Faster, cleaner, more compatible with your other apps.
And how would that be the case?
Faster: because native apps can be faster. Fewer abstractions and frameworks can mean leaner, faster code.
Cleaner: because native apps can be much more compact and less dependent upon numerous frameworks.
More compatible between apps: because native apps have available to them more means to communicate with each other. Files, sockets, pipes, signals, shared memory, scripting, clipboard, etc.
The only ways apps incooperate is cut/paste or the file system (if it accessible)
That's not required to be true for native apps, and when it is required to be true, such as with a webapp, it's not a feature. It's a limitation.
o Normal key travel depth means typing skills apply without relearning o Positive "click" clearly indicates success of keystrokes — uses Alps mechanical keyswitches. o N-key rollover — doesn't lose keystrokes. o Has OS X keys where they should be. o Nicely marked with option-key and other uncommon characters. o Durability is high (I type a lot and these last longer than anything else I've tried.) o Dual USB ports, very convenient at times. o Nicely symmetrical shift, control, alt/option and command keys. o Properly shielded cabling, keeps RFI low (I do a lot of radio work.) o Sculpted keytops — aids in keeping fingertips where they belong o Excellent build quality — case, feet, keys, cabling, connectors, jacks. o Laser-etched keytops provide excellent legend durability. o Actually has an ESC key. And proper function keys. 18 of them.:) o Has a numeric pad. o White with dark key legends: very easy to see, which I need when not typing on the conventional keys. o No batteries to wear out — it's powered through its USB cable. o No connection issues — communicates with the computer over USB. o Available in US, UK, German and Japanese layouts. I use a US layout version, it's great.
Cons:
o Price: They're presently about $150.00, US. To me, absolutely worth it, but that's in the "ouch" range. o Keys are not illuminated - I really, really wish they were. I prefer a darker room. o Difficult to clean (I've no suggestions here, it's just an observation.) o Although durability is far better than anything else I've tried, these still last me only about a year. Could be better. I think what usually happens is the keyswitches come loose from the printed circuit board underneath, a conclusion I have drawn based on the behavior of the intermittent keypresses.
And...
I have to emphasize that I type a lot. About eight to ten hours a day, at about 65 WPM in long bursts (sometimes several hours at a time.) I suspect that for most people, these keyboards would last a very long time.
Oh, just the people who think those things are good.
Got it.
If Apple hadn't killed-off Rosetta after one major OS rev, there arguably would STILL be no Intel-Native Mac version of [highly dubious and entirely speculative list redacted]
That's nonsense. Rosetta can still be run in a VM (and yes, I do run it in a VM, so I'm quite sure.) If those companies wanted to rest on their laurels, they certainly could. But they didn't, so your entire thesis here is nonsensical.
Do any other phones/cars/speakers have this option right now?
My Garmin nüvi 3597LMTHD GPS has done this since I bought it in 2013. It's not connected to anything, not wifi, not cellular, and not bluetooth. Where I live (the boonies) the traffic features and even the map updates are pretty pointless, so there's never been a need to connect it to anything. Yet it understands me just fine. And unlike Alexa and others, it allowed me to rename it — it only responds to "yo, bitch", which is just how I like it.:)
Is the unit's understanding of language in general up to par with todays systems? No. But does it work for what it needs to understand? Yes. Very well.
For the home, when and if MyCroft gains a local speech understanding capability, that's the way I'm going. Everything I want to do is local, and the unit can be customized to run just about anything you put together (of course, commercial products aren't that easy to figure out, but that can be done in many cases as well.) Everything that depends on the "cloud" has failures, comm losses, and security concerns. Local is definitely the way to go.
Otherwise, everything you say ends up sent to Google, Amazon, Apple or whoever. And whoever they partner with / roll over for / get hacked by.
I trust Apple a little bit more as they've been pretty clear about being privacy focused, but that door is open for them to do "whatever" with your data, and it is best to keep that in mind. If they go local, that'd be nice. But inasmuch as it's a closed system, whereas MyCroft is an open system... yup, still going MyCroft if they can pull this off.
Sure. If you don't write to them. And the smaller the SSD drive (and this machine comes with a small SSD drive), the faster they'll wear out when written to. If you depend on that drive, and actually, you know, do real work with the machine, you're going to be writing quite a bit. Flash is great — as long as you can replace it. With this machine, you can't. Hence, a smart setup will use an external drive, and suffer the inconveniences and risks of external desktop storage.
