Increasingly Familiar Apple Lust Objects for 2016 and onwards

Turning the phone on its side while it's charging and having it turn into a bedside clock is fun for about 5 minutes.
I think only the 14 and 15 have an "always on" mode so it really behaves like a clock, and not something you have to tap to wake up (which makes it fairly pointless).

Those third-party Magsafe charging stands, which are ideal for this sort of thing, also have pads for Watch and Airpods so obv you have to buy the lot :)

Gotta say, those £100-150 entry-level Androids do look tempting in the context of what Apple offers now. Once you've stepped off the 2-year-upgrade-bundle train, and you've got a 2020 SE with 74% battery on a SIM-only (rolling 30-day, cancellable) contract, the route back to something newer is very steep. But... those Androids are all seemingly massive. Work replaced my 9yo Android recently with a Samsung A54 and it's gigantic. I can't use something that's 77mm wide one-handed (missus), especially with a case (mandatory for company devices). I know it's a pointless gripe, Apple tried the 12/13 Minis and they didn't sell.

he's not wrong about the size of it...

https://images.samsung.com/is/image/samsung/p6pim/uk/feature/164462152/uk-feature-speed-will-take-you-further-535771736?%24900*N_JPG%24

bring back the minis u cowards

Mind you, 5000mAh LiPo batteries in these Samsung bricks. I only charge mine twice a week and could probably stretch to 5 days between charges. But I'm not exactly hammering it, it's not for fun/socials/personal stuff.

Sonoma wallpapers are lovely, no way I want to put a bunch of ugly widgets over it. Team Clean Desktop forever.

^ this

Also I can see myself getting frustrated with the “nightstand” mode when the phones balance isn’t perfect and it inevitably falls forward or backward at 4 AM.

was surprised to find out that the iphone 15 compares favorably to the mini, and even more surprised to find out that the 15 pro is slightly smaller than the 15

xp are you balancing the phone on its side?

AFAIK it has to be on its side for the nightstand mode to kick in. I guess I could prop it up against a book or something but I feel it will still slippp

I’m very happy about iOS 17 automatically re-connecting apps to the last Airplay output they were using. I manually selected my kitchen speaker 3+ times a day, for years. If you randomly lose the connection it will even prompt you to reconnect with one touch. Hallelujah! This may work for Bluetooth too, I don’t know.

you need to buy either an official Apple nightstand or an Apple MFi Certified nightstand, so that your phone won't slip. xp

“You need to buy” nope

if you want your phone to stand on its side you need a stand. why is this surprising or worth complaining about?

me, failing to balance my phone on its side on an airplane tray table so i can watch the office without holding my phone: "apple tax!"

you don't need the fancy MFI magsafe chargers that charge quickly for a nightstand, unless you sleep for like 30 minutes. a cheap non-magsafe one will do and you'll still have a full charge when you wake up. i got this one for $15 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B3RC6M94. works great. standby mode is rubbish, but not because your a thin, heavy metal rectangle needs help to stand on its side. (it's because the display turns off. you don't need to tap the phone. you can tap the table. any motion turns it back on. but that's still useless for the intended purpose.)

i was being a little tongue in cheek, but i am now not as i say that you can also just make a iphone nightstand with some cinderblocks or 2x4's and skip the apple tax entirely.

I don’t mind the tapping because I sleep right next to my nightstand and it’s nice to not have a glowing thing right there

you need to buy either an official Apple blackout screen cover or an Apple MFi Certified blackout screen cover, so that your phone won't glow at night.

oh, good tip

real apple heads know to dig a hole and put your phone in there

The 14 or 15's Always On mode should mean the clock is on (dimly?) all night, right? I hope it starts bouncing around the screen after a couple of hours, DVD screensaver style.

I'm currently using a combination of two books (one thin, one thick) and a £9 QI charger to get the clock on my SE. Thrilling stuff. If I type angrily enough on this keyboard I can get it to wake up.

