Increasingly Familiar Apple Lust Objects for 2016 and onwards

the notch can be your niche if you can fit your commentary in the slot

rowr

I'm pretty close to buying an iPhone after years of Android, mostly because I'm missing some action on the group chat (video gets shared via iMessage only, FaceTime etc)

The only thing holding me back at this point is that it is sooooo nice to have only USB-C charging - phone, iPad, MacBook all use the same charger.

Are you by any chance an undercover official of the European Commission, in propagandising mode or perhaps hoping to out any unwary Brexit-leaning Apple fans: EU common charging solution ?

I'm just a normal consumer out here saying that the charging port and fast charging technology must be harmonised.

calstars you can have the old display back https://topnotch.app/

I'm pretty close to buying an iPhone after years of Android, mostly because I'm missing some action on the group chat (video gets shared via iMessage only, FaceTime etc)

The only thing holding me back at this point is that it is sooooo nice to have only USB-C charging - phone, iPad, MacBook all use the same charger.

I've got some great news for you, lukas:

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/04/usb-c-iphone-ebay-auction/

;_;

dumb question - i have an old macbook pro (like about eight years old) that i mostly use for making music. it works pretty well but it runs slow, especially starting back up and starting applications. would installing more RAM help with this? if so, seems like an easy/cheap fix, right?

you have an SSD drive or regular?

probably regular - looks like that was the default

Generally speaking ram is an easier upgrade on old macs. switching to an SSD is a bigger performance boost but involves a reinstall or data migration and is trickier to physically install. This is all assuming your Mac is old enough for both parts to be user replaceable.

if it's possible to do an SSD, that's a huge boost. It's not so hard. If you have an old machine w/ an optical drive you can replace that with the SSD, then transfer everything over to the SSD and boot up with that. You've also just doubled your storage.

The alternative is to buy an SSD and a $10 external USB enclosure (anything SATA to USB3 off eBay will do, pretty much) then use the free CarbonCopyCloner to duplicate the internal drive to the SSD in the case. Switch the drives and you now have an internal SSD and an external backup drive in the case. The switch is the most challenging but it’d be about a dozen small screws (line them up on a flat fridge magnet to preserve the arrangement) and a couple of small Torx screws mounting the disk in its rubber mounts. Half an hour’s work. I’ve done this about 10-15 times for a range of people’s laptops.

8 years old is on the cusp of when they started to switch to SSDs so you better google the model number (hold down option key, choose System Info under the Apple menu)

Or just look in in the Storage section of About This Mac’s System Report

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203001

use the free CarbonCopyCloner to duplicate the internal drive to the SSD in the case. Switch the drives and you now have an internal SSD and an external backup drive in the case.

Why is that? Haven’t used it in a while but used to depend on superduper.

Alba holding the option key takes you straight there without going thru About This Mac.
And I have used CCC to create bootable HDD clones up to at least 10.13, and that machine wouldn't run anything more recent.

Apfs means there’s lots of volumes on a disk, and cryptographic signatures of volumes means a naive bit for bit copy won’t boot. The CCC and super duper maintainers are doing heroics but seem to be on the verge of giving up on the bootable clone use case for apple silicon.

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2021/03/10/the-role-of-bootable-duplicates-in-a-modern-backup-strategy/

and https://bombich.com/blog/2021/05/19/beyond-bootable-backups-adapting-recovery-strategies-evolving-platform

Great, thanks for the info. I just updated my home computer from Mojave to Monterey (I know) and it froze near the end. I waited hours then finally gave up. Rebooted and installed again but instead of updating my system disk it did a clean install, so I was afraid I’d lost lots of settings and things. Was esp worried about losing iTunes/music playlists. So I did a migration from my time machine and almost everything is back in order.

Macs last so long now for a lot of people that I think they don’t realise how good migration has become over the past five years or so.

yeah I was always pro super duper because just cloning back to my start-up disk from a day or two ago seemed easier than some sketchy "maybe there's some stuff I can dig out of time machine" but really this worked incredibly smooth.

My only problem now is I can't get back to a song I was working on in ableton, probably because it uses some plug-in that's not playing nice with Monterey. I think I had already wiped all my 32-bit relics but who knows.

ugh it's not 32bit that's an issue, it's probably aggressive gatekeepering from OSX on these plugins that I have to figure out a workaround.

For calstars

@siracusa the "cleanest" way to get rid of the notch without having to deal with a suboptimal resolution is to just set a 16:10 resolution:https://t.co/N2E0RkHypS

— Roberto Jung Drebes (@drebes) November 5, 2021

they don’t realise how good migration has become over the past five years or so

oh and it was running 10.13 uneventfully, without errors on the drive. Can't recall if it was APFS but I doubt it.

Alba holding the option key takes you straight there without going thru About This Mac.

oh yeah! I'm used to asking for diagnostic info from my folks over the phone, which involves the minimum number of clicks and least opportunity for confusion ...

Adam Engst! TidBits! Man I had forgotten about them.

huh

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/11/apple-announces-self-service-repair/

World that cover batteries?

The initial phase of the program will focus on the most commonly serviced modules, such as the iPhone display, battery, and camera. The ability for additional repairs will be available later next year.

"Intellectual property considerations cannot be allowed to stand in the way of a customer's right to repair equipment that they have purchased," said Bruce Perens, an open source pioneer, venture capital firm board member, and CEO of a stealth startup, in an email to The Register. "Apple is simply acknowledging this fact before right-to-repair is legislated and they have no choice."

Apple may also be recognizing the growing importance of revenue from services as opposed to hardware sales. If, as some analysts have predicted, services come to represent the majority of Apple's profit by mid-decade, the Cupertino titan will have more incentive to focus on retaining customers (and associated monthly subscription fees) and less pressure to convince them to buy shiny new iThings every year or two.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/17/apple_diy_repair/

"CEO of a stealth startup"? I may need to use that.

So did some kind of lawsuit or pending EU regulation trigger this event?

the Register article i link there makes it pretty clear this is getting out ahead of legislation yes

Gotcha. Though it doesn't seem like any of those actually passed yet and even with the current administration I'm sure manufacturers of all stripes can keep delaying and killing those bills, at least for the US I have no faith

Well there is this - https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/07/ftc-ramp-law-enforcement-against-illegal-repair-restrictions

i have a wellness allowance to spend by the end of the year and can't think of anything so ... i guess i'm getting an apple watch (eligible as a fitness tracker)?

does anyone have them? they are bad right?

No they’re great. I barely use it but it’s nice to glance down and see if it’s worth taking the phone out of your pocket when you get a call or msg. That alone is cool.

yeah trying to get off my phone around the kids, and this seems like it might help with that?

Lol
Apple doesn’t even have to market this shit. Its acolytes do it in their heads

At risk of sounding like a dreaded acolyte, when the pandemic started I got pretty OCD about closing the rings on the Apple watch fitness app. Within the first six months I lost 25 pounds and a year later I still kept it off, have no problem hiking 6+ miles up into the San Gabriels, and generally just feel better from hauling less of me around. I didn't do anything other than let the fitness app nag me to get up and move around.

Apart from all that physical tracking stuff, I use the timer and that's it - but the fitness tracking is essential.

My primary watch use cases are shopping lists, transit times, controlling podcasts/music, Apple Pay, todo/calendar notifications.

I refuse to buy a watch that needs to be charged.

"winding"

"automatic"