Your advice to dig through Ebay for a 10 year old machine is insane.
Hey yourself, you let us all know when you find a better computer case design than the 2010-ish Mac Pros that can legally run OSX/MacOS. RFI-emitting, hard-to-install-stuff-in plasti-hackintosh-cases and desk-turd-having insufficiently-expandable, non-ECC system designs aren't for everyone.
Now you've gone and made me reduce the life of my hyphen key.:)
The entire rest of the industry and reviewers don't think so.
Oh, you mean the people who are removing audio jacks, putting notches in phones, going without memory card slots on phones and pads, and puking out designs like Apple's trashcan? The ones that want to litter our desks with cords and wall warts and little boxes? The ones that pulled magsafe off of laptops? The ones that obsoleted PPC binaries by dropping the "we'll keep your stuff running PPC-on-Intel engine"? Those people?
The CPU isn't much of an issue for me, as the failure rate of these parts has historically been low. Also, you can configure in a pretty performant CPU considering the size of the mini. It'll cost you, but still.
However, soldering in flash storage — I consider that a form of planned obsolescence. Especially as it is such a small bit of storage.
To make this machine last dependably, an external drive will have to be added, and (at least) all OS and application write targets (like logs, your files, etc.) need to be moved there so that the write rate to the flash is reduced as much as possible. Why? Because when that flash storage dies — and it will if you constantly write to it — the storage is useless, and you're right back to adding an external drive anyway. Better yet, outright make the external drive the boot drive and forget the internal drive exists.
Quite aside from the desk wart problem (so much for a nice, compact computer, one of the mini's real claims to fame), this means both extra cost and inconvenience.
Or IOW, Apple borks the mini again.
Unintentional? I don't think so.
I'm still waiting to see if they produce a Mac Pro worth my money. The trashcan certainly wasn't. That thing is just pitiful, design-wise.
On the plus side, EBay's a veritable gold mine of good Mac Pros from the pre-trashcan era, and I have picked up several of those. A 2010-era 12/24-core Mac Pro has a great case, can run 10.12.6 without problems, and can handle very large workloads. A 64 GB, 12-24-core, graphics-card-having, multiple REMOVABLE drive machine tends to land in the $1000-$2000 range, depending on your patience with auction hunting. For most tasks, that'll do ya. Cost you less up front than one of these minis tricked out to be reasonably powerful, too. You want SSD? Just throw one in a drive tray with an adapter, and Robert's your mother's brother. You want a better graphics card, more monitors? Just add (a) graphic(s) cards. You want to change / resize memory? Go ahead. So easy. You want connectivity? The machine has plenty, and there are card slots, too, and nice cards to go in 'em.
Present some researched facts relevant to the conversation, and some moron mods them down. Mod points are so scarce that most bad mods never get fixed.
So what if a loaf of bread and a gallon of gas costs the same.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but they don't:
in 1950, a gallon of gasoline was around $0.20. Today it is around $3.00, a factor of 15 in 1950, a gallon of milk was around $0.82. Today it is around $3.15, a factor of 3.84 in 1950, a loaf of bread was around $0.14. Today it is around $2.33, a factor of 16.6 in 1950, a Ford car was about $2,275.00. Today one of the least expensive, a Ford Fiesta, is around $14,250.00, a factor of 6.26 in 1950, one could buy a home and the lot it was on for about $7,500.00. Today... well, lol.
This goes on in most sectors; cost of a college education, medical care, plumbing, etc.
As the value of money is eroded by inflation, our ability to get more of it improves; and prices change to accommodate that. But it doesn't balance out. In most sectors, we're not getting as much for the amount of work we do, though the electronics and software categories represent some of the notable exceptions.
There's plenty of inflation going on. But it's of the boil-the-frog type. It's relatively slow, and we're meant not to notice.
I'll tell you what's sad. It's sad that Apple hasn't got the balls to say "if you do this, we will no longer make or sell any products subject to these insecurities in your country."
If politicians are not prevented by economic and other (legal, not suggesting otherwise) means from destroying liberty, they will do so - because they are, for the most part, powerful and often rich, and this kind of behavior inevitably makes them more so.
