I HATE APPLE

tbf to apple w/r/t usb sticks i think they (rightly) believe that they are on their way out, given that nowadays most people are on wifi with gmail or stuff is on a shared drive or they can airdrop etc

all of the other laptop makers still pretty much suck in their own ways. my work one is a Dell one and I'd rate it as checking all the boxes of what I need, but it'd sure be nice if it had the high DPI screen and trackpad of a Mac

the market seems to be half tablet-like laptops with high resolution screens, sometimes with touch control, and shitty keyboard/trackpads. the other half is trad laptops with relatively low resolution screens and boxy-ass designs

at conferences not everyone has eduroam so we have to deal with asking for temp permission to them to get wifi; usually speakers are international so they don't necessarily have 3/4g access either, and anyway they'd have to tether their laptops...it's such a hassle when we can just pop in the usb key instead.

my kids in hs/middle school use their usb keys daily bc the computer labs at school require them---they don't have "shared cloud space" or whatever. then they work on stuff at home and bring it back to school on their keys. gmail won't replace this.

I still don't know what the use situation for airdrop is

people said the exact same things about floppy drives, honestly, they always do this xxps

the best overall feature set on a Windows laptop is probably the Microsoft ones, which brings up a lot of philosophical questions

I think comparing the usb problem to the floppy drive is exactly what Apple's mindset was, and I think it's not a good comparison

I think ditching usb was fine. The problem is that the usb-c peripheral market is a disaster.

anyway I use my personal laptop at home for maybe 30 minutes a week at this point, Macs are basically a work concern for me, which means I don't care as much

the best computer in 2017 is the Nintendo Switch

if Nintendo made a phone I'd buy it

they might be right that usb is going to be gone soon but we're nowhere near that point. if i want to use my playstation controller wirelessly w/ my macbook - DESPITE it being bluetooth compatible so that it can work wirelessly with my playstation - i need to plug in a bluetooth transmitter thingie into my usb port. if they want to kill the usb port they better make sure everything is set up to accommodate ppl who need it.

i've been using osx since the public beta. i know things have never been perfect. and the situation has been worse than it is now. but the software situation is getting worse, and the hardware situation is not good (and the mac line is a disaster).

It's really bad from where I'm standing. I'm using my W7 PC more and more and work because fuck it, it works.

Bring back Forstall and Serlet, imo

thread

Apple is absolutely and unquestionably going in the wrong direction. Poor vision, decreasing quality, increasing prices, failure to execute.

— Bob Burrough (@bob_burrough) October 22, 2017

you could easily just buy a shitload of $3 usb A-to-C adapters and put them in a bucket in a computer lab or leave one next to the podium. such is the march of interface

xp my HS physics and chemistry students use google docs and google sheets at home and then just keep using google docs and sheets when they get to school, it's a good system

not sure if i was teaching another subject (like coding or whatever) if it would work as well

what's even the point? so it's an extra 1/10th of an inch thinner and i get to tote around adapters?? who was clamoring for a v slightly thinner macbook experience?

ideally this will end with me not using any computers, other than getting me into high-paying jobs without having to work hard at it they've ruined my life

xp this is neither here nor there as we use PCs at school so they can use their USB keys if they feel like it

I think the main draw for USB C is that it sucks incrementally less and is in theory a more robust interface

there's nothing stopping them from putting one C and one A connector on a laptop, or even, god forbid, three or four ports other than their hardware design philosophy

I just know the largest Dell laptop, which is usually aesthetically a dump truck, probably has like six different USB ports, a VGA port, HDMI, and at least one port I can't even identify because their enterprise customers demand it

i'm looking at the side of my macbook pro and ... it looks too thin for usb-A

here we go, on a Dell you get:
1. 3-in-1 SD card reader | 2. USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type A | 3. Ethernet | 4. Security N Lock| 5. Power adapter | 6. USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C™ (DP/Power Delivery) | 7. HDMI out | 8. USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type A with PowerShare | 9. USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type A | 10. Audio

