Increasingly Familiar Apple Lust Objects for 2016 and onwards

"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"

I'm happy with my Casio digital watch. I've had it for a few years, and I think it's still on its original battery.

i have a seiko automatic and i'm smug about it

I don't even own a watch.

i haven't needed a watch to know what time it is for years, but i like the apple "watch" so far (3 days).

I don't like to carry a phone with me at all times, so it's useful for me to have a watch to be able to check the time. But I admit I'm unusual.

it’s very nice not to have to fish one’s phone out to glance at the time. this of course assumes that one is ever not looking at one’s phone which is admittedly a bit of a leap

ah i'm not looking at my phone for the time. it's a mixture of not needing to know the time, being at a computer, having lots of clocks, and never leaving the house on account of the novel coronavirus.

btw the lovely Emma B now owns a 16” M1 MBP. i kept gushing about it, “the most sophisticated laptop ever made” etc and she’s like, yeah it seems good. doesn’t give me any trouble. a little on the heavy side tbh!

I was being flippant in an "I don't even own a TV" way. ("Sorry, I don't television watch.")

For the same reasons o. nate and Tracer mention, I got into this weird spree of buying $1 watches off of Wish a few years ago. It was nice walking down the street and casually looking at the time. But I'm just not a wearables guy. I'd take the watch off at my desk and forget about it.

And while I didn't miss having to fish through my pocket to find my phone, I do like being able to bury it somewhere. With the watch, I wasn't crazy about always having the time of day within eyeshot. I like being able to check my watch, but I don't think I'm up for having my watch check on me.

Found a great MBP configuration that I could justify spending the $$$ on: 14" M1Pro 10-core, 32GB RAM, 4TB HD. $3559 with an edu discount. Good grief this thing rips.

I'd take the watch off at my desk

just found your problem, pplains

what, are they making desktop watches now?

iclocks

I really need to learn to use 3d modeling software so I can ironically join the group of weird apple superfans who insist on mocking up products they think apple will announce

They're churning out ideas like "tall mac mini" but I could contribute to the dialogue by showing them "mac that is inexplicably wide" or "monitor that is round for some reason"

you should follow nanoraptor

There is only one acceptable design for the Mac Studio. pic.twitter.com/A8B3ho3Qie

— Dana Sibera (@NanoRaptor) March 8, 2022

Cube G4 ruled
Except when it randomly rebooted

I think Ned still has his?

SD card on the front is a tiny thing to get excited about but i am

i would accept a studio and the new monitor, thanks

a little bit out of loop on this stuff - for a lightroom library, what’s the performance hit of having it sit on 1. external ssd or 2. external spinny magnet drive vs. the internal ssd?

imagine 2. is pretty bad but wondering if you can save some money by rolling your own ssd scratch drive vs paying the apple tax on maxing out the internal drive

I think if you have a nice thunderbolt 4 enclosure and a good ssd it'd be a hit, but acceptable

two lols:
- the base Mac Studio model has 512GB of storage
- the Studio Display tech specs page does not list refresh rate anywhere at all. tell me it's 60Hz without telling me it's 60Hz

why not just go with external SSD at this point?

and why does a 5K display cost more than the 27" Mac did

i guess they are finally giving us that upper-mid range souped-up Mac Mini that some people have requested for years with the Studio, so good?

Is 60Hz bad (or less good) if you don’t play games? Like more eye strain in regular use or anything?

60Hz is absolutely fine, but they've been touting 120Hz and variable refresh rates on the phones and tablets and the most recent Macbook Pro has that too (ProMotion is their branding)

variable refresh on the mobile devices is really nice because it cuts power consumption by quite a bit when the screen is relatively static

I had to go and look up the refresh rate at the monitor I stare at 10 hours a day, and really really like, it’s 60Hz and seems to work just fine, not working with video or games. Not listed anywhere on the HP site, either. I think refresh rate isn’t really relavent if you aren’t refreshing the whole field of vision every frame. Like who cares when the only thing that changes is the single character under the cursor.

It’s UHD, and whenever I go at look at my wife’s 1080 monitor, my old one, I wonder at how I ever put up with that blocky crap. So I guess I value pixel density above refresh rate.

HP Z27, it’s a purchase I’ve never once regretted.

apple's big sell has been pixel density, for sure

nobody else is even pretending to give much of a shit about that outside of phones/tablets

and why does a 5K display cost more than the 27" Mac did

― Nhex, Tuesday, March 8, 2022 2:34 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's a much better display

a little bit out of loop on this stuff - for a lightroom library, what’s the performance hit of having it sit on 1. external ssd or 2. external spinny magnet drive vs. the internal ssd?

unless the library is well over 2TB, don't get a spinning external disk. they're big and slow.

get an nvme stick and enclosure if this is for a desktop, or just pay the storage tax if this is for a laptop. it's a rip off but it simplifies software and hardware a lot.

my thinking when i paid an insane amount ($600?) to max out storage on my m1 air (to 2TB, way more than i need): i cannot make these changes after market and my last macbook air lasted 8 years.

I wanted this mac studio for years, since I have my own and better monitor already, but ended up getting a macbook pro m1 max. At least I can move it around.

question that possibly no one has any answer to:

I’m pondering the jump to a new MBP for work. There’s a thin slice of my current work that requires Windows. It sounds like the Windows Insider ARM build works really well with Parallels on the current M1/macOS setup. What’s the chance that Microsoft decides they’re going to just drop support or cut off that version from download?

Presumably Parallels is interested in getting licensing worked out so they can eventually sell a bundle?

don't know, but i can't imagine *MS* making arm support (broadly defined) worse in 2021. seems more likely that apple would break something via security improvements.

siracusa runs windows on his mac pro (he plays destiny), so he occasionally refers to windows difficulties on ask atp, and is switching to apple silicon soon (might be waiting for the pro). maybe he'll get into it.