I completely agree. Apple is completely falling behind. They are over-obsessed with making thin/light devices.
My macbook pro is light enough, and thin enough already. I need more CPU/GPU power and longer battery life.
I have no plans to upgrade unless they fix the mess that is the new macbook.
That has nothing to do with the apple watch. I've had one for nearly two years, and I even got an expensive special-edition black anodized one. It was still worth every penny.
Most people don't get it... but if you have one for a while, you will love it. It's so much quicker to glance at your watch. It's so much nicer to get tapped on the wrist, and siri is faster and can actually hear you when you talk into the mic on your wrist.
Its not a huge deal, and it's an expensive luxury... but it's really nice to have.
I bought an apple watch a few months after release in 2015. Despite the claims of bad battery life... i never have the battery run out on me, even if i have very long day. Yes, if you sit there and screw with apps, because you expect it to be a smartphone with a tiny screen... you will drain the battery.
I've flown well over a hundred flights since i bought it, and smacked/scraped the watch too many times to count. It's been in the shower, sinks, snow / ice / rain / sun hundreds of times... Its been on top of mountains and at the sea-shore many times. it has really held up to the abuse. Other than a few tiny micro-scratches on the wristband ( didn't even make it through the anodizing )... it looks like the day i bought it.
It works great for siri, and speakerphone ( hold mic near mouth, lets siri work in noisy environments like the car, or even in the shower with water running ). Silent notifications ( life saver, when we are rolling audio all day ), and the haptic feedback also does a great job of notifying you in noisy environments... No more missing what the GPS said, or missing that text tone and vibration walking around at a convention...
I can make a small gesture with my wrist and see the time/date, weather, sunrise/sunset (useful for photography, and being in different timezones / latitudes all the time.), appointments, alarms, notifications... I get weather alerts of rain/snow or extreme weather that is happening soon... I use passbook to select flights and then shake wrist at gate... QR code pops up and scans. I can ping my phone if i leave it somewhere, i can ping tracking devices ( tile ) on my car keys, or even my suitcase, backpack... or the expensive software dongle I use for work.
It might be expensive for what it does, but that doesn't invalidate its usefulness.
That is NOT audio compression, that is automatic gain control (AGC).
Huge difference.
Audio compression makes loud and soft sounds closer to the same volume.
Automatic gain control changes the gain based on the current volume ( thats why the hack works! ).
In the high quality video I can hear something from the tone he added, it wasn't completely filtered or some harmonic of the tone got through.
Still, not a bad hack:)... I wonder if a sub-sonic tone would work.
Not only is youtube using AGC, its badly set up AGC. It would be fine if they set the release time higher and kill the response time so it doesn't clip when the volume increases.
Or, they could do something even better and use real compression or even a multi-band compressor.
Multi-band would be great, it would make the tinny webcam mics sound a lot better by balancing the equalization a bit.
I did the backup / format / install method as I've done for ages.
Yeah, the system is much more responsive now. I had several programs installing, importing my music/photos and coping files from 3 backup drives, importing tons of email...
Still, the system was very responsive. Launching apps like Safari is probably 3-4x faster for me. The new UI theme is nice (won't need UNO theme anymore). I like the blurred/frosted transparency (looks nice, without sacrificing readability). The new terminal is great.
Lots of great changes in general.
But, I have gripes too:
Stacks look nice, but why isn't there an option for a NORMAL text menu? Why can't this fancy high- tech dock traverse directories? (It opens the folder in finder!) Most apps are installed in a folder ya know... This makes the dock useless for me.
Why is the menu bar semi-transparent? Why is the triangle for open apps pretty but almost impossible to see? Why can't I turn off the damn 'stacked' folder icons? Why do the new folder icons have no visibility?
Lots of older gripes: Why is there no easy way to install/uninstall software? (Yes, well written software doesn't need it. Big woop, lots of stuff isn't) Why can't I tell mail.app to stop bugging me about my mail server' SSL certificate? Why do the scroll bar thubs look retarded? Why isn't there an option to allow you to resize a window from somewhere other than the bottom right? Why doesn't the zoom button work for a damn? Why are all the useful audio controls hidden in some utility called 'Audio MIDI Setup'?
