I HATE APPLE

so far so good with Overcast, thanks!

iOS 18.0 has been fine. Waiting for the 0.1 release to upgrade macOS though.

Updated to Sequoia 15.0.1 today and Dropbox app is now working again. It had been trapped in a 'trying to connect to the internet' loop.

gonna big up maestral again, a lightweight dropbox client that doesn't count against any of your installs if you're on the free plan

Does maestro allow you to sync Dropbox files to an external drive? That’s what’s killing me. Dropbox recent thing of locking its syncd files to the system drive without using a cumbersome workaround.

maybe: https://maestral.app/docs/locations

Looks like maybe Dropbox walked that back. I have to check.

Hmm wanted to put it in a NAS and that may not be doable anyway.

would syncthing help here? Bit fiddly relative to a paid solution like Dropbox but can be persuaded to do pretty much anything ime.

I have a kind of crazy system where my NAS syncs to Dropbox, so I have Dropbox in my main drive and many of those files are cloud only, I can work with those like normal Dropbox and they sync to Dropbox cloud and to the NAS.…or I can open those files directly from the Dropbox folder on the NAS, which syncs back to the main drive. It’s kind of a crazy way to live.

I tried really hard to understand it but my brain kept hydroplaning

^

Dan has a kind of Kerouac stream of consciousness first thought best thought f syntax kind of writing style

I sort of understood, if not the specifics

Multiple ways to access the things that might have various advantages and subtle differences.

You’d all understand if you spoke fluent synology with Dropbox as a second language.

A frustrating experience today at the Apple Store where I'd booked an appointment with the Genius bar to change a battery for an iPhone 11.

Firstly, they didn't have a back up iPhone 11 in case anything went wrong - which is apparently standard operating procedure. So I had to confirm that I was content to go ahead in these circumstances, otherwise they would have to ring round other stores to see if they had one, or I'd have to come back another time.

Secondly, when they tried to remove my phone from 'find my iphone' (not sure why they needed to do this ), my email sign-in wasn't recognised - so Apple Stolen Device Protection was triggered. This apparently blocks you for an hour or so from signing into anything unless you are at a recognised significant location, such as 'home' or 'work'. So this session was then terminated as there wouldn't be time to actually change the battery.

Impressive security perhaps but hard on clumsy fingered typists like me.

nah the 1-hour lock out is because apple refuses to move off the 6 digit passcode which can be easily shoulder surfed by bad actors

I'm hazy on what exactly Stolen Device Protection does, but it does seem to include being "required to wait an hour before using your iPhone to make changes to critical security settings or your Apple Account" when away from a familiar location.

Phew - the latest iOS 18.1 beta has fixed the springboard crashing. Turning betas off now, quitting while I'm ahead

there's nothing wrong with my iPhone 13 Pro. and the new ones don't have the silent switch? they just have some button so I have to actually look at the screen to see if it's silent? ugh.

I know, looking at screens is horrible. If only someone would build a phone without screens

It worked for years, why not now? :D

The new photos app on iOS 18 is such garbage

iOs 18 completely ruined the Apple Podcasts app. Auto-playing episodes, randomly deleting downloaded episodes, it's total garbge.

try overcast

I wish Apple Intelligence was more obvious. Should I assume that there is a learning curve involved for the LLM? I'm not noticing much of an impact. AT ALL.

What did you expect?
It’s a bunch of hot air

It's even more underwhelming than I thought it would be.

I feel like they didn't even get the low hanging fruit that an LLM easily does.

You can easily create a downloadable iCal file with natural language and you can't get anything close to the same results in Calendar, for example.

I needed to reply to an email message from my local Apple store about a repair.

It’s a noreply, but it has a local number to call the store. FINE, I hate phoning but I psyched myself up to call it.

It goes through to an AI voicemail and after 5 minutes back and forth while it attempts to work out what I want, and finally puts me though to a call-center somewhere.

After describing my situation, they say they need to call my local store…

…15 minutes of hold music…

…phone without warning switches to a calling tone…

Phone goes dead.

Try to look online to send a message. No way to chat online with anyone about it

sounds like the system's working as intended

You may be right there, haha.

macintosh was concieved and designed to be the elegant, simplistic solution to computing - with priority on UX/UI. it's starting to get crummy. my mac seems to be constantly interrupting me now. pointless features are obfuscated within confusing menus. my phone has taken to reading out text messages in a robot voice over my music and this can only be disabled for 24 hours at a time (?!) what a shitshow. i run a 2005 powerbook G4 for some legacy music software, and computing on OS X Tiger is just... it just works. there's no bloat. it just does what you tell it. notifications, captchas, 2FA, subscriptions, emails just to say 'yep that was me who logged in', constantly having to re-connect bluetooth devices... it makes using the computer just feel like hard work. when the app store is filled with paid programs that are designed to make all these headaches easier, that's a real indication that systems are inherently poor. despite being quite minimal in my digital life, and only having a select few programs installed and running, i still find myself stressed to bits with things pinging off and going on the wonk every five minutes. :/

apple hasn't been the "it just works" company for a pretty long time now imo

I started having horrible Magic Mouse lagginess when I changed from my 2012 iMac to my new Mini...turned out to be proximity related. When I moved the mouse closer to the Mini, the problem would go away. Not sure whether the newer antenna is not as good, or the Mini enclosure is a stronger shield, but I had to disassemble all my crap so I could move the Mini closer to the mouse's usual position on my desk.

As bad as Apple has gotten on it just works, incredible how Windows is still so much worse.

am i right that when playing an mp3 on apple music in my phone, it doesn’t let me see the extended metadata eg lyrics (where i always put the tracklisting for mixes)????

every iteration of MacOS introduces an annoying new feature that I have to google how to disable - I don't want the window to expand to full screen when I drag it off to the side, I'm dragging it off to the side so I can see the screen behind it at the same time

“Focus” ie disable your notification regime temporarily

Anybody here, or more likely anybody here's kid or geezer, like iPad 10th generation? If so, is the Folio ok for say up to 1000-word docs? My fingers aren't big, but wonder how they might do on there for non-distracting, extending typing sessions.

Still on Windows 7, but need to speed up---wondering how long this v. affordable model might more or less keep up w Internet, esp. streaming.

Fine for streaming

Get the air if you can though, it has twice as much RAM as the cheaper one and will be speedy for years to come

time to retire the 2012 Macbook Air finally.... getting a framework, looks very similar and the RAM and disk aren't soldered in! Apple only gotten worse with that kinda thing, sounds like.

Cool

😂

Get the air if you can though, it has twice as much RAM as the cheaper one and will be speedy for years to come

You can't configure iPads with more or less RAM - the amount is tied to the model and sometimes the storage capacity. Looking at this list https://9to5mac.com/ipad-ram-list-2/ it seems the iPad 10 is one of the very last available with only 4GB. I'd imagine that already excludes it from some features in current iPadOS, as well as the speed penalty mentioned.

Whether or not you want to use Apple intelligence I would not get a new iPad unless it supports it. Apple and app developers are going to assume that hardware baseline pretty soon

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/does-my-iphone-support-apple-intelligence/