Apple Thread - The most overrated technology brand?

[Pissmaster]

I'm a little proud of this. It took ages to get it to work, but I was given a 2009 Mac Mini to try out, which was running Snep. I've got it running Catalina on a 250GB SSD I had laying around. If anyone wants to do this themselves, and has issues with the Catalina patch, even though the machine doesn't have USB 3, the install will fail if you use a USB 3 device. Something to do with how the host negotiates with the device, I think. But use a USB 2.0 flash drive if you have one, or I guess you could use a USB 3 external hard drive with a USB 2 cable. The only thing I had that worked, was an external USB-C SSD. I've got a few USB A to C cables that are wired in USB 2.0 mode. They came with an oscilloscope and logic analyzer that I recently bought.

Point being, use something that can run in USB 2.0 mode. But I'm pretty happy with how this has turned out. I'd love to throw some more RAM in it, but it's working well enough. It'll be perfect for my electronics hobby since I have slightly weird hardware like aforementioned scopes, EEPROM programmers, UART interfaces, etc, which like running under a *nix environment. So this thing will be perfect. It was a fun little project getting it working, and I'm happy.

You're the kind of person who would run an RTX 3090 on a CRT monitor

 

[Least Concern]

You're the kind of person who would run an RTX 3090 on a CRT monitor

Well, I mean… zero latency…

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

You're the kind of person who would run an RTX 3090 on a CRT monitor

2048x1536 is high enough resolution for anyone.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

2048x1536 is high enough resolution for anyone.

You could even get 1920x1080 on a CRT in the 90's. The Nintendo (Ultra) 64 was even announced as HDTV compatible in 1994-1995.

It just cost a lot. Look at the size compared to the full size keyboard.

 

[byuu]

You could even get 1920x1080 on a CRT in the 90's. The Nintendo (Ultra) 64 was even announced as HDTV compatible in 1994-1995.
View attachment 1654777
It just cost a lot. Look at the size compared to the full size keyboard.

Even my old cheap 17" CRT could do 1600x1200, which is the closest thing to 1080p in 4:3 ratio (with only 8% less total pixel count).

 

[Least Concern]

That's an interesting picture. Do you have a source for it? What are the glasses for? Are they shutter-style 3D glasses? What are the things on top of the monitor and between the keyboard and mouse? And are those speakers at the top of the keyboard?

It seems like what somebody might come up with if you went back to 1996 and asked them what a gaming computer might look like in ten years.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

That's an interesting picture. Do you have a source for it? What are the glasses for? Are they shutter-style 3D glasses? What are the things on top of the monitor and between the keyboard and mouse? And are those speakers at the top of the keyboard?

It seems like what somebody might come up with if you went back to 1996 and asked them what a gaming computer might look like in ten years.

It sort of is, it's a Silicon Graphics workstation, on top of it is a camera, I think they're the same kind of shutter glasses that Nvidia later used in the 90's(anyone remember when every game could be 3D).

It's from '94 or '95, it got some attention because John Carmack used one of those when programming Quake 1.

(a picture I found of him from 99 or 2000)

 

[Basil II]

You could even get 1920x1080 on a CRT in the 90's. The Nintendo (Ultra) 64 was even announced as HDTV compatible in 1994-1995.
View attachment 1654777
It just cost a lot. Look at the size compared to the full size keyboard.

my god it's amazing but I bet it would cost a fortune.

 

[Least Concern]

Apple Removes Beats Landing Page From Website Ahead of Tuesday's Launch Event (a)

Over the last couple of weeks, MacRumors has independently observed a gradual removal of all links to Beats' support website from Apple's own support pages. Apple also quietly retired its Beats Updater utility that lets users update the firmware of their Beats Wireless headphones, earphones, and speakers.

How odd. I guess they're retiring the Beats brand and they just want to sell all their headphones with Apple branding now. I would think that would mean giving up some massive brand recognition, though.

 

[malt ipecac]

Apple Removes Beats Landing Page From Website Ahead of Tuesday's Launch Event (a)



How odd. I guess they're retiring the Beats brand and they just want to sell all their headphones with Apple branding now. I would think that would mean giving up some massive brand recognition, though.

If I were Tim Apple, I'd want to consolidate into one brand eventually. The current (soon-to-be-former?) Beats lineup has some products that are near-direct competition with Apple-branded counterparts. It's gonna be cheaper to manufacture/design/market one wireless ANC headphone product than to produce two separate products when one is more-or-less a reskin.

Hell, they could probably add support for a "Beats mode" that just boosts bass output. As far as I can tell, that's the Beats line's main differentiating factor from the Apple brand.

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

Apple Removes Beats Landing Page From Website Ahead of Tuesday's Launch Event (a)
How odd. I guess they're retiring the Beats brand and they just want to sell all their headphones with Apple branding now. I would think that would mean giving up some massive brand recognition, though.

Apparently the AirPod Pro line is quite capable of delivering the loud bassy sound that customers look for in 'Beats', but can also deliver relatively good sound quality as well. Obviously there's some name recognition to the 'Beats' brand over their celebrity associations, but not for creating quality products. Will be interesting to see if they keep hold of the brand in the long term.

