Apple will never satisfy my lust for cheap, powerful hardware
- Thread starter strawman
- Start date
It would be awesome if indie podcasts like Smarter Every Day, Vintage Space, and Brady Haran's plethora of shows (Objectivity, Periodic Video, etc.) could have their own actual app channels easily accessible in the AppleTV menu. Especially since Discovery/History Channels no longer seem to carry any science and history (Reality TV needs to die in a fire).
Netflix and Hulu combined with awesome indie video podcasts make me not miss having cable at all.
And National Geographic was just sold* to Fox.
--Patrick
*Well, not sold, but certainly "had controlling interest given."
It just got a lot easier for them. Expect a TWiT app on the Apple TV by the end of the year.
<DarthVader>NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DO NOT WANT!</DarthVader>
And it includes the Society itself (and magazine). Given what they've already done to NatGeo Channel, I can just imagine it. "In this month's issue: Rupert Murdoch explains why climate scientists are all stupid poopie heads! Amazon Rain Forest: Six Tourists Try To Last Six Weeks in Isolated Village!"
I've been reading that magazine since I was six-years-old. It fueled my interest in science and history.
Dammit.
So... Looks like Apple is now getting their R&D from teenage Youtubers:
Rupert Murdoch marks first day of National Geographic ownership by firing 200 employeesI've been reading that magazine since I was six-years-old. It fueled my interest in science and history.
Dammit.
I imagine the proportion of "storytelling" will rise an unfortunate amount.
--Patrick
And in other news, Apple's music subscription service will obliterate your music library on your hard drive, by design:
https://blog.vellumatlanta.com/2016/05/04/apple-stole-my-music-no-seriously/
https://blog.vellumatlanta.com/2016/05/04/apple-stole-my-music-no-seriously/
So if you have a respectable digital music collection, don't use Apple's music subscription service, or make sure you have a backup.
I know the idea is to make all your music available on every device without taking up gigs of room, but making regular backups of your stuff (especially self-authored content!) would be thunderously good advice in any case.
Also, the Music service is supposed to undergo a huge overhaul shortly, so who knows what's coming next?
--Patrick
I still can't seem to find a music player I hate less than iTunes, especially when it comes to organization and fetching song info for old rips/downloads.
fade
Staff member
I still don't understand the hate the internet has for iTunes. It has a list of songs, a play button, a search box, and skip buttons. What else do you need? I guess if you liked organizing music a lot it might stink, but I have no desire to do that. Usually I'm looking for a specific song or artist and it does that just peachy. I mean, I'm not writing fan mail for it, but I never hated it either.
GasBandit
Staff member
No DRM. If it was push-button-get-MP3-be-done, that'd be great. But it's not, and it sucks.
I've used iTunes to rip to MP3 for years. You just set it up so it uses MP3 and when you insert a disc it does it all for you including album art, tags, etc.
GasBandit
Staff member
I'm not talking ripping a disk you already have, I mean buying a track from online.
I think there was a time that it, like every Apple product, had its own proprietary nonsense in a different file format? I can't remember.
Really my only issue with the program at this point is it sometimes seems to be a memory hog, but to be fair I haven't had that issue since upgrading my desktop machine.
Really my only issue with the program at this point is it sometimes seems to be a memory hog, but to be fair I haven't had that issue since upgrading my desktop machine.
Isn't it push-button-get-AAC-be-done now? I believe the songs are watermarked, but didn't they get rid of DRM (for music at least) in 2009?
--Patrick
--Patrick
For me, it's because iTunes (like most Apple products) is designed to try to lock you into a specific ecosystem. For people who already exist in an all apple ecosystem, that's fine, but I don't, and so I don't want to use iTunes.
To be fair, it also works outside of an all-Apple ecosystem, but that does require the user put in more effort.
You could keep your entire music collection manually organized by folders and play 'em all through WMP, but that's much more "hands-on" than most people (run-of-the-mill "consumers") want to do.
--Patrick
You could keep your entire music collection manually organized by folders and play 'em all through WMP, but that's much more "hands-on" than most people (run-of-the-mill "consumers") want to do.
--Patrick
I've used iTunes Match for years, and never saw this behavior. I used iTunes Radio for years, and never saw this behavior. Once Apple decided I had to use the paid Apple Music service to continue using what once was iTunes Radio, I declined that offer and continued to use iTunes as before.
Any tracks that were not recognized by iTunes Match were uploaded to the cloud, but at no time were any of my local files deleted without my consent. I would delete the local files if I got a match, because most of the time the Apple copy was the higher bitrate version.
One caveat: I haven't used *any* music service since the Aerio died last June. The other car still has it's original 1998 era radio. I'll replace it once I get other more pressing work done
Only tangentially related, but since Tekserve has decided to close after almost 30 years of service, this means a large number of artifacts are coming up for sale at auction, and not all of them Apple-related.
So if you want, say, some vintage Coke ads, a statue of the robot from Metropolis, maybe the ultimate portable cassette deck, or even an assembled display of 35 historic Apple computers*, you might want to register. They even have an Aibo!
--Patrick
*that's a dozen or so more than me!
So if you want, say, some vintage Coke ads, a statue of the robot from Metropolis, maybe the ultimate portable cassette deck, or even an assembled display of 35 historic Apple computers*, you might want to register. They even have an Aibo!
--Patrick
*that's a dozen or so more than me!
Oh, hey. Apple hasn't updated any of their laptops*/minis in a very long time...close to 2 years in some cases.
Oh, hey. Intel has finally taken the wraps off their next generation of processors, codename Kaby Lake., which was under NDA until 8/30**.
Oh, hey. Apple has a media event coming up on Sept 7th, just one week after the above moratorium.
Hmmm.
HMMMMMMMM...
--Patrick
*except the new 12in MacBook
**according to the note at the bottom of the released slides.
Oh, hey. Intel has finally taken the wraps off their next generation of processors, codename Kaby Lake., which was under NDA until 8/30**.
Oh, hey. Apple has a media event coming up on Sept 7th, just one week after the above moratorium.
Hmmm.
HMMMMMMMM...
--Patrick
*except the new 12in MacBook
**according to the note at the bottom of the released slides.
Real-time 4k video processing.
Also VP9 decode in hardware, so Google should be happy (and the H.265 people probably won't be).
If they have to keep adding a new module onto the die for every new codec that comes out, they'd better keep shrinking the process in order to fit 'em all.
--Patrick
Same. I'm really hoping Samsung gets the Exploding Note issue corrected and gets the supply chain ramped back up soon.
GasBandit
Staff member
I envy the UI response time of iphones, but I much prefer android's.... well, everything else.
B
BErt
To be fair, I hated it too when I heard they were doing it, but at least they're including the adapter with the phone. History has proven they could have easily gotten away with selling it seperately for $20-$30
While I agree that the default android UI response time feels sluggish, you can enable developer options and manually speed up the process. I have transition animations set to 3x speed and it feels very snappy now.