Apple Thread - The most overrated technology brand?

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What killed Steve Jobs?

  • Pancreatic Cancer

    Votes: 73 12.1%
  • AIDS from having gay sex with Tim Cook

    Votes: 532 87.9%

  • Total voters
    605
Why has this thread been so active recently? Not that I'm complaining.



I know the Beats brand has a bad reputation but I've always been satisfied with the stuff I've gotten from them. Definitely more affordable than the Apple-branded equivalents.

I'm presuming these controllers will only work with iPhones but it'd be cool to get a "native" controller for Mac which will completely solve the compatibility issues. I've generally been happy with Xbox controllers over the past decade or so, but rumble has never worked for whatever reason.
Beats' reputation is mostly due to the headphones having a sound profile that basically strips out everything but the bass, which is cranked to absurdity. The materials and build quality was good when Monster did the manufacturing, and got better when Apple bought them out, but for the pricing of their headphones, people who know what good sound is find Beats to be ridiculous.

I have owned Beats, Monster (who went into their own headphones after Beats didn't renew the contract for manufacturing), Audio Technica, vintage 1970s Koss and many pairs of Sony headphones over the years, and Beats just fuck up the sound of anything you listen to on them.
 
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I have owned Beats, Monster (who went into their own headphones after Beats didn't renew the contract for manufacturing), Audio Technical, vintage 1970s Koss and many pairs of Sony headphones over the years, and Beats just fuck up the sound of anything you listen to on them.

The Beats sound profile is basically ALL BASS ALL THE TIME and everything else de-emphasised (yuck). I have some AirPod Max and they’re nice, but my DT770s are still my pride and joy. Especially when I run them though my FiiO BTR15 in DAC mode.
 
The Beats sound profile is basically ALL BASS ALL THE TIME and everything else de-emphasised (yuck). I have some AirPod Max and they’re nice, but my DT770s are still my pride and joy. Especially when I run them though my FiiO BTR15 in DAC mode.
My current cans are Audio Technica ATH- SR50BTs, which are great for sound, but the noise cancelling could be better, and for buds I splurged on some Sony WF-1000XM5s, which are as godlike as the price tag would suggest. I am very tempted to go for some WH-1000XM5 cans as they are supposedly the ne plus ultra of bluetooth cans. The Sonys have an app that lets you customize the EQ to your taste, but un-tweaked they give a flat EQ with insane range.

​


Update: Fuck it, found a deal on a pair of WH-1000XM5s and am going for it.
 
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Ars Technica: macOS 27 Golden Gate: The Ars Technica review
To run AFM 3 Core Advanced, you need both of the following:
  • An M3-family processor or newer
  • At least 12GB of RAM
(The RAM requirement is a bit odd—no Apple Silicon Mac has shipped with 12GB of RAM, though there are several iPhones and iPads that have shipped with that amount. Optimists can choose to believe that this means a MacBook Neo with an A19 Pro and 12GB of RAM will be released at some point during Golden Gate’s lifespan).

Stealth confirmation of the long-rumored MacBook Neo 2 with 12 GB of RAM.
 
Beats' reputation is mostly due to the headphones having a sound profile that basically strips out everything but the bass, which is cranked to absurdity. The materials and build quality was good when Monster did the manufacturing, and got better when Apple bought them out, but for the pricing of their headphones, people who know what good sound is find Beats to be ridiculous.

I guess I'm just a consoomer when it comes to audio, then, because they always sounded fine to me.


Huh, when did Ars start doing autistically long macOS reviews again?

Anyway, I upgraded last night. You can bet I slid that Liquid Glass slider as far to the right as it would go and wish it would go further. It's perhaps because of that that I notice that the window widgets now appear to be vertical ovals instead of circular, which is odd. I haven't noticed more "snappiness" but I appreciate that they've toned down the retarded degree of window corner rounding, as well as stripping out most of those menu item icons, which looked very un-Mac-like. I haven't encountered any of the other new features so far but those things alone make Golden Gate feel less user hostile than Tahoe, which really bristled me ever since I first saw its screenshots - if I hadn't had upgraded my hardware I would have stayed on Sierra for as long as possible.

Edit: They still didn't fix dialogs like this no longer having a secondary option triggered by pressing the space bar. Remember when, aside from Return "clicking" the highlighted button, there was also an outlined button ("Don't Save" in this case) that could be "clicked" with the space bar in dialogs like these, and you could use Tab to move it to a different button? It went sorely missing in Tahoe and it looks like that wasn't among the things they reverted in Golden Gate.

no-secondary-button.png
 
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I guess I'm just a consoomer when it comes to audio, then, because they always sounded fine to me.
They have gotten better after Apple bought them out, at least on some models, but a lot of people have poor perception in higher frequencies and would not find the Beats/Skullcandy “Fuck you, it’s all bass, all the time!” re-EQing as unpleasant as those who have more sensitive higher-frequency hearing.

I’m cursed with high-frequency sensitivity, so I can tell the difference between 20Hz-20kHz earphones and 6Hz-27kHz ones, and 20-20s are almost painful for me, as everything sounds pinched to the middle or overboosted on the lows.

That’s why EarPods Max aren’t an option for me. That price for 20-20 range is just offensive.
 
