Chinese government already had a ban on iPhones, now they’ve banned x86 chips built by Intel and AMD and Windows on computers used in the government. They’ve supplied a list of homegrown processors and Linux-based os’es for use by government departments.
Intel makes approximately 27% of its revenue in China, for AMD it is lower at 18%. So this could be a substantial revenue hit for them. The American government mandated a move to use American-made computer technology in its departments recently, a move which affected trade with Taiwan for instance.
There’s a new “Why upgrade your iPhone” section on the Apple website, for comparing older models to more recent ones.
https://www.apple.com/iphone/why-upgrade/
Dear technophobes,
You may be interested in how AI is the next big 'Babble Bubble of Hype' (bitcoin is collapsing). Every so often these 'improvements' are exposed for what they have been hijacked for ...
Don't say no one told you ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/opinion/ai-internet-x-youtube.html?unlocked_article_code=1.g00.n5tA.OpPpHuUiB7qo&smid=url-share
It seems version 1.0 is not worth buying.
https://www.theverge.com/24126502/humane-ai-pin-review
Might of interest for apple cores …
https://lowendmac.com/
That seems to be putting it mildly. Marques Brownlee, a major reviewer with 18m YouTube subs, called it “the worst product he has ever reviewed”. So yeah, the tech is not ready.
There was an Apple Event announced with a tweet “Pencil us in for May 7th”, and a series of artistic logos. The hint is a new Apple Pencil, and probably new iPads and maybe Macs too. The other implication is that the WWDC keynote, which is on June 10th, is probably packed full of software and AI stuff.
Here is the Apple Event stream… new iPads, new Pencil, new M4 processor.
https://www.youtube.com/live/f1J38FlDKxo
My mother has terrible jaw pain, which she thinks might be down to the amount of surfing and typing emails that she does on her iPhone, which she has to hold in a particular way. So she is thinking of buying a new base iPad for some €439…
Hmm… I don’t have his computing needs but it’s an interesting perspective. Thin, light, simple, with pro software, it might well outperform the thin-and-light laptops. The thing is, most of the software on the App Store is not technological utilities, but actually focussed on real use cases such as manipulating fotos. So you get a different computing experience which is less about the nuts and bolts of the platform.
Still, spending $3600 on an iPad is a lot of money…
I think these new iPads are a very strong series of products.
I’m coming to realise that buying new tech items has a lot to do with your personal circumstances and what exactly you are going to use it for.
Apple has decided to allow retro console emulators on the App Stores of the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, which is leading to some interesting new combinations of older console games and newer Apple hardware, which is a lot more capable than for example the Raspberry Pi 5.
The kind of consoles that get emulated are the NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance. The ROMs for the games can largely be downloaded, semi-legally. One limitation is that Apple still doesn’t allow Just-in-Time re compilation of code, so consoles like the GameCube, Wii, PlayStation 2 and other more modern consoles aren’t supported.
I know my cousin has gotten some retro gaming toys for his kids, in the general trend that there are a lot of classic games which have a bit less eye-candy quality but where you can download an entire library of games for a handheld device for peanuts, while the device itself costs a couple of hundred euros.
Here is an article from Ars Technica about how the emulation on the Apple TV is turning out:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/05/the-apple-tv-is-coming-for-the-raspberry-pis-retro-emulation-box-crown/
Apple Music did a lineup of the top 100 albums of all time, here’s who they ranked in the top 10:
Apparently there have been some major leaks about what Apple is going to announce in its WWDC keynote on Monday 10th. Check it out here…
https://daringfireball.net/2024/06/gurman_wwdc_leak_dump
Apple WWDC 2024 keynote… big update on these operating systems, might be worth waiting a few dot releases to see how the bug counts turn out. Also news on “Apple Intelligence”, where I think they’ve done a good job. Be really interesting how Siri turns out, it could become the star of the show.
It looks like the new ‘Apple Intelligence’ capabilities will only be available on the iPhone 15 Pro and all Mac and iPad models with an M1 processor or better.
The new Apple Intelligence features might not make it to the EU until next year, and the new Siri will likely only be available from the 18.4 iOS update, which will probably drop in March 2025.
Seems most people are not enthused by the new AI features, and are unwilling to buy new hardware for it. This is mostly looking at Microsoft’s new Copilot+ PCs, but may also apply to Apple Intelligence. See this poll in the article on Extremetech…
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/most-pc-enthusiasts-say-they-wont-pay-more-for-ai-features-poll
According to Apple’s most recent financials, services profits have become increasingly important to the company. Profit from services has approached the total profit from devices, as Jason Snell pointed out in this great blog post.
https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/08/existential-thoughts-about-apples-reliance-on-services-revenue/
And Google lost a major antitrust case, which means they are now a monopolist abusing their position in the market. This means they could be forced to break up the company or sell part of the business.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/5/24155520/judge-rules-on-us-doj-v-google-antitrust-search-suit
If you ask me, Apple is rotten to the core ...