 

[Least Concern]

Announcements from today's event:

• HomePod mini - a smaller, spherical HomePod (Apple’s surveillance speaker a la Alexa). New “Intercom” system to send voice messages between Apple devices. Only $99 which is surprisingly cheap for an Apple device.
• iPhone 12. Flat edges again! Skinnier bezels, stronger glass screen, something about having more gees than the gees that previous iPhones had. Higher DPI screen, better chip and cameras.
• LOL, LOL is coming to iPhone
• MagSafe branding is back! This time for basically a magnet in the back of the iPhone which accessories can be attached to; cases, wireless chargers, card holders. Please put it back on the laptops too kthx
• Once again bragging about removing USB power bricks and headphones from iPhones as a green move…
• iPhone 12 mini. Smaller than iPhone 8 but larger screen. Same features and design as full-size 12 but just smaller.
• iPhone 12 Pro, Pro Max. Same design, better materials, massive screens. Three-lens camera with optical zoom, “sensor shift” motion reduction.
• Apple ProRAW. RAW photos which are formatted with Apple’s image processing. I guess it’s basically a RAW image with extra metadata about how the image should be color-balanced and such. I don’t understand this very well. Pro/Pro Max only.
• Dolby Vision HDR video. Pro/Pro Max only.

Nothing too shocking.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

The iPhone 12 Mini is interesting but damn it's actually that much smaller than the SE 2020? Jesus.

 

[Dan Abrams]

That was probably one of the worst iPhone events in years. My main takeaway is that the iPhone 12 is the best phone out there if you want to take pictures of black people or other minorities. I guess Craig and Phil (yes I know he is retired but he is still doing stuff for Apple) are too white to present anything anymore. Seriously, they dug up all these POCs nobody has ever seen or heard of before to present everything.

They went on and on about how great the camera is when 99.99% of iPhone users use it to take pictures of their food for Instagram or to make TikTok videos. Pretty sure no actual photographer does their work on a fucking phone. I'm still going to get the 12 Pro Max when it comes out in November because it's my upgrade year but the virtue signaling was out of control, and I will not use Android.

 

[LegoTugboat]

iPhone 12 is a nice step up, but the event was pretty meh. Magsafe for iPhone looks pretty nice though, and would solve a lot of missing the wireless pads that people have.

Also to note, before the event, 3 unidentified Mac models had descriptions updated, and 5 more were added for regulatory approval for release in Europe.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/10/13/eight-unreleased-mac-models-appear-in-filings/

And most importantly: Apple Arcade is getting Reigns: Beyond as an upcoming title.

 

[Pissmaster]

Magsafe is one of those things that should have been around all along, and it's kind of wtf that only just now are they rolling it out for some iOS things. Like why didn't they have that as far back as the iPhone 3GS?

And where them AirTags at?

Also "Pro Max" still sounds like a brand of tampons

 

[Least Concern]

Magsafe is one of those things that should have been around all along, and it's kind of wtf that only just now are they rolling it out for some iOS things. Like why didn't they have that as far back as the iPhone 3GS?

Well, seeing as how iPhones didn't support wireless charging of any sort until… iPhone 8 or somewhere around there? It wouldn't have done much good on the 3GS, at least in terms of the wireless charging aspect of it (and who really cares about the card holder attachments and other things).

Apparently the MagSafe connector charges with twice as much wattage as the Qi standard. I wonder if they just kinda repackaged some things they came up with when developing that wireless charging pad that they never released. Personally I think "focused wireless" like this makes more sense than a charging pad which just radiates power in all directions and gives your pets cancer.

I'm guessing AirTags is a project that they routinely put on the back burner for their more conventional products.

 

[Pissmaster]

Well, seeing as how iPhones didn't support wireless charging of any sort until… iPhone 8 or somewhere around there? It wouldn't have done much good on the 3GS, at least in terms of the wireless charging aspect of it (and who really cares about the card holder attachments and other things).

Apparently the MagSafe connector charges with twice as much wattage as the Qi standard. I wonder if they just kinda repackaged some things they came up with when developing that wireless charging pad that they never released. Personally I think "focused wireless" like this makes more sense than a charging pad which just radiates power in all directions and gives your pets cancer.

I'm guessing AirTags is a project that they routinely put on the back burner for their more conventional products.

I meant like, just as a magnetic charging cable rather than something that locks inside your phone and needs to be pulled out with a little force. I really don't know why only Macbooks had that.

Inductive charging pads are just magnets, more or less. The trouble with those comes down to how much excess heat they cause when charging, and Apple's never exactly had a good relationship with ventilation, to say the least.

 

[Pickle Dick]

 

[LegoTugboat]

Some iPhone 12 benchmarks are sneaking out onto Geekbench.

The metal benchmarks aren't as high as the Air's, probably due to the phones being smaller and therefore heating up quicker, but they still post a very respectable 8900-9000.

This still beats Iris, and a GeForce GTX 970M, but falls behind an A12X. If it follows the trend of the larger phones performing better than the normals, we should see the Pro/Pro Max hitting 9100-9200.