Apple will never satisfy my lust for cheap, powerful hardware
- Thread starter strawman
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I will also point out that if you have a iPhone 6S that was manufactured 2 years ago (basically in the holiday launch window), there is a good chance that you are eligible for a free battery replacement. Based on specific batch serial numbers.
Check that first before you take advantage of this new pricing.
Check that first before you take advantage of this new pricing.
That looks just like the search stats that get posted every year.
Nothing makes a phone feel slow more than sticking it right next to a newer, faster model, especially when that newer phone is being held in your face by Bob from Accounting. He's such a jerk, has to talk about his amazing Jamaica trip and what a wonderful time he had, too.
EDIT: Turns out "iPhone fast" shows peaks at the same locations, while "Android slow" just has a long, steadily rising rate until about the time in 2015 that Lollipop came out, at which point it shows a slow, steady decline. Here's the graph from last year that overlays 'em all on one image. Looks like iPhones didn't REALLY get slow until the 4 came out. Either that, or it's because the 4 finally added CDMA with a corresponding increase in ownership.
--Patrick
Nothing makes a phone feel slow more than sticking it right next to a newer, faster model, especially when that newer phone is being held in your face by Bob from Accounting. He's such a jerk, has to talk about his amazing Jamaica trip and what a wonderful time he had, too.
EDIT: Turns out "iPhone fast" shows peaks at the same locations, while "Android slow" just has a long, steadily rising rate until about the time in 2015 that Lollipop came out, at which point it shows a slow, steady decline. Here's the graph from last year that overlays 'em all on one image. Looks like iPhones didn't REALLY get slow until the 4 came out. Either that, or it's because the 4 finally added CDMA with a corresponding increase in ownership.
--Patrick
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They pushed the $29 price out earlier, too. Was originally supposed to start late Jan, but now they've apparently said it'll start immediately.
They do warn that initial supplies may be limited, though.
--Patrick
They do warn that initial supplies may be limited, though.
--Patrick
Not the battery thing, but the entire week of the 25th-29th of Dilbert is kind of "on the nose" about smartphones in general: Smartphones ala Dilbert:
I'd argue the iPhone started this, and then everybody else followed.
I'd argue the iPhone started this, and then everybody else followed.
I'm again reminded of the "Send Me to Heaven" app, and all the complaints from Android and iPhone users alike about how it was the app that broke their phone.
--Patrick
--Patrick
I have to admit, I was interested in the HomePod.
And then I heard one. And now I want one.
That's not true, I actually want two of them, but the ability to set them up as a stereo pair and watch TV through them won't be enabled until a future software update. But that's fine, because I can't afford two of them right now anyway. They don't sound like they'd be able to fill an entire hall with sound, but they get plenty loud enough for a living room, and that's what's gonna matter. We have a couple of 1st gen UE Booms in the house, but they're always being moved to other rooms and hooked up to other stuff, so having dedicated sound in the room where the entertainment happens is quite appealing.
Yeah, I know, Apple blah blah stuff and things. Apple's philosophy and choices are considered "polarizing" by many, and the HomePod is noticeably less useful if you don't have other Apple hardware to go with it, but I do, so it's not really an issue for me. And someone on r/audiophile took the time to qualitatively test one, and came away legitimately stunned. I look forward to @fade 's critique of his testing methods, or even perhaps @stienman 's analysis of the messy hardware teardown.
--Patrick
And then I heard one. And now I want one.
That's not true, I actually want two of them, but the ability to set them up as a stereo pair and watch TV through them won't be enabled until a future software update. But that's fine, because I can't afford two of them right now anyway. They don't sound like they'd be able to fill an entire hall with sound, but they get plenty loud enough for a living room, and that's what's gonna matter. We have a couple of 1st gen UE Booms in the house, but they're always being moved to other rooms and hooked up to other stuff, so having dedicated sound in the room where the entertainment happens is quite appealing.
