Tag: Apple

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Wow! That was more difficult than I thought it would be.

I’ve been thinking about buying a pair of nice bluetooth over the ear headphones.

I’ve got a set of AirPod Pros 2nd Gen and while I like them very much, I don’t like that my ears get annoyed with me if I wear them for more than a couple of hours at a time.

Were it not for that, I’d have them in all the time.

It would be so much easier than listening to the crazy lady screaming about whatever she screams about, or hearing her fella, yelling at the yappy dogs, while grinding away on some piece of metal, driving or “Fixing” a vehicle that’s on it’s last legs.

What he needs to do, is stay out from under the hoods of the various vehicles he’s destroyed (5? I think at last count,) and leave it to a professional. His version of a properly running engine is very different from mine! 3 of 8 cylinders firing, punctuated by 5 consecutive backfires is not proper operation! There’s also the thrilling sound of him running a chain saw at 10 PM. I’m not kidding, I’ll turn the lights off and he’ll start the chainsaw. That motor is also on it’s last legs! One can only hope that when It dies we’ll be spared the restful sounds of him cutting whatever he’s cutting.

Don’t ask…

All I can say is this used to be a quiet neighborhood. This is what happens when you let riff raff move into nice places!

I’ve been in hollers in Tennessee, and Kentucky where folks were dirt poor, and not school educated but they weren’t this kind of white gutter trash.

It’s funny in a way, California can’t even do white trash or rednecks right.

You can see why I might be looking for noise cancelling headphones, that are comfortable in the long term.

There are literally times when I can’t watch TV in my living room due to the noise coming from that white trash. I like having the windows open this time of year, I like the fresh mountain air (even when it is full of pollen).

So I’m faced with, turning up the volume to unbearable levels, closing the windows, not bothering to try to live my life and watch a movie or TV show in my house, or a set of headphones.

I know there are those of you saying, “Why don’t you call the police?”

Hahahahahaha! Where the hell have you people been living? Police? Helpful? Responding to a noise complaint? The police can’t even arrest and hold her for more than 8 hours after she assaults someone. Which she’s done 3 more times since she assaulted me last year.

BTW, if I lived in one of those “Fly Over” redneck places… Let’s just say this whole thing wouldn’t be a problem. Folks go missing in hollers all the time…

I digress, I was considering the Apple AirPods Max. They’re expensive! But I can also buy them from Costco and save $70. I saved $50 on my AirPod Pros at Costco. My concern there is that the Max is generation one and come fall Apple may be releasing a replacement version.

This led me down a rabbit hole of reviews and firmware versions for both the AirPod Max and my AirPod Pros. That’s when I discovered something interesting and strange. I did a search for “Latest AirPod Pro Gen 2 Firmware” then I got articles from last year through this year. I told the browser to limit the results to only this year. You’d think that would narrow your search but oddly it didn’t by much.

I was still seeing articles listing last years firmware as current and it was clear from context, the article had been written last year but the date was today’s date. I looked at several similar articles thinking perhaps there was a current update but there wasn’t.

There was however a shit ton (Technical Term) of ads.

Then it dawned on me, these outdated articles are monkeying with the dates to appear current so they can serve these shitty ads.

This reduces the usefulness of the internet and honestly makes me discount the validity or accuracy of publications MacWorld and 9 to 5 Mac I’m looking right at you!

It occurs to me that because of folks doing stuff like this to keep serving the same 5 ads over and over again, overall the internet is becoming less useful all the time. If the filtering doesn’t work, then the user is faced with a wave of outdated and current information with no ability to determine what is real, and what is useless.

Imagine writing an article about Trump when he was President, packing that article with shitty ads, then updating the date.

A query like “Who is President of the United States” could return Trump, Biden, Obama and Bush. How would someone know? If they had to turn on the TV to figure out who the president is, then the internet would be kind of useless.

All this ad crap and targeted marketing was a bad idea to begin with, and it’s only gotten worse.

I come again to a question I’ve asked myself a lot over the past few years.

“Is the internet’s usefulness eclipsed by having to filter through all the crap to get valid information?”