Why does apple think I want to have hundreds of apps all in one folder? (Apple apps, and apps by many other big software compines won't update/break if you move them). So my only option is to use aliases or some 3rd party hack or just live with the mess. I like to categorize them: Internet, Multimedia, DTP, Communication, Utilities, etc...
Why does iTunes sit pretending to do something for ages when I try to backup my music onto DVDs? It says its checking the songs or some such (not accessing hd / almost no cpu / no network access ) when it finally, gets to the end it crashes. Its had the problem for a LONG time now. I've formatted/re-imported all my songs several times since this problem started.
Wait until the raytraced games come out and more cores is all that counts. Or much more sophicated voice recognition, better AIs, facial recognition / lip reading, more and more security, etc etc.
Hell, even today its not unreasonable to say: You need a core for the OS, a core for anti virus/trojen/spypware software, a core for the foreground app, a core for background tasks. 2-4 cores already reaonable.
Yeah, I'm a mac user and I'm at that point myself.
My G5 tower works great for all my normal tasks... But gaming is a joke.
An intel mac helps with that ( parallels, boot camp ), but the price premium is a bit much on their lower end.
I would scoop up a iMac in a second if it had a reasonable video card....Instead, I'm probably going to end up building myself a box for linux/windows.
If Apple gets smart they'll make one model of the Mac Pro thats cheaper.
Sorry, I just don't need two dual-core Xeons.
A mid-range core duo and 2 - 4 gigs of ram and a decent video card would do just fine.
But, I guess they are worried it would cannibalize their iMac/Mac Mini sales.
Absolutely.
Some versions of linux might be fat.. But its very easy to trim it.
Thats a difficult task with windows, or even OS X.
I have a AMD K6 266 with 64MB RAM and a 4G HD running in the back room.
I made it out of spare parts.
Its nearly fanless, the HD stays spun down unless I SSH in.
I have large fans on the PSU, HD and CPU all running on 5v.
Even when its dead silent in the middle of then night, I can't hear any sound from it.
Its my nat box.
Oh, and its running fedora core 4.
The screenshot was taken in OS X 10.4.3, with Firefox 1.5 @ 1600x1200 85hz, on a flat 22" CRT, with sub-pixel font anti-aliasing set to "strong". If you can't read that, you have bad vision problems.
Oh, and I use a 5-button optical mouse, with a scroll wheel, that is fully supported by the OS with no extra drivers. I got my (refurbished) Diamond Plus 200 for $250.
This guy has no idea how dumb people are, and how LITTLE they care what OS or computer they have. %90 of them just want to check their yahoo mail and maybe browse a tiny bit.
Even that is hard for them, and seems time consuming and over complicated. You are *way* off my friend.
Linux isn't anywhere near ready for the desktop. Hell, OS X and windows barely pass as it is. Quit kidding yourself! I'm a pro and linux problems often baffle me.
"I have considered using Ming to code a Flash animation, but then decided against Flash and would prefer to stay away from such proprietary formats."
Emphasis added by me.
Thats true though, I wouldn't know. I've never used Ming.
Worst case you could screen cap or find/write a way to export raw frames.
Or, he could just author on unix and export under mac/windows.
Does flash work under wine or something similar?
So far I've had no problems ( Dual 1.6 90nm G5 ). I did experience one very small and odd bug though. For whatever reason after installing the update and rebooting the power LED never came on. I turned the machine off and back on. it seems to be working fine now.
Slashdot Mirror
I completely agree. Apple is completely falling behind.
They are over-obsessed with making thin/light devices.
My macbook pro is light enough, and thin enough already.
I need more CPU/GPU power and longer battery life.
I have no plans to upgrade unless they fix the mess that is the new macbook.
That has nothing to do with the apple watch.
I've had one for nearly two years, and I even got an expensive special-edition black anodized one.
It was still worth every penny.
Most people don't get it... but if you have one for a while, you will love it.
It's so much quicker to glance at your watch. It's so much nicer to get tapped on the wrist, and siri is faster and can actually hear you when you talk into the mic on your wrist.
Its not a huge deal, and it's an expensive luxury... but it's really nice to have.
I bought an apple watch a few months after release in 2015.
Despite the claims of bad battery life... i never have the battery run out on me, even if i have very long day.
Yes, if you sit there and screw with apps, because you expect it to be a smartphone with a tiny screen... you will drain the battery.
