I HATE APPLE

i downloaded OnyX to see if it can help me clear space until i sort out an SSD but whenever i set it to run (and whatever i ask it to do) it just gives me unresponsive

ok maybe it's just the bigger things i ask it to do that stall it, i'll try it overnight

ok ignore this OnyX complaint it just takes a long time (and apparently signals that it's doing what it is actually doing by saying it's "not responding")

ok lol so i quizzed alba's guy on installing an SSD, here's the essence of his response: this macbook air already has an SSD, installed in such a way as to slow the processors and reduce the RAM so as to keep the price low: since RAM and processor are soldered on, it can barely be upgraded (a faster model of SSD is possible but cost greatly outweighs benefit)

which is gloomy news tho he has been very helpful in other ways so this is a good development

not to doubt the dude but some OG Macbook Airs did come with woefully slow hard drives. If it's that old you have more problems than the drive, though

i mean this is basically what he says, i could trade up the drive but it makes much more sense to pay a bit more and trade up the whole thing -- esp.as i could also sell what i have secondhand to offset it

How about an ilxu didn’t realize it was an air. They’ve only ever had SSDs. No question, by a new computer.

Yeah, I didn't realise it was a MacBook Air. How old is yours (Apple – About this Mac)? Annoyingly, I'd be happy to sell you one for not much money if I was still living in the UK.

If international shipping wasn't a complete bother right now, I'd be doing the same :/

it's a mid-2013 11-inch, i did carefully give this info once upon a time but it's now buried way upthread in the 8000 posts that only unfurl if you want them to (and who wants them to?) so fair enough no one remembering lol

My wife had the same and tbh it's worked just fine, though she just replaced it with a new macbook pro 13".

well the original issue here was that backblaze seemed to be using much more memory than it maybe should be

(also that i needed to replace the battery, but this has been sorted and seems to be fine; then that chrome had misinstalled in an upgrade, also now sorted)

the randomly shutting off issue portends bad things imo particularly since you have a new battery. did Alba’s guy mention anything about that?

it hasn't done that since catalina last upgraded and i reinstalled chrome -- if it starts again i'll talk to him again (tho basically "buy a new one" sorts that too)

ah okay that’s good

thinking of finally upgrading to 10.15. do we know anything now we didn't know when it came out?

The latest thing is that piece doing the rounds about the sheer amount of phoning home it does — even exec calls trigger sync networking to check the certs of the executables. I'm still trying to put off updating

mine's been stable

I can tell you that running the 10.15.4 combo updater fixed all of the problems I was having and I'm thankful that trick still works.

does 10.15 bring anything worth having? I'm annoyed that they deem my mbp too old to use sidecar.

well they still haven't fixed the stupid library listing bugs in itunes/music : /

but offhand i can't recall a new feature or important fix that i rely on

thanks, I think I'll just continue to hold out then.

We replaced our AppleTV recently and the new remote is driving us all crazy. It's crazy touch sensitive, easy to pick up and handle upside down without realizing it, and the menus are all shit. Non-intuitive and confusing.

Top tip: you can train it to listen to a standard IR remote in Settings. We just use our TV remote with it now. (Not least because we lost the stupid tiny one)

you can control it from yr iphone also

Oh man, thanks!!!

I don't think that people appreciate how different the voice to text experience on a Pixel is from an iPhone. So here is a little head to head example. The Pixel is so responsive it feels like it is reading my mind! pic.twitter.com/zmxTKxL3LB

— James Cham ✍🏻 (@jamescham) May 27, 2020

yeah, i don't get why Apple threw in the towel on this so long ago

siri also depends on understanding speech and it also blows so maybe there’s a connection. apple is years behind in both.