Either we prevent that result, or we prevent the action that leads to that result — otherwise our liberties will continue to erode in favor of benefits for the rich and/or powerful.
Um, my 2012 iMac and 2010 Macbook would like a word with you.
My 2009-vintage 3 GHz, 12/24 core, 6-display, 64 GB Mac Pro, likewise. Just dropped a new set of four 1 TB SATA SSDs in it, too. The machine itself is a long way from needing to be replaced (and a good thing, as Apple has nothing currently on offer I'd consider an adequate replacement.)
Of course, Apple, in their "wisdom", won't let the OS upgrade past 10.12.6 with this machine, but that can be tolerated - I don't actually need anything that requires 10.13+, I have not been taken in by the "subscription" nonsense or entered into a dependence upon any software that requires constant interaction with some kind of validating server, which I consider to be just as evil as the subscription malfuckery Adobe and others are now engaging in.
And you know, should this machine suffer a serious hardware failure at some point in the future, there's always EBay if Apple never produces a worthy Mac Pro again. If they do, it's still a tossup if it'd be my choice. The new machines tend to be pretty costly, and justifying the purchase would be difficult. I really don't need anything more than I have.
...shallow assumption that solar panels and electric cars are going to solve all the problems. They fail to grasp, address, or even research that this is going to make the main problem worse (for a time), and create several other problems when you actually sit down and take in magnitude of the situation.
This is not necessarily bad, if the new way is actually better.
I strongly disagree. You want to provide a new thing, or even just a new way, then fine, do so. But don't break what was already there. I am all for offering users new things. Just as long as it doesn't break the old things. And really, there's no reason to.
Got a new UI, software feature, etc.? Fine. Provide a switch or other optional mechanism. Let the customer decide if they want to use it. If they don't, then the previous (whatever) should continue to work.
We're writing this stuff for the customer. For many developers, the idea is to earn food, shelter, etc. Well, if you want your software to do well, don't screw the very people who have invested time and money in your work.
IMHO, if a developer thinks they need to wreck existing workflows and/or interface paradigms and/or APIs, they are almost certainly 100% wrong. The exceptions to this are so rare as to be non-existant for the vast majority of developers, applications, and operating systems.
Slashdot Mirror
Donald? Is that you?
Faster: because native apps can be faster. Fewer abstractions and frameworks can mean leaner, faster code.
Cleaner: because native apps can be much more compact and less dependent upon numerous frameworks.
More compatible between apps: because native apps have available to them more means to communicate with each other. Files, sockets, pipes, signals, shared memory, scripting, clipboard, etc.
That's not required to be true for native apps, and when it is required to be true, such as with a webapp, it's not a feature. It's a limitation.
Nonsense. A native application is far superior. Faster, cleaner, more compatible with your other apps.
Javascript/browser apps are for amateurs. Yes, there are a lot of them. Even so.
Room paint is already dark. Very. :)
I presently use a Matias Tactile Pro 4.
Pros:
o Normal key travel depth means typing skills apply without relearning :)
o Positive "click" clearly indicates success of keystrokes — uses Alps mechanical keyswitches.
o N-key rollover — doesn't lose keystrokes.
o Has OS X keys where they should be.
o Nicely marked with option-key and other uncommon characters.
o Durability is high (I type a lot and these last longer than anything else I've tried.)
o Dual USB ports, very convenient at times.
o Nicely symmetrical shift, control, alt/option and command keys.
o Properly shielded cabling, keeps RFI low (I do a lot of radio work.)
o Sculpted keytops — aids in keeping fingertips where they belong
o Excellent build quality — case, feet, keys, cabling, connectors, jacks.
o Laser-etched keytops provide excellent legend durability.
o Actually has an ESC key. And proper function keys. 18 of them.
o Has a numeric pad.
o White with dark key legends: very easy to see, which I need when not typing on the conventional keys.
o No batteries to wear out — it's powered through its USB cable.
o No connection issues — communicates with the computer over USB.
o Available in US, UK, German and Japanese layouts. I use a US layout version, it's great.
Cons:
o Price: They're presently about $150.00, US. To me, absolutely worth it, but that's in the "ouch" range.
o Keys are not illuminated - I really, really wish they were. I prefer a darker room.
o Difficult to clean (I've no suggestions here, it's just an observation.)
o Although durability is far better than anything else I've tried, these still last me only about a year. Could be better. I think what usually happens is the keyswitches come loose from the printed circuit board underneath, a conclusion I have drawn based on the behavior of the intermittent keypresses.