I've flown well over a hundred flights since i bought it, and smacked/scraped the watch too many times to count. It's been in the shower, sinks, snow / ice / rain / sun hundreds of times... Its been on top of mountains and at the sea-shore many times. it has really held up to the abuse.
Other than a few tiny micro-scratches on the wristband ( didn't even make it through the anodizing )... it looks like the day i bought it.
It works great for siri, and speakerphone ( hold mic near mouth, lets siri work in noisy environments like the car, or even in the shower with water running ).
Silent notifications ( life saver, when we are rolling audio all day ), and the haptic feedback also does a great job of notifying you in noisy environments... No more missing what the GPS said, or missing that text tone and vibration walking around at a convention...
I can make a small gesture with my wrist and see the time/date, weather, sunrise/sunset (useful for photography, and being in different timezones / latitudes all the time.), appointments, alarms, notifications... I get weather alerts of rain/snow or extreme weather that is happening soon... I use passbook to select flights and then shake wrist at gate... QR code pops up and scans. I can ping my phone if i leave it somewhere, i can ping tracking devices ( tile ) on my car keys, or even my suitcase, backpack... or the expensive software dongle I use for work.
It might be expensive for what it does, but that doesn't invalidate its usefulness.
Fan lifetime is only an issue if you don't use double-ball bearing...
Yeah, unless its impractical to run a wire to where you need it... go for wired.
Wired gives you better speed, reliability and security.
Its not the brightness. Its the color and "too clean" look of it.
Top is original, bottom is tweaked.
(colors adjusted and grime added)
http://temp.bhmm.net/fixd3.jpg
Well, the distinction is compression does not check the current volume and then respond to it, it processes every sample the same way.
That is NOT audio compression, that is automatic gain control (AGC). Huge difference. Audio compression makes loud and soft sounds closer to the same volume. Automatic gain control changes the gain based on the current volume ( thats why the hack works! ). In the high quality video I can hear something from the tone he added, it wasn't completely filtered or some harmonic of the tone got through. Still, not a bad hack :)... I wonder if a sub-sonic tone would work.
Not only is youtube using AGC, its badly set up AGC. It would be fine if they set the release time higher and kill the response time so it doesn't clip when the volume increases.
Or, they could do something even better and use real compression or even a multi-band compressor.
Multi-band would be great, it would make the tinny webcam mics sound a lot better by balancing the equalization a bit.
Oops, didn't mean to post as Anonymous Coward.
I did the backup / format / install method as I've done for ages.
Yeah, the system is much more responsive now.
I had several programs installing, importing my music/photos and coping files from 3 backup drives, importing tons of email...
Still, the system was very responsive.
Launching apps like Safari is probably 3-4x faster for me.
The new UI theme is nice (won't need UNO theme anymore).
I like the blurred/frosted transparency (looks nice, without sacrificing readability).
The new terminal is great.
Lots of great changes in general.
But, I have gripes too:
Stacks look nice, but why isn't there an option for a NORMAL text menu?
Why can't this fancy high- tech dock traverse directories?
(It opens the folder in finder!)
Most apps are installed in a folder ya know...
This makes the dock useless for me.
Why is the menu bar semi-transparent?
Why is the triangle for open apps pretty but almost impossible to see?
Why can't I turn off the damn 'stacked' folder icons?
Why do the new folder icons have no visibility?
Lots of older gripes:
Why is there no easy way to install/uninstall software?
(Yes, well written software doesn't need it. Big woop, lots of stuff isn't)
Why can't I tell mail.app to stop bugging me about my mail server' SSL certificate?
Why do the scroll bar thubs look retarded?
Why isn't there an option to allow you to resize a window from somewhere other than the bottom right?
Why doesn't the zoom button work for a damn?
Why are all the useful audio controls hidden in some utility called 'Audio MIDI Setup'?
Why does apple think I want to have hundreds of apps all in one folder?
(Apple apps, and apps by many other big software compines won't update/break if you move them).
So my only option is to use aliases or some 3rd party hack or just live with the mess.
I like to categorize them: Internet, Multimedia, DTP, Communication, Utilities, etc...
Why does iTunes sit pretending to do something for ages when I try to backup my music onto DVDs?