Been using iOS 27 for a few days now. It's noticeably snappy with minimal lag, system / app performance is overall more responsive, Liquid Glass looks better with more detail / background contrast / plus you can make it even clearer now, Liquid Glass is more unified across iOS, and battery usage seems improved.

I could not give less of a shit about the AI stuff as that's the rest of the update. Other than that it's a good update, glad they did not immediately ditch Liquid Glass.
 
Golden Gate changed the monitor that the open app switcher thing appears on when you press Command-Tab. This used to appear on whichever monitor was the last one you used the Dock on, and since I hardly ever use the Dock, that means it was just my main monitor most of the time. Now it appears on whichever monitor the frontmost window is on.

On the one hand, that makes a lot more sense than the previous behavior (which just seems random until you figure out the dock aspect of it) and is probably how it should have worked all along. On the other hand it fucks me up because I have a decade and a half of muscle memory to look at my main monitor to find the app I want to switch to and the switcher isn't there half the time. And there doesn't seem to be any option to revert to the previous behavior.

I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually, but for now I'll piss and moan about it, thank you very much. (And as a heavy keyboard user, between this and the lack of secondary buttons that I pissed and moaned about in my last post, I'd still prefer to see the latter reverted.)
 
Thank Science I use Android devices and don't have to worry about this kind of crap!
I hate Apple, but Android is not much better. Everything is a part of Google Mobile Services (including RCS), Wear OS is closed source, rooting is harder than ever, OEM bloat is still a thing, and every company gives their phones the exact same form factor.
With every update, Android becomes more and more locked down, while Apple is giving it's users more freedom (such as allowing emulation).
With that being said, I am not going back to Apple. I like being able to export my texts. I like custom launchers. I like storing my photos locally, and Apple Takeout is a piece of shit that puts all of the photo metadata in a separate CSV.
Not my actual phone, but mine's a similar looking dirty old prepaid phone from the 2000's that I've held onto for 20 years.
2G and 3G networks are shutting down soon, so you'll need to find a phone with VoLTE eventually.
Shit sucks.
 
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It has been far too long since I've engaged in fanboy wars(~7 years) but the iPhone duo and the hype surrounding it are really ticking me off. This is the most egregious example of because apple did it this thing must be good. We've got people glazing a fucking animation that well all forget about in a week. We have people genuinely considering taking a phone with a spilt hinge in the middle of pool. I get apple has done some interesting things but c'mon how is this any better than anything else on the market it even has worse cameras and battery life like all the other foldables.
This isn't like the m series reveal where they set a new standard, they joined the party late brought glow sticks and now we have retards who swore off foldables as a gimmick drooling and soying out. they cant even say that they are putting a unique feature to foldables like proper facial recognition. they've even gone and proved Android correct by putting touch id on the power button. Like seriously for years applefags were talking about the virtues of face id and how its more convenient and seamless than fingerprints ever were. but now it doesn't matter.
i hope it sells as well as the homepod so i dont ever have to hear about how an animation proves that apple has attention to detail, yet they cant fix their os clogging 60gb of storage unless you routinely update. Or how resizing stock apps shows they care about the consoomer.


Fuck this guy
 
Well I’m very happy so far with the 18 Pro Max. The burgundy looks quite a bit darker in the flesh compared to the images on the Apple Store. Transferring from the 16 Pro Max was as painless as ever (besides the usual fuckery with banking apps). The thing I’ve noticed the most when comparing the two is that the 18 has a slight curve on the sides compared to the 16s which are noticeably flatter. I don’t know if the 17 has that curve too but it makes the phone nicer to hold and a little more comfortable to grip. New camera is great, although the cat would only put up with me sticking the phone in her face for so long.
 
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Whats your use case? I find apple phones to have excellent batteries.

Or are you playing video games all day?
iPhones have great battery optimization.

Also side note. Updated my Apple TV to tvos27. It’s all fine and dandy. But the audio fucks up. Atmos has to be disabled in settings or I’ll lose audio entirely. Even with Atmos disabled. You’ll hear the background music and no voices until you reboot it.

Would just go buy something else. But everything else sucks worse and has ads plastered on your screen.

Ugh, might have to dig out my old Nvidia Shield out of my closet.
 
Also side note. Updated my Apple TV to tvos27. It’s all fine and dandy. But the audio fucks up. Atmos has to be disabled in settings or I’ll lose audio entirely. Even with Atmos disabled. You’ll hear the background music and no voices until you reboot it.

"Wait for the first point release" is still a reasonable approach for Apple's OSes. I would have done it myself with Golden Gate if there weren't so much I hated about Tahoe.
 
Anyone have Airpods Max 2? Worth $480?
I like the ANC from the buds and how it will jump around from my phone to my laptop to my desktop so I want apple headphones.
I just want something with better battery life for home use. reviews say they are heavy so they slide on down your head. I don't know how good they will be if I wanted to lay in bed and watch a movie like a lazy fuck.
 
Anyone have Airpods Max 2? Worth $480?
I like the ANC from the buds and how it will jump around from my phone to my laptop to my desktop so I want apple headphones.
I just want something with better battery life for home use. reviews say they are heavy so they slide on down your head. I don't know how good they will be if I wanted to lay in bed and watch a movie like a lazy fuck.
I’d go with Sony X1000s. Better sound and the best noise-cancelling there is.
 
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