Yeah, I know, Apple blah blah stuff and things. Apple's philosophy and choices are considered "polarizing" by many, and the HomePod is noticeably less useful if you don't have other Apple hardware to go with it, but I do, so it's not really an issue for me. And someone on r/audiophile took the time to qualitatively test one, and came away legitimately stunned. I look forward to @fade 's critique of his testing methods, or even perhaps @stienman 's analysis of the messy hardware teardown.
--Patrick
Sounds like they've gone all out, and are reaching for the roots they built with the iPod but let languish all these years.
I'm buying echo dots when they go on sale for well under 10% the cost of the homepod, and while the audio isn't anything to write home about, I don't feel the functionality of the homepod is worth the 10x cost difference.
If they allow developers to write apps for it, similar to the amazon alexa skills, and if they allow multiple apple users to use it while discerning which one is requesting their latest text messages or whatever, then utility goes up substantially, but even then I'd be hard pressed to justify the cost.
I'm buying echo dots when they go on sale for well under 10% the cost of the homepod, and while the audio isn't anything to write home about, I don't feel the functionality of the homepod is worth the 10x cost difference.
If they allow developers to write apps for it, similar to the amazon alexa skills, and if they allow multiple apple users to use it while discerning which one is requesting their latest text messages or whatever, then utility goes up substantially, but even then I'd be hard pressed to justify the cost.
I've been pondering a Sonos speaker to connect to my echo. Not sure if it will be appreciated in my house, though.
I'm sure, "Alexa, ask for a fart" results would be 34% more hilarious to my kids if rendered at full fidelity.
I have a playbar and 2 play:1 (my left and right "rear" speakers), with my sub arriving Wednesday. I couldn't really speak to how the Play:1 sounds on it's own because I just tell my Echo to "Play X in the living room" and it uses all available speakers in the room. I'm currently deciding if I want to get a play:3 or play:5 for my room and just use the echo dot that's already there or just go with the Sonos One, with Alexa built in. Sonos is offering 2 for $350, so I could put them in 2 rooms for the cost of a HomePod.
Full size Echo or a dot?
I have both.
He actually backs up his testing with charts and graphs, but you're not wrong.
No one will EVER love their HomePod as much as she does OMGEEEEE.
--Patrick
Just FYI assuming you have a Mac and want it to run Mojave:
"Metal-capable GPU" in Mac Pros means at least an AMD Radeon HD 7xxx (i.e., Graphics Core Next-based like the stock GPUs in the 2013 Mac Pro) or NVIDIA GeForce 6xx (i.e., Kepler-based). The 2010 and 2012 Mac Pros* shipped with AMD Radeon HD 5770 GPUs with the HD 5870 available as a CTO upgrade option. Neither of these GPUs support Metal (even though they were absolute BEASTS when they were introduced**), so if you want full Mojave support you'll have to spring for at least one of those Sapphire 7950 Mac Edition cards (though this will leave you unable to boot anything older than OS X 10.8.3, if that matters). Side note, people have been having quite a bit of success just going straight up to the AMD RX 580 (which is natively supported in 10.13 and above) or even the AMD Vega or NVIDIA GTX 10x0 "Pascal"-based cards (If you can manage the power requirements AND if you can find any for sale, that is).
I realize this is a lot of info and probably applies to very few others on this board (if any), but since I did all the research for my own 2010 Mac Pro, I didn't want it to go to waste.
--Patrick
*Which are identical except for the 2012 models having slightly newer/faster CPUs.