And...
I have to emphasize that I type a lot. About eight to ten hours a day, at about 65 WPM in long bursts (sometimes several hours at a time.) I suspect that for most people, these keyboards would last a very long time.
Oh, just the people who think those things are good.
Got it.
That's nonsense. Rosetta can still be run in a VM (and yes, I do run it in a VM, so I'm quite sure.) If those companies wanted to rest on their laurels, they certainly could. But they didn't, so your entire thesis here is nonsensical.
My Garmin nüvi 3597LMTHD GPS has done this since I bought it in 2013. It's not connected to anything, not wifi, not cellular, and not bluetooth. Where I live (the boonies) the traffic features and even the map updates are pretty pointless, so there's never been a need to connect it to anything. Yet it understands me just fine. And unlike Alexa and others, it allowed me to rename it — it only responds to "yo, bitch", which is just how I like it. :)
Is the unit's understanding of language in general up to par with todays systems? No. But does it work for what it needs to understand? Yes. Very well.
For the home, when and if MyCroft gains a local speech understanding capability, that's the way I'm going. Everything I want to do is local, and the unit can be customized to run just about anything you put together (of course, commercial products aren't that easy to figure out, but that can be done in many cases as well.) Everything that depends on the "cloud" has failures, comm losses, and security concerns. Local is definitely the way to go.
Otherwise, everything you say ends up sent to Google, Amazon, Apple or whoever. And whoever they partner with / roll over for / get hacked by.
I trust Apple a little bit more as they've been pretty clear about being privacy focused, but that door is open for them to do "whatever" with your data, and it is best to keep that in mind. If they go local, that'd be nice. But inasmuch as it's a closed system, whereas MyCroft is an open system... yup, still going MyCroft if they can pull this off.
Sure. If you don't write to them. And the smaller the SSD drive (and this machine comes with a small SSD drive), the faster they'll wear out when written to. If you depend on that drive, and actually, you know, do real work with the machine, you're going to be writing quite a bit. Flash is great — as long as you can replace it. With this machine, you can't. Hence, a smart setup will use an external drive, and suffer the inconveniences and risks of external desktop storage.
Hey yourself, you let us all know when you find a better computer case design than the 2010-ish Mac Pros that can legally run OSX/MacOS. RFI-emitting, hard-to-install-stuff-in plasti-hackintosh-cases and desk-turd-having insufficiently-expandable, non-ECC system designs aren't for everyone.
Now you've gone and made me reduce the life of my hyphen key. :)
SSD memory, however... that is a point of failure unless it is superseded by an external drive. And this machine has it soldered in.
There are more ham sandwich sizes in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Oh, you mean the people who are removing audio jacks, putting notches in phones, going without memory card slots on phones and pads, and puking out designs like Apple's trashcan? The ones that want to litter our desks with cords and wall warts and little boxes? The ones that pulled magsafe off of laptops? The ones that obsoleted PPC binaries by dropping the "we'll keep your stuff running PPC-on-Intel engine"? Those people?
Huh.
FTFY.
External GPUs are just more insecure, mechanically-at-risk, wire-nest making desk turds.
The CPU isn't much of an issue for me, as the failure rate of these parts has historically been low. Also, you can configure in a pretty performant CPU considering the size of the mini. It'll cost you, but still.
However, soldering in flash storage — I consider that a form of planned obsolescence. Especially as it is such a small bit of storage.
To make this machine last dependably, an external drive will have to be added, and (at least) all OS and application write targets (like logs, your files, etc.) need to be moved there so that the write rate to the flash is reduced as much as possible. Why? Because when that flash storage dies — and it will if you constantly write to it — the storage is useless, and you're right back to adding an external drive anyway. Better yet, outright make the external drive the boot drive and forget the internal drive exists.
Quite aside from the desk wart problem (so much for a nice, compact computer, one of the mini's real claims to fame), this means both extra cost and inconvenience.
Or IOW, Apple borks the mini again.
Unintentional? I don't think so.
I'm still waiting to see if they produce a Mac Pro worth my money. The trashcan certainly wasn't. That thing is just pitiful, design-wise.