So uh, one USB C, and three USB A ports with varying features that I can't decipher

my work windows 7 PC is remarkably bulletproof. it's good.

my home media PC with windows 10 or w/e is okay but it's full of microsoft upsell crap.

my iMac, it's good but i don't really use it for anything other than paying bills and occasional photo editing. i read/do most things on an iDevice or while i'm at work on my work computer

in other words, i'm fully on board 'the Personal Computer is dead' train

my latest reason for hating apple is that i took a video in landscape mode but can't figure out how to rotate it to portrait mode for easy viewing on twitter without downloading a zillion third party apps

I reckon the next series of Black Mirror should have an episode where the only way you can write anything is using predictive text on a tiny touchscreen.

yeah windows 7 at work, 4-y-o HP laptop, fucking flies, Photoshop opens in like 4 seconds. totally solid. HDD. puts my mini in the shade.

Photoshop has run faster on PCs for years I think. Something about ancient code base on the Mac version.

i guess that's it. everything else is just really fast too though (relatively). windows explorer vs finder, opera vs opera, outlook vs mail.

my coworkers have made the point that the last few Windows 10 updates have really tightened up the core OS, crediting the fact Microsoft's been working really hard on getting things working for cloud deployment -- if you have virtualized servers running at scale, you really have to have your shit together

the user experience in Windows 10 is still a complete mixed bag, but ehh

I get the impression that the Windows kernel and shell orgs are basically good at their job, and Marketing insists on crapping things up to justify their own existence and the fact that you still ostensibly have to pay for Windows

also i didn't think it was possible but apple made the podcasts app worse. worse!!

agreed. new podcasts app is garbage. can't find anything.

imo they should integrate the GUI team and the hardware team

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/d/surface-book-2/8MCPZJJCC98C/TC4H

specs-wise, this is... good? just make one without a touchscreen and with a good-ass keyboard and trackpad and I'm in

I have the microsoft surface desktop keyboard, and it's good! they can make good ones, I think the surface books use some soft surface tablet keyboard bullshit though

has apple ever had a good podcast app, on anything

i updated my moms iphone iOS when she visited a few weeks back and she was almost in tears with how bad the podcast app update was. "i had it just the way i liked it why would they do this? who cares about these big pictures?"

yeah i wouldn't be surprised if the podcasts update actually hits publishers' stats

this... doesn't address the core issue, but pocket casts is great and definitely worth the money

(ios app)

Is there anything I'm missing from Overcast?

what do you mean?

i've never used overcast but they seem to be more or less on par. if overcasts is working for you, probably no need to change.

i was using icatcher for years, but its ui is like being punched in the face and just keeps getting worse. buy it if you hate yourself.

I don’t think so, they are pretty similar. I have a slight preference for pocket casts. They are both light years better than the podcast app.

this is probably not the thread but my god podcasting is good atm. you could do nothing but listen to excellent free podcasts in every waking moment of the rest of your life.

That's what I do, basically. Yes, happy with Overcast and it's free.

The only thing I miss from having wired headphones is the ability to use the middle button to control podcasts beyond just pause and play. Overcast (and Downcast, iirc) allows you to set gesture controls like 'two taps to skip forward 30 seconds' which is super-handy when you've heard a Squarespace ad for the billionth time. But as far as I can tell, no bluetooth headphone support this. Maybe AirPods do?

Oh no, they don't even have buttons, do they? Is there some tapping thing you can do?

you can double-tap either airpod to do commands you can select yourself (play/pause, next/prev track, invoke siri)

Not the commands that the app defines like skip 30 secs then?

lol they are not testing are they?

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/10/24/ios-calculator-bug/

Not the commands that the app defines like skip 30 secs then?

they do! just confirmed in pocket casts and (ugh) icatcher. youtube changes videos though.

I'm surprised how few people seem to use Castro for podcasts. it's got by far my favourite interface. not quite as powerful as overcast, but it's just beautiful. and somehow its queue system feels less stressful, and more open to whim.

people scared of the embargo, obviously