**Linked comparison is against its 4xxx predecessor and the fastest NVIDIA card at the time, the GTX 285.
"Metal-capable GPU" in Mac Pros means at least an AMD Radeon HD 7xxx (i.e., Graphics Core Next-based like the stock GPUs in the 2013 Mac Pro) or NVIDIA GeForce 6xx (i.e., Kepler-based). The 2010 and 2012 Mac Pros* shipped with AMD Radeon HD 5770 GPUs with the HD 5870 available as a CTO upgrade option. Neither of these GPUs support Metal (even though they were absolute BEASTS when they were introduced**), so if you want full Mojave support you'll have to spring for at least one of those Sapphire 7950 Mac Edition cards (though this will leave you unable to boot anything older than OS X 10.8.3, if that matters). Side note, people have been having quite a bit of success just going straight up to the AMD RX 580 (which is natively supported in 10.13 and above) or even the AMD Vega or NVIDIA GTX 10x0 "Pascal"-based cards (If you can manage the power requirements AND if you can find any for sale, that is).
I realize this is a lot of info and probably applies to very few others on this board (if any), but since I did all the research for my own 2010 Mac Pro, I didn't want it to go to waste.
--Patrick
*Which are identical except for the 2012 models having slightly newer/faster CPUs.
**Linked comparison is against its 4xxx predecessor and the fastest NVIDIA card at the time, the GTX 285.
figmentPez
Staff member
Why'd it take so long to figure out what Macs can run Fallout: New Vegas?
There's a lot of games that currently do have Mac versions that are ending support for Mac for this very reason
figmentPez
Staff member
Apple hates gaming. Steve Jobs hated games, and that attitude remains prevalent in the company. The only reason "games" exist on iOS is because they're money making factories disguised as games.
“Apple hates gaming”. 
I take it you haven’t watched anything from the WWDC (Apple developer conference, currently going on) for the last two years? Last year they had Epic Games demoing Unreal development and were pushing VR development hard. This year (so far) a major chunk of the keynote was about AR, Unity was featured in a few demos, and there are multiple sessions for Metal and game development this week. How does building a graphics API that is faster/better—something that can be their version of DirectX—demonstrate that they “hate gaming”?
Both Feral and Aspyr, the biggest Mac game-porting companies, are using Metal. Blizzard is also apparently going to be using Metal. And because of Metal, we can have VR on the Mac. So... why should I be concerned about losing OpenGL?
It’s not Apple’s job to prop up OpenGL, especially when its performance is shit compared to DirectX. DirectX games running on my Mac have much, much better graphics performance than the OpenGL version of the same game running on my Mac.
Good riddance to OpenGL.
I take it you haven’t watched anything from the WWDC (Apple developer conference, currently going on) for the last two years? Last year they had Epic Games demoing Unreal development and were pushing VR development hard. This year (so far) a major chunk of the keynote was about AR, Unity was featured in a few demos, and there are multiple sessions for Metal and game development this week. How does building a graphics API that is faster/better—something that can be their version of DirectX—demonstrate that they “hate gaming”?
Both Feral and Aspyr, the biggest Mac game-porting companies, are using Metal. Blizzard is also apparently going to be using Metal. And because of Metal, we can have VR on the Mac. So... why should I be concerned about losing OpenGL?
It’s not Apple’s job to prop up OpenGL, especially when its performance is shit compared to DirectX. DirectX games running on my Mac have much, much better graphics performance than the OpenGL version of the same game running on my Mac.
Good riddance to OpenGL.
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I don’t know if Steve Jobs hated games so much as worshipped productivity, and he viewed games as a distraction and a seductive enemy of productivity, therefore not something worth emphasizing.
As for OpenGL/OpenCL, I lament the loss of any open interoperable standard, but I do agree it didn’t have the kind of serious support and optimization on Macs for them to rival PC performance, graphics-wise, and Apple has probably given up on it...because one of the other things Apple is famous for is shoving people forward into the future whether they are ready to make the leap or not (removing floppy/optical drives & headphone ports, implementing USB-C). This has sometimes backfired on them. The Newton, Pippin, and the 2013 “trash can” Mac Pro (for example) were all attempts to predict which way things would go ... and then it didn’t. There was nothing really wrong with the products themselves (the 2013 Pro especially is a design marvel), they just didn’t go anywhere.