I dunno, Apple are one of very few major companies to have principles that don’t revolve around money. They do care about privacy, ecology, design, elegance.
“Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
— Apple
Indeed.
Allowing their 'partners' to over work themselves... whilst displaying their latest eye bands, wristbands or rebel logo bits and bangles...
For example, I was learning the excellent Swift language, which was going to be open source. In fact, it meant you could write for their closed devices on a Linux machine. Hype and semantics? Yep, they are masters of it. And I mean slave masters.
Are Apple, Google, X-twitter, Facebook Meta, like most tribes, corporate, spiritual and land based?
Perhaps more so?
It is why I advocate freeware, Gnu-Debian and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation
You should ensure your Sangha (if software users), is moving in that direction (at least). Or are they using what they are given? Donated or the latest smartwatches?
Tomorrow evening the Apple Event to announce the iPhone 16, and currently there’s lots of talk about how iOS is slowly becoming different in Europe.
So the Apple Event announced iPhone 16 in four flavours, Apple Watch Series 10 with sleep apnea detection, AirPods 4th Gen, and a new feature for the AirPods Pro, a hearing test and functioning as a hearing aid for those suffering mild to moderate hearing loss.
There was a lot of talk about Apple Intelligence, which has meant iPhone ram being boosted to 8 gb across the board, and there’s been a lot of talk about features being integrated into text processing, image processing and so on.
The new Camera Control button (on the right side of iPhone 16, under the Power button) is kinda cool. It is flush with the frame but it’s a real button, with support for a ‘light press’ mode and haptic feedback to make it feel just like a DSLR shutter button. It provides instant access to the camera app by just one click, requiring a second press to take a photo. The light press brings up a menu, and the button has integrated touchpad sensitivity, allowing you to control the menu by sliding across it.
The idea was that so many things in the new Apple Intelligence encourage you to take pictures of your environment and get them explained or analysed, that it was felt to be important to lower the barrier to taking photos from a number of actions to just one.
I really like this new button!
The Studio Display is on sale at Amazon US for 1295 dollars, which is a more reasonable price compared to other 27” displays. Really that’s the price it should have been at all along, considering that not so long ago you could buy a whole 27” iMac for 1800 dollars.
It’s a week of Mac announcements, Monday Apple announced a new M4 iMac, Tuesday a new M4 Mac Mini, and today probably new M4 MacBook Pro’s. These all feature a base 16 GB of ram, at the same prices as before.
I think the M4 Mac Mini is a particularly sweet deal. It is blazingly fast and even in the base 16/256 config pretty capable for most things. At 599 dollars it’s the Mac for most people.
Here are the three short announcement videos. And rather than shoot inside Steve Jobs Theater, they filmed at the new Observatory building — a smaller setting for smaller announcements.
It seems the M4 has proven to be a major leap in performance. A lot of reviewers are finding major gains especially for the M4 Pro relative to the M3 Pro.
Might be of interest if developing...
https://www.puredarwin.org/
Most people would be better suited long term to a Linux with an 'Apple Like' interface. Still a learning curve though.
Interesting @lobster … it still seems mostly a command line driven system, not really ready for use by most people. But good that it is distributed as a Virtual Machine.
My father has taken the jump — he is moving from his old 400-euro, base spec PC from 2019 to a brand new M4 Mac Mini, he is picking it up from his local Apple Store today. It’s a little more expensive, at 719 euros including tax, but he thinks it will last longer, be much faster and provide more up to date technology.
His old PC wasn’t being updated anymore because it’s processor didn’t match the Windows 11 minimum spec, and Windows 12 is just around the corner.
This reminds me of something I wrote yesterday. A few years ago Apple made changes to macOS to make it more similar to the iPhone OS. For example all the system preferences were unified and put into an iPhone-style ‘Settings’ application. It wasn’t very popular at the time.
But in hindsight it has proven to be a genius move. Because for most people, the first computer system they encounter is their smartphone, and why would you not then make it easy for them to use a more powerful computer by making its systems similar? If you know your way around an iPhone you can operate a Mac.
There is now a unified design language behind iPhones, iPads and Macs. The iPhone is pre-eminent, it sets the tone. For my dad, he needed an Apple Watch to track his health and especially his heart function, and to do that he needed an iPhone. So from there it was a short step to changing his computer to a Mac.