I've been surprised at how good the voice-to-text is on my iPhone, but I only use it in the Notes app. Guess it's way better on Android devices!

poor michael geer

more questions about backblaze!

why would an overnight backblaze backup -- the type where you click "backup now" as you leave the laptop and go to bed -- cause the macOS utilities window to be open (and frozen) when you return to the laptop some hours later? (as it's frozen i have to restart to return to normal)

this has happened three or four times in the last few weeks (two of them last night)

one data-point: *one* of the times last night i know that wifi had gone down during the back-up (bcz i unthinkingly untethered the laptop from my phone) (it was tethered bcz talktalk was dicking around all of yesterday) -- would this cause this to happen? no other apps were open or operative, everything else is currently working fine

I've got a £450 worth of bricked ipad that is only 6 months old. I took it to a repair business and this bloke spent two weeks with it and said it wasn't responding and he didn't seem to know what was wrong with it and he said the manufacturers warranty is gone because there is a slight, barely discernible bend in the middle of the case. I suspect he's either a second rate repair-meister or he just couldn't be arsed with a difficult repair. Was going to try a 2nd repair business which would have meant getting into a taxi and I thought fuck this and ordered a £150 Huawei Mediapad T5 as a replacement. It only gets used for youtubing and that'll do fine rather pissing more money onto something already disappointingly short lived and way too expensive.

is there anyway to show only apple/free to stream shows on apple TV+ apps? I don’t want to see rentals

The Watch Now screen does not really distinguish between content that you own and can watch, and just Apple’s general recommendations. Hopefully, the TV app interface will be revamped soon with better features and easier navigation.

But for the time being, the easiest way to get started with Apple TV+ is to open the TV app, go to the Watch Now tab, and then scroll down until you find the circular Apple TV+ channel icon. You may have to scroll down a lot, and the position of this icon on the page changes periodically.

However, once you locate it, tap that and you will be taken to the Apple TV+ channel page. This shows you all of the Apple TV+ shows and movies available to watch, separated by category like comedy, drama or family fun.

I hate this policy. It's akin to your grocery shop resulting in a cupboard where stuff you've bought is mixed in with a whole load of empty packets.

Amazon is quite bad for it but Apple is ten times worse.

https://i.imgur.com/60EqpGe.jpg

stoked for the madness

Every year I fill out this survey from Apple, for Apple developers. Every year nothing changes. pic.twitter.com/NoFcjwW1tC

— 🆆il 🆂hipley (@wilshipley) June 11, 2020

I experience Apple solely as a sort of tyrannical landlord who *could* crush my business outright but will settle for making my job harder and the software I write more restricted and less useful. The WWDC to me is a yearly check-in of "how bad is it going to be, this time?" pic.twitter.com/9mCvlXFrGU

— mcc 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 (@mcclure111) June 12, 2020

Have a chance to get the 16” y/n

I was forced to get one by work. Still getting used to it but basically it sucks ergonomically (Keyboard, trackpad, touchback, sharp corners, etc.) and you should get the new MacBook Air, which is also bad but costs less.

I got one but now I'm wondering if it will be the last of the Intel Macs.

lol backblaze again:

is there any good reason why backblaze shd take four days to not complete the back up of two files, size 379MB, one of them named "live.0.indexPostings"

is there anything i can do to gee it up or let it skip this file or whatever?

(ps i think i solved the 3 june backblaze issue: if backblaze is backing up but you are using lots of bandwidth e.g. to listen to a podcast, or the bandwidth collapses completely if yr wifi goes down -- which it's been doing quite a lot recently -- then the laptop flips you to the macOS utilities window, and if it's open here for a long time it freezes up)

no chance you can use a wired connection?

Cancel backblaze and stick to local backup or get a new computer.

^

ilx so sick of my bullshit lol

There is nothing normal about what is going on with your computer. I have over a TERRABYTE of data backed up via backblaze and I never noticed it so much as slow down my computer 1 bit. You laptop flips you to the macOS utilities window? That's not supposed to happen. If that windows open for a long time and it freezes? That's not normal. Reinstall everything from scratch or get a new computer. And/or just don't use backblaze. Try it's online competitors or just use a hard-drive...or use dropbox or box. What are you backing up again?

> using lots of bandwidth e.g. to listen to a podcast

1MB a minute for podcasts, typically, possibly less - they are speech and don't require a lot.

(unless you run the bbc and your weekly podcasts are accompanied with a live video stream just so that you can display live subtitles)

only 2013 so you'd think it would still run OK (I have a 2011 MBP that just about still runs) - although it is an 11" so was presumably a little underpowered at launch. might be time for a new rig : /

(putting an SSD in that 2011 MBP would give it another year or two definitely)