Everyone is moving to newer standards that remove dependency/load/attention from the CPU. SSDs use NVMe now instead of AHCI/ATA, GPUs use DX12 (MSFT), Vulkan (AMD), and now Metal (I don’t know what NVIDIA does, I guess they just dovetail on DX12), and I guess Apple feels the other ones were somehow lacking, so they rolled their own.
—Patrick
As for OpenGL/OpenCL, I lament the loss of any open interoperable standard, but I do agree it didn’t have the kind of serious support and optimization on Macs for them to rival PC performance, graphics-wise, and Apple has probably given up on it...because one of the other things Apple is famous for is shoving people forward into the future whether they are ready to make the leap or not (removing floppy/optical drives & headphone ports, implementing USB-C). This has sometimes backfired on them. The Newton, Pippin, and the 2013 “trash can” Mac Pro (for example) were all attempts to predict which way things would go ... and then it didn’t. There was nothing really wrong with the products themselves (the 2013 Pro especially is a design marvel), they just didn’t go anywhere.
Everyone is moving to newer standards that remove dependency/load/attention from the CPU. SSDs use NVMe now instead of AHCI/ATA, GPUs use DX12 (MSFT), Vulkan (AMD), and now Metal (I don’t know what NVIDIA does, I guess they just dovetail on DX12), and I guess Apple feels the other ones were somehow lacking, so they rolled their own.
—Patrick
I wouldn't say apple hates gaming. I would say apple hates anything they don't have proprietary control of. As a gamer, OpenGL is a poorer version of DirectX, and so naturally I prefer DirectX (and if I owned a mac, would probably prefer Metal), but as a consumer I also value choice, and the ability of smaller developers to have an alternative, cheaper choice to work with than being chained to microsoft or apple. So while metal may be superior, still allowing alternatives would be my preference.“Apple hates gaming”.
I take it you haven’t watched anything from the WWDC (Apple developer conference, currently going on) for the last two years? Last year they had Epic Games demoing Unreal development and were pushing VR development hard. This year (so far) a major chunk of the keynote was about AR, Unity was featured in a few demos, and there are multiple sessions for Metal and game development this week. How does building a graphics API that is faster/better—something that can be their version of DirectX—demonstrate that they “hate gaming”?
Both Feral and Aspyr, the biggest Mac game-porting companies, are using Metal. Blizzard is also apparently going to be using Metal. And because of Metal, we can have VR on the Mac. So... why should I be concerned about losing OpenGL?
It’s not Apple’s job to prop up OpenGL, especially when its performance is shit compared to DirectX. DirectX games running on my Mac have much, much better graphics performance than the OpenGL version of the same game running on my Mac.
Good riddance to OpenGL.
To be fair, Microsoft could port the DirectX 12 APIs over to macOS if they wanted to, but they won’t. Heck, they won’t even backport them to Win8 or Win7!
—Patrick
Oh, my dislike of Apple does not mean that I like Microsoft. In fact, I highly dislike how similar the two are becoming.
Huh, didn’t know it was an active thing. You must not have been as vocal as Gas about it.
—Patrick
Apple has had involvement in plenty of open source projects. Darwin, Webkit, even Swift is open source. They’re fine with open source, they just don’t like things that create a shitty user experience.
I don’t have much of a choice without Metal. My choice right now for resource-intensive games is “OpenGL that is laggy as hell and crashes if more then 20 people are in PVP and then your guild mates have to wait while you recover from a crash for the fifth time that evening” and “fuck it, I’ll boot into Windows!”. It’s not really a choice when the choice is between a brand new Mustang and a rusted out Pinto that leaks oil like a sieve and is stuck in first gear.
Unity and Unreal both support Metal, cross-platform deployment, and are small developer friendly, so if a small developer seriously wants to be cross-platform those are probably the best options for game development. If the Mac is just an afterthought and a hack, then I probably don’t want their game anyway.