It says its checking the songs or some such (not accessing hd / almost no cpu / no network access )
when it finally, gets to the end it crashes. Its had the problem for a LONG time now.
I've formatted/re-imported all my songs several times since this problem started.
Not even close. The wars have just begun.
Wait until the raytraced games come out and more cores is all that counts.
Or much more sophicated voice recognition, better AIs, facial recognition / lip reading, more and more security, etc etc.
Hell, even today its not unreasonable to say: You need a core for the OS, a core for anti virus/trojen/spypware software, a core for the foreground app, a core for background tasks. 2-4 cores already reaonable.
It can hold 80 - 1.6GB DVDs movies? Huh? More like: 13 - 9.4GB DVDs 26 - 4.7GB DVDs 200 - 650MB CDs 4 days of 128kps audio 2 weeks of 32kps speech 250,000 4x6 photos
6 digits forever!
THERE, ARE, FOUR, LIGHTS!
Yeah, I'm a mac user and I'm at that point myself. My G5 tower works great for all my normal tasks... But gaming is a joke. An intel mac helps with that ( parallels, boot camp ), but the price premium is a bit much on their lower end. I would scoop up a iMac in a second if it had a reasonable video card. ...Instead, I'm probably going to end up building myself a box for linux/windows.
If Apple gets smart they'll make one model of the Mac Pro thats cheaper.
Sorry, I just don't need two dual-core Xeons.
A mid-range core duo and 2 - 4 gigs of ram and a decent video card would do just fine.
But, I guess they are worried it would cannibalize their iMac/Mac Mini sales.
Why is FLAC so important? Use Apple Lossless format or AIFF/WAV.
This reminds me of the only other program i've seen that made me feel like it was alive.
Galapagos: Mendel's Escape
Absolutely. Some versions of linux might be fat.. But its very easy to trim it. Thats a difficult task with windows, or even OS X. I have a AMD K6 266 with 64MB RAM and a 4G HD running in the back room. I made it out of spare parts. Its nearly fanless, the HD stays spun down unless I SSH in. I have large fans on the PSU, HD and CPU all running on 5v. Even when its dead silent in the middle of then night, I can't hear any sound from it. Its my nat box. Oh, and its running fedora core 4.
I don't mind reading online at all.
http://temp.bhmm.net/slashdot.png
The screenshot was taken in OS X 10.4.3, with Firefox 1.5 @ 1600x1200 85hz, on a flat 22" CRT, with sub-pixel font anti-aliasing set to "strong".
If you can't read that, you have bad vision problems.
Oh, and I use a 5-button optical mouse, with a scroll wheel, that is fully supported by the OS with no extra drivers.
I got my (refurbished) Diamond Plus 200 for $250.
Wow. Just, wow.
This guy has no idea how dumb people are, and how LITTLE they care what OS or computer they have.
%90 of them just want to check their yahoo mail and maybe browse a tiny bit.
Even that is hard for them, and seems time consuming and over complicated.
You are *way* off my friend.
Linux isn't anywhere near ready for the desktop. Hell, OS X and windows barely pass as it is.
Quit kidding yourself! I'm a pro and linux problems often baffle me.
"I have considered using Ming to code a Flash animation, but then decided against Flash and would prefer to stay away from such proprietary formats." Emphasis added by me. Thats true though, I wouldn't know. I've never used Ming. Worst case you could screen cap or find/write a way to export raw frames. Or, he could just author on unix and export under mac/windows. Does flash work under wine or something similar?
You *do* know you can author in flash and export it as video, right?
Thats the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Thats like saying "you shouldn't open the hood on your car because it costs $80,0000."
I took apart my month-old dual-proc G5 that costs $2000.
If you have no idea what the f*** your doing, then that is a different issue altogether.
g5.bhmm.net
So far I've had no problems ( Dual 1.6 90nm G5 ). I did experience one very small and odd bug though. For whatever reason after installing the update and rebooting the power LED never came on. I turned the machine off and back on. it seems to be working fine now.
Odd.
I used eWorld for 2 months. I was there at the closing party. We all counted down to midnight.
5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. *click*. I was there the moment eWorld closed.
Man... I hadn't thought of that in years.
By the way. Yes, I own a gun. I am also a programmer wannabe that uses mac and linux boxes.