I’m really wondering. I guess I’ll know when I see an article saying, “Australian farmers pig has piglets with wings, Farmer Stunned!” I’d bet that at least 25% of folks on the internet would read the article, and a lot of them would believe it.

I fell for one the other night, some bullshit about a mystery in some dudes backyard. It was written like some reality show script. A paragraph that said essentially nothing, then a commercial, and another paragraph then commercial. It went on and on, but it was putting ads in front of everyone that was curious late at night.

Spoiler Alert: The guy bought a house built in the late 50s, the “Mystery” was that someone who owned the house had put in a fallout shelter. Over time, other owners had added soil and landscaping that buried the hatch. Then the shelter had gotten forgotten about except as a dim rumor. The guy found the original blueprints at the county records office and decided to investigate. The shelter was in pretty good shape so the guy renovated the space. It was pretty cool. The article could have covered everything in maybe 4 well written paragraphs with photos. Instead they took almost 100 paragraphs all of which were poorly written.

I finally went to Apple for the answer. I’d not gone to them in the first place because often asking a simple question in Apple’s support section, does not provide a single Byte of data. You’re still going to have to sort through a ton data that’s not relevant.

By the way, as of 6/28/2023 the current AirPod Pro Gen 2 firmware is 5E135.

I still haven’t decided if I’m going to drop the hammer on headphones…

This is how I lose entire days…

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It’s the Apple WWDC!

I’m not quite as interested as I’ve been in years past. But I’ve got laundry running and vinegar in the drain traps, (I prefer that to caustic chemicals due to the septic system,) so I’ve got a while before I can go anywhere.

I should probably make a grocery/dog treat run but neither are critical so It’s not going to matter if I put it off a day.

I’ll turn on the WWDC in the background. I’m curious about the new features coming in the latest versions of Apple operating systems. Since my iPad, watch, and computer are all less than a year old there will be some relevance to me.

I’d have upgraded my phone but I really like the blue color and the Purple from last year was not attractive. For some reason I don’t want to go back to space gray on my phone. It’s shouldn’t matter since my phone is usually in a case, but when I’m around the house it’s not unusual for my phone to be naked. (Okay so my phone is a slut! Who cares?) perhaps I’ll upgrade my phone in the fall or maybe I’ll wait another generation. By that time the phone will be 3 – 4 generations old, the battery will be on its last legs and maybe Apple will move everything to USB C so I can toss all the Lightning cables.

I liked the additions to the various OSs. I can see using some of the newer features frequently and how they’ll make my life easier. I really liked the improvements to the Hiking app on the watch. I also like the idea of having the health app available on the iPad. That should make evaluating the data a bit easier with a bigger screen.

The larger MacBook Air is interesting too. Especially since it’s got the M2 chip, the ability to have a ton of memory and storage, and an 18 hour battery life. That makes that particular machine probably the hot ticket coming this fall.

I have to admit that I’ve been interested in the Mac Studio since it’s debut. I didn’t go that way because I like having a laptop.

However, the power of the new iPad Pro with an M2 chip is astonishing and I could see using the iPad as my only portable computer, then having something like the Mac Studio if you needed a real powerhouse when you got back home.

This is especially true since Apple Logic Pro and Final Cut run on iPad now. There are a lot of other “standard” office applications that run just fine on iPad but it you needed video or audio you had to go outside the Apple ecosystem. Those barriers are gone and honestly my M2 iPad Pro is about as functional for my needs as my laptop. I could see the iPad / Studio blend now.

I wasn’t all that interested in the AR thing that’s been rumored for such a long time. Now that I’ve seen it, it’s as expected, very expensive.

That being said, I can see the potential. I can even say I’m interested enough that I’d like to see it live and in action.

If it worked well enough, I could see it replacing TV screens for those folks that live alone. I’ve considered that possibility with just my iPad and Mac. Then again, I don’t watch cable, or broadcast TV so I might be an outlier case.

Come to think of it, I haven’t to my knowledge watched any TV using the “new” (10 years old now) digital channels that are coming from broadcast stations these days.