On the plus side, EBay's a veritable gold mine of good Mac Pros from the pre-trashcan era, and I have picked up several of those. A 2010-era 12/24-core Mac Pro has a great case, can run 10.12.6 without problems, and can handle very large workloads. A 64 GB, 12-24-core, graphics-card-having, multiple REMOVABLE drive machine tends to land in the $1000-$2000 range, depending on your patience with auction hunting. For most tasks, that'll do ya. Cost you less up front than one of these minis tricked out to be reasonably powerful, too. You want SSD? Just throw one in a drive tray with an adapter, and Robert's your mother's brother. You want a better graphics card, more monitors? Just add (a) graphic(s) cards. You want to change / resize memory? Go ahead. So easy. You want connectivity? The machine has plenty, and there are card slots, too, and nice cards to go in 'em.
Just think of Dita instead :)
"Apple computers" != "iThings", Richard.
Where's my axe?
Present some researched facts relevant to the conversation, and some moron mods them down. Mod points are so scarce that most bad mods never get fixed.
And yet, the mod system never changes.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but they don't:
in 1950, a gallon of gasoline was around $0.20. Today it is around $3.00, a factor of 15
in 1950, a gallon of milk was around $0.82. Today it is around $3.15, a factor of 3.84
in 1950, a loaf of bread was around $0.14. Today it is around $2.33, a factor of 16.6
in 1950, a Ford car was about $2,275.00. Today one of the least expensive, a Ford Fiesta, is around $14,250.00, a factor of 6.26
in 1950, one could buy a home and the lot it was on for about $7,500.00. Today... well, lol.
This goes on in most sectors; cost of a college education, medical care, plumbing, etc.
As the value of money is eroded by inflation, our ability to get more of it improves; and prices change to accommodate that. But it doesn't balance out. In most sectors, we're not getting as much for the amount of work we do, though the electronics and software categories represent some of the notable exceptions.
There's plenty of inflation going on. But it's of the boil-the-frog type. It's relatively slow, and we're meant not to notice.
I'll tell you what's sad. It's sad that Apple hasn't got the balls to say "if you do this, we will no longer make or sell any products subject to these insecurities in your country."
If politicians are not prevented by economic and other (legal, not suggesting otherwise) means from destroying liberty, they will do so - because they are, for the most part, powerful and often rich, and this kind of behavior inevitably makes them more so.
Either we prevent that result, or we prevent the action that leads to that result — otherwise our liberties will continue to erode in favor of benefits for the rich and/or powerful.
My 2009-vintage 3 GHz, 12/24 core, 6-display, 64 GB Mac Pro, likewise. Just dropped a new set of four 1 TB SATA SSDs in it, too. The machine itself is a long way from needing to be replaced (and a good thing, as Apple has nothing currently on offer I'd consider an adequate replacement.)
Of course, Apple, in their "wisdom", won't let the OS upgrade past 10.12.6 with this machine, but that can be tolerated - I don't actually need anything that requires 10.13+, I have not been taken in by the "subscription" nonsense or entered into a dependence upon any software that requires constant interaction with some kind of validating server, which I consider to be just as evil as the subscription malfuckery Adobe and others are now engaging in.
And you know, should this machine suffer a serious hardware failure at some point in the future, there's always EBay if Apple never produces a worthy Mac Pro again. If they do, it's still a tossup if it'd be my choice. The new machines tend to be pretty costly, and justifying the purchase would be difficult. I really don't need anything more than I have.
Citations needed.
Your line was buffer than mine. I suspect you have a history of this.
You're just Bashing them now.
I strongly disagree. You want to provide a new thing, or even just a new way, then fine, do so. But don't break what was already there. I am all for offering users new things. Just as long as it doesn't break the old things. And really, there's no reason to.
Got a new UI, software feature, etc.? Fine. Provide a switch or other optional mechanism. Let the customer decide if they want to use it. If they don't, then the previous (whatever) should continue to work.
We're writing this stuff for the customer. For many developers, the idea is to earn food, shelter, etc. Well, if you want your software to do well, don't screw the very people who have invested time and money in your work.
IMHO, if a developer thinks they need to wreck existing workflows and/or interface paradigms and/or APIs, they are almost certainly 100% wrong. The exceptions to this are so rare as to be non-existant for the vast majority of developers, applications, and operating systems.