I would never fall asleep because I would be waiting for it to bounce directly in the corner.

https://i.imgur.com/WoefPNh.jpg

Seventeen bucks.

i'd like to see that show a random photo from my album, e.g. a photo i took in 2015 of the mole on my stomach.

https://i.imgur.com/5Q3bwCQ.jpg

Repurposed iPhone 7. Need the towel BEcuase slippage

Have reinstalled Sonoma and have now wallpaper for the Look Screen but not for Desktop. Seems a bit buggy.

The titanium 15 pro looks like the bigger cousin to the first-gen SE

sort of surprising that they're releasing new M3 macbooks less than a year after releasing M2 macbook pros.

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/10/18/kuo-macbook-sales-down-amid-no-new-products/

i wonder if ^ has anything to do with that... hmm...

looks like they're finally getting rid of the 13" macbook pro...

the M2 was introduced over a year ago. it was kind of odd at the time that the first machines to get it were the cheapest laptops (air and the bad 13" pro). i guess this fixes that.

Got a new iPhone, didn’t realize how bad my battery life was on the old one.

Space Black only available on the m3 pro and max. Nothing they won’t tediously segment

"tediously segment" is a great description of the tim cook era

i think this makes sense now that we're through the apple silicon transition - yearly updates of the macbook pro that come one month after the iphone updates. air and studio/mac pro the quarter after. would make a bit more sense for the studio and mac pro to be on the same cadence as the mbps but maybe that's too many products at once.

I pre ordered a space black, not sure if I’ll keep it but always need to get my hands on this new stuff

Looks like they're on board with the new status quo of memory manufacturers messing around with different configurations at 18/36/48/64/96/128 GB of ram.

I guess on the low and mid tiers you get a boost and maybe you can splurge for 48? Real Goldilocks hours

Need a new job, client, or some kind of income going before ordering something in space black, but honestly my M1 Pro MBP is doing just fine.

^^ same in all respects. I'll see what they can squeeze our of the 3nm in the M4.

Couple months back, Ms. T picked up a 16" MBP M1 Max 64GB/4TB from the Apple refurbished store for $3750. There's some great deals in there if you don't mind stock configurations.

Good deal
Last thing I bought from apple refurb was a phone which...didn't turn on

Mac sales came in at $7.6 billion in Q4 2023, down 34 percent from $11.5 billion in the year-ago quarter. Mac revenue for all of 2023 was $29.4 billion, down from $40.2 billion in 2022.

no wonder they rushed out the M3 chips heh

a billion here a billion there… pretty soon you’re talking about real money

my new favorite Apple TV+ show, “Apple Event”
seems to be getting promoted a lot on the front page next to a trailer for the new Scorsese movie

"It's time for the Great November Apple Sales Event, coming to a showroom near you! Pick up a new Mac Studio - with only 4.9 APR! But hurry - this event won't last forever! 🎵 Aaaa--ppuhhhl! For the stylish monsieur! 🎶"

why ppl stop buying macs

We got a screaming deal on a dozen of the M2 MBAs about 5 weeks ago, perhaps now we know why.

they're pretty much as good as most people need. Maybe most users, like regular consumers, are still just happy with their old airs and macbook pros.

I'm about to get a Studio I think. My 2017 iMac is getting a bit long in the tooth. Prob just get the m2 ones they have now and not bother waiting for m3 ones that may come in the summer. Though I may end up just not getting around to it until then anyway.

i have an m1 macbook pro but id prob just get an air now that they have them with 15" screens

I need to download Steam and try Disco Elysium on the M1 Max. On my Intel iMac it immediately made the fans fire up and sounded like a plane getting ready to take off.

the m3 max is as fast as the m2 ultra in benchmarks which is kinda crazy https://macrumors.com/2023/11/01/m3-max-chip-benchmark-results/

so i'm sure the m3 ultra in the studio will be bananas

yeah my 2017 imac, intel obv, I upgraded to 64gb of ram a year or two ago, and it's held up but lately the fans have been crazy and it's just been sluggish. I did some crazy shit recently of getting a synology nas and moving all my storage to the network after my USB storage was giving me all kinds of disconnect hassles ,and some other changes and everything just feels like a mess right now. A fresh start with a big internal dive so everything can be on either internal SSD or back-upd to the nas and cloud.