I literally have no clue how that works. I’ve not lived anywhere that digital channels received via an antenna were available. Even the Escondido apartment was in a “Signal Hole”. It didn’t matter too much since the cost of internet only was higher than the cost of internet and cable TV combined. Talk about desperate to keep TV subscribers! I honestly don’t recall watching anything on TV for three years. I’d watch something on a streaming channel or a movie on DVD.

That was probably due more to my weird schedule, than the quality of TV. I got home from work about 2PM and was in bed by 7 or 8 PM. So any TV I could watch was talk shows or soap operas. Other more interesting dramas were on way past my bedtime. I didn’t pony up the cash to rent the DVR feature on the cable box.

I gotta say, having a virtual screen that you could make a big as you wanted without needing a sound system for surround sound might be a slick way to really enjoy some movies.

The price tag of 3500+ might be off putting.

I did like the use case Apple showed where the lady was on a full flight and tuned out the plane and other passengers entirely.

Hell that could make flying bearable again!

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One of the things that annoys me about technology

Is the little widgets that developers think are a good idea, but that are super annoying. You’d think, “Okay” I can turn this off.

But you can only turn it off IF you know what the fuck it’s called.

I’m experiencing that right now. There’s a little strip floating dead center at the bottom of my iPad screen that is showing me word selections, a mic symbol, some formatting things and is somehow associated with the keyboard.

I’d ignore the damn thing, but it keeps getting in the way of controls and functions in applications so I’d like very much to turn it off.

But going to the keyboard settings presents me with a number of options, none of which make sense to select to turn this annoyance off.

I’ll figure it out, but it’s really annoying me. I also know that somehow I turned it on, but I don’t know how. That just adds to the annoyance.

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I really shouldn’t write when I’m angry!

Apologies for the post yesterday.

I was super pissed off on a number of levels. I’ve edited yesterday’s post for clarity. Even editing it I was still pissed off.

My frustration level is increased because I’ve discovered the most used key on a computer keyboard is the space bar.

I’ve discovered this due to my butterfly keyboard on my MacBook. You may have noticed random periods scattered throughout my posts. These have been increasing in frequency due to my space bar “Bouncing,” I’ll press it once, the computer sees twice and helpfully puts a period in for me. I’ve not yet found a way to turn off this “Helpful” feature, when /if I do I’ll probably turn it off forever!

This dubiously helpful feature has increased my frustration level when writing and decreased my desire to, and pleasure in, writing.

Don’t even get me started on filling out forms online. That’s the 7th level of hell with a properly working keyboard.

A new machine is in my future. I miss the good old days when an Apple machine would last for 6-7 years. This one is only 4 years old and apparently, I’ve don’e better with it’s inherently defective keyboard than most.

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Totally a first world problem…

As most readers know, long ago I switched over to Apple for most everything in my personal computing environment. Wherever you look in my home office, you’ll see an Apple logo. 

Exceptions are of course in monitors, printers, and these days my router. Apple no longer makes their Airports or Time Capsules. So I ended up changing components as the Apple devices wore out.

Apple Monitors are spectacular but far too expensive for my needs. There was a time I even had an Apple LaserWriter.

This is not to say Apple makes the best products. I do find however that Apple products tend to remain useful far beyond their non Apple competitors. It’s nice having a unified ecosystem too. Being able to update everything from a central source is on the one hand a little spooky but on the other hand it’s super convenient. I like knowing that my devices have updated themselves and typically don’t require a lot of intervention on my part. (HomePods, I’m looking at you when I say “Typically”)

All that being said, I’ve been noticing that lately the configurations of Apple equipment that I’d be most likely to purchase haven’t been available off the shelf.

The latest example has been the Apple Watch Ultra. The 13” MacBook Pro with the M2 processor 24GB of RAM and 2 TB of disk storage. One can argue that the Apple Watch is brand new, okay I’ll give you that one. The MacBook Pro 13” on the other hand has been out for a long while. Why then is the maximum configuration still not readily available? Oh right… COVID. 

