I HATE APPLE

im sure other computers are fine but im an apple guy for life despite my hate for this version.

every time i open Messages now my volume goes down to 50%! when i leave Messages it goes back up!

that's so no one can overhear your messages

checks out

my biggest annoyance with ios at the moment is the way it reverts to the music app constantly - eg i'm listening to a podcast, switch over to a youtube video or something and watch that to the end, then click the play button on my headphones again and instead of going back to where i left off in the podcast the music app fires up and starts playing the into to blur's 'girls and boys'

it didn't used to do this until a few ios revisions ago and it still drives me fucking nuts

in other news i got an 11" ipad pro and a pencil for photo-editing / drawing and it fkn rules

it's also just amazing for reading comics and i'm already guilty with the knowledge that it's gonna spend at least as much time showing me marvel unlimited as it does lightroom or procreate

too positive

the lust object thread is thataway

you're right, i am shamed

GAWD

so uh what are the best windows laptops : /

after 19 years (!) on apple laptops I'm not sure I could make the switch but I should at least consider the options

The MS Surface laptop is nice. My wife has one. The Dell XPS13s are pretty nice, esp. now that they moved the nostril can. If I was going to buy a new laptop, I think I’d do either one of the Razer ones. The stealth plus their external GPU enclosure is a pretty sweet combo.

Or just get the 15” Razer with the built-in GPU.

Dell xps is probably closest to the appple experience

yeah the new xps13 looks nice

My work surface 3 was the absolute worst computer I have ever owned, and I had an Apple Mac Centris 660av in the 90s. My Wife’s surface gave up on talking to the keyboard and is unrepairable. She’s going to replace it with a Lenovo or an HP.

lol the centris could not have been the worst!!!!

except for its storage space issues (which could have been avoided or mitigated with foresight) i do like my lenovo ideapad, despite having zero need to turn it on since i got a new mac.

the XPS13 and 15 are a beaut, and moving the webcam to the top p much makes it the perfect laptop imo. I've played w them a little bit too and they're real nice.

I use the XPS 13 at work, and it keeps taking ages to unlock. It’s got so bad, I have to carry it unlocked to meetings - otherwise I risk wasting 10 minutes waiting for it to unlock and not being able to access the relevant papers.

That...seems odd

My colleague thinks it could probably be fixed if we were allowed access to the full settings, but alas... IT support seems unable/uninterested in fixing it.

as an IT adminstrator the unlock issue is almost certainly a fault of your company's IT settings/policies and not the XPS 13 itself

how do I block twitter dot com on mac ? editing hosts doesn’t work ?

there's an app called Freedom, dunno if there's an easier way to do it

every single week apple music puts something called “group therapy” by “above & beyond” in my new releases, every single week i marked it as disliked, every single week it’s back there again. what the fuck.

My new music often thinks I am either:

a) a middle aged woman from Galway
a) a middle aged woman from Missouri who things thy are descended from someone from Galway.

good summary of the current hardware situation for switchers https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/guidemaster-the-best-windows-ultrabooks-you-can-buy-right-now/

If they cost as much as an Air then what’s the point

better keyboards

They’re faster, the keyboards work, the batteries last longer, they run an operating system that isn’t abandonware, etc.

"how do I block twitter dot com on mac ? editing hosts doesn’t work ?"

you must have done something wrong because this will work on any computer, it changes how the computer interacts with the network. maybe file didn't save?

Question: are airpods total garbage? I want some wireless headphones and don't want to spend $300 on them.

yeah it worked after I restarted

I love mine fwiw xp

My airpods work fine they’re not entirely seamless but they work and Apple earbuds are the only ones that have ever been comfortable in my ears

Airpods as the budget option wow.

airpods aren’t perfect but they’re one of the best things apple has done in the past five years

low bar

exactly

give me proper IEM Airpods and i'm sold. I've been using the wired Apple ones for 10 years and they're pretty good.

xp Nice guide to Ultrabooks. I am investing in a nicer laptop when my clunky Acer bites it. I like my missus's MacBook Air... when I'm not using it.

I'm dual booting Linux and Windows for now. Years ago there was an ok market for bare laptop cases so you could put in whatever you want. But I came up just about empty searching for these yesterday.

Is there anything ultrabook quality available without a disk/OS at least?

xp There are surprisingly decent Bluetooth earbuds around for around $50, if you don't mind a wire connecting them, sitting on the back of your neck

I still use 3.5mm jack stuff, but I find Bluetooth buds less alien looking than the earpods. There's single bud stuff too, though bad for music of course

lmao

Two years ago, Desmond Hughes heard so many of his favorite podcasters extolling AirPods, Apple’s tiny, futuristic $170 wireless headphones, that he decided they were worth the splurge. He quickly became a convert.

Hughes is still listening to podcasters talk about their AirPods, but now they’re complaining. The battery can no longer hold a charge, they say, rendering them functionally useless. Apple bloggers agree: “AirPods are starting to show their age for early adopters,” Zac Hall, an editor at 9to5Mac, wrote in a post in January, detailing how he frequently hears a low-battery warning in his AirPods now. Earlier this month, Apple Insider tested a pair of AirPods purchased in 2016 against a pair from 2018, and found that the older pair died after two hours and 16 minutes. “That’s less than half the stated battery life for a new pair,” the writer William Gallagher concluded.

Hughes, who is 35 and lives in Newport News, Virginia, has noticed a similar thing about his own set: At first, their charge lasted five hours, but now they sometimes last only half an hour. He frequently listens to one while charging the other—not optimal conditions for expensive headphones. He’s now gearing up to plunk down more money on another pair. “I just wish they would increase the battery life,” he told me.

oh yikes! I guess that's going to happen if they are your all-purpose thing! Battery tech was enough of a reason to leave the headphone jack alone.

Every time something new gets batteries we get a new story about how battery life degrades after many charging cycles.

Also “plunk”

the easy way around battery degradation is by making them replaceable

you got it. That's my top criteria for phones now. My last one was tricky... my current one, there's not even visible screws on the casing.

podcasts are famously demanding of high-fidelity reproduction, who can fault this guy for plunking down $340 on earpods with no guarantee the second set's batteries will las any longer than the first's