Another item just showed up on this list. The Mac Studio. It’s been out for almost a year. You’d think I could pull up at an Apple Store, and plunk down 3K then walk out with one containing the M1 Ultra Chip, max memory, and 2 TB of disk. Well you’d be wrong. 

Macstudio

This configuration is apparently order only and has a mid October delivery date. Why? Surely I can’t be the only person to realize that with Apple Products these days you have to buy what you’re willing to live with from the get go. Modern Macs don’t allow for upgrades, they don’t allow you to buy a mid grade unit then max it out later. You have to buy it knowing that if you outstrip it’s capabilities you’re going to have to buy a new machine.

So what the hell? After the recent debacle with me purchasing a maxed out M1 MacBook Pro and then having it stolen when I needed to ship it back to Apple because it was defective. I don’t want to buy anything new unless I can exchange it in a store.

(I’m still having to pay for the computer even though it was stolen. Fed Ex denies responsibility and so does their agent Dollar General. Word to the wise, if you have to return something to Apple, drive 100 miles to the nearest Apple store to return it. Make sure Apple gives you a receipt on paper. For that matter if you’re shipping something back to a manufacturer for refund or exchange don’t accept “We’ll send you a text message or an email,” demand a paper receipt because that’s your only proof that you handed the product to FedEx or UPS or whoever. Text messages are complete bullshit as receipts.)

In my case, I don’t want to order anything from anyone online. Sure there’s convenience in having something delivered to your door, but if whatever it is, is broken, or dies, the hassle of returning it and waiting for a replacement greatly destroys the convenience. 

I prefer to be able to take something back to the store and get an exchange on the spot. 

In the case of Apple, I prefer to unbox the machine in the damn store and power it up. I want to Know it works before I leave. Setting something up in the store allows me to know that and do a trade in, if desired, at the same damn time.

Apple products are generally reliable right from the get go but given the sloppy Chinese manufacturing I’ve seen lately, and the fact that most all of Apple’s products are made in China… Well, I really want to verify things are working while it’s still easy to exchange.

Therein lies the problem. Since the Apple stores don’t have representative examples of the top of the line configurations in stock and I’m gun-shy about ordering something custom for which there is no backup I’m not likely to buy the item in the first place.

That’s how I came to be screwed with my M1 MacBook. I had to return it and have another one built, it’s not like I could get another one off the shelf at an Apple Store.

Yes this is a first world problem. 

Nonetheless, it begs the question why isn’t Apple stocking the high end configurations at their stores? I mean at least ONE in stock at each store?

When I bought my Intel MacBook (Max configuration) it was literally as simple as walking in to the Apple Store and stating what I wanted. They had 4 in stock. I powered the machine up, checked it for functionality, and walked out with my purchase.

Granted that was in 2019. I’m sick and tired of hearing about COVID. I’m sick of hearing about supply chain issues. I’m sick of excuses! 

If Apple knows it’s got a problem, they should fix it. If we know we’ve got supply chain issues then the people in charge of supply chains should get off their asses and fix the problem.

If Apple can’t get products from China, then they should move the damn factories to places where they can get products built and reliably delivered.

That goes for every stinking manufacturer of anything.

I, like many Americans, never really paid much attention to government, or governments, or the supply chain. Stuff just freaking worked.  

But now… Oh this shit has my full and undivided attention.

Perhaps in November we’ll see just how many other Americans are suddenly paying attention. If the Democrats in America get beaten into the ground and Tech companies suffer major losses in sales because a) they can’t get products into consumers hands in a reasonable time, or b) people can’t afford those products, then I’m pretty darn sure they’ll get the message. When their stock prices take a dump and the economy sinks further because products aren’t available and people won’t or can’t pay the prices, the message should be very clear.

It’ll be signed, “The American People”

Really? Mid November for an new iPhone or Apple Watch? 

There’s no point in companies spending on marketing. By the time the product is actually available, people will be anticipating next years’ model and will hold off on their purchases. That by the way is called “Marketing Window”

That’s probably where I’m going to come down on this.

See ya next year Apple, maybe…