I HATE APPLE

lol after updating to Monterey 12.1 my..... Mail won't open??

Restarted the computer and now it's fine.. hmmm

Finally booked a session at the Genius bar (blech!) at the Bromley branch of the Apple store on Saturday - decided to just take the £199 hit and give my mid-2014 MBP a few more years of life by getting the battery replaced professionally. "Ah, we have a couple of those batteries in stock at our Stratford branch - give me a minute... yeah, we can't do it. We're not allowed to service this model any more."

Ava: "What a total scam!". Says the kid with the 2020 Mac, iPhone 8 Plus, who then told me how much she coveted everything in the shop, and spent 20min playing Fruit Ninja on an iPad Pro.

You love it, you hate it.

Did they charge you £199 to tell you that??

No money changed hands. I just had to spend an afternoon pointlessly lugging my laptop to/from and around BR1. The suggestion was I could get a local fella to do it, which is precisely what I was trying to avoid, by going the official route. But I suppose I'll give the shop round the corner a knock next weekend and see if they fancy taking it on.

It would be nice to know what the cut-off is for older gear, and perhaps there's a way I could've found out, but I entered all the relevant info on the website and my appointment was confirmed so...

Yes seems like that should have been caught.

MBP is working fine, btw - on mains power. It will even run for 60-90min on battery if not overly taxed (watched an hour of iPlayer last night, for example). But any CPU/GPU-intensive thing - or, increasingly, launching any app that's not already in the background - will shut it down in minutes. Obv I haven't taken it out of the house (until Bromley!) in nearly two years so it's not a disaster, just a PITA. 1102 battery cycles and counting.

Can't be upgraded beyond Big Sur, so perhaps that was the cut-off? Maybe I can get an Apple silicon model in 12-18 months, but it would be nice to hand this one down. Maybe that window has closed.

the battery on my work mbp* is swelled up so much that it won't lay flat anymore. i've put little feet on it so it doesn't wobble when i type.

(i swear it used to say 'mid 2015' or something similar, but now it's giving me an actual hardware version 'MacBookPro11,5')

1.5GB "Security Patch" waiting to be installed, over 3G.

> i swear it used to say 'mid 2015'

it still does, if i use my eyes.

There was/is a recall program for those:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall

@michael https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/12/macbook-air-pro-2013-2014-vintage-products/

the complete list is at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

Ah, thanks!

Not really clear if Mid-2014 MBP 15" was added to that list before or after that March 2020 post (which includes the 13"), but all rather academic now. It's certainly in the "vintage" category. Of course, the Apple stores were closed for months when I first started thinking I should do something about this but I may have been out of luck even immediately pre-Covid.

Still, it would've been really easy to actually respond to my web appointment info with an email or text.

Mind you...
"Apple discontinues all hardware service for obsolete products, with the sole exception of Mac notebooks that are eligible for an additional battery-only repair period."
"Apple says vintage Macs remain eligible for hardware service at Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers, but only if repair parts are available, or if required by law."

Batteries exist, and were in store at another branch. This may fall into the side-category of Couldn't Be Arsed.

re: battery replacement - yeah, mike, we saw that at the time and i checked and got a rather snotty response telling me to go away. still does.

(someone else in my team did have a number that matched but the company that supplies all the office macs (and also does disability assessments...) said they had no plan in place to replace them and, afaik, that's still the case >2 years later despite at least one desk fire)

The serial number you entered is not eligible under this program because either:
It's not in the affected serial number range.
Our records show that your device has already been serviced as part of this Program.

one or the other, who can say

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/01/23/apple-questionable-design-decisions/

This had me lollin

Started hearing a loud popping every time I hit a control key.

https://i.imgur.com/CtcT88t.png

https://i.imgur.com/fJOXvYF.png

Go fuck yourself

just turn it off

“Former Apple design chief Jony Ive, who still partners with Apple on products, has revealed his 12 must-have design tools for making, marking, measuring, and carrying with him every day.


Torque wrench — Snap-On adjustable torque wrench, £455
Tonearm — Linn titanium Ekos SE tonearm, $5,645, basilaudio.com
Hex Keys — Wiha colour-coded hex L-Key set, from $3.69
Paper folder — Paper folder, hwebber.co.uk
Measuring Tape — Hermès leather In The Pocket measuring tape, $530
Loupe — Vintage brass folding magnifier by Leitz Wetzlar, from Ive’s personal collection
Fountain pen — Vintage pen by Montegrappa, from Ive's personal collection
Eraser — Graf Von Faber-Castell platinum-plated eraser, £100, jacksonsart.com
Pencil case — Vintage leather pouch by Visvim, from Ive's personal collection
Protractor — Mitutoyo 6in universal bevel protractor, £264
Depth gauge — Starrett 440Z-3RL depth micrometer, $355
Weather station — Wempe Navigator II ship’s clock and weather station, $1,960

Ive doesn't offer any explanation for what makes the list or what specific products they helped him design, but in a separate piece in which Ive and fellow LoveFrom designer Marc Newson talk about the equipment in their Cotswolds workshop, he opines:

‘There's a beauty and a joy in the machines and tools. They are no longer solely a means to an end. I think there's an inherent elegance in an effective tool that normally results in a curious beauty.’”

carrying with him every day.
carrying with him every day.
carrying with him every day.
carrying with him every day.
carrying with him every day.

... why does he carry a tonearm without a turntable

The comments are pretty good too.

“This is the guy who designs rectangles for a living.”

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/05/09/jony-ive-essential-tools-designing/

https://images.macrumors.com/t/4iJjJnuI2LD2lOPHH6pqvIbgqJ8=/1600x0/article-new/2021/11/jony-ive-ipad-pro.jpeg

https://images.macrumors.com/t/4iJjJnuI2LD2lOPHH6pqvIbgqJ8=/1600x0/article-new/2021/11/jony-ive-ipad-pro.jpeg

https://images.macrumors.com/t/4iJjJnuI2LD2lOPHH6pqvIbgqJ8=/1600x0/article-new/2021/11/jony-ive-ipad-pro.jpeg

anyone else's airpods shit the bed in the past day? mine decided they wouldn't connect to anything for longer than a fraction of a second as of yesterday evening (connection was getting flakey for a day before that). This indicates there is a firmware problem, which Apple already denied.

https://www.reddit.com/r/airpods/comments/un9c9p/airpods_pro_keeps_disconnecting_from_iphone_after/?%24deep_link=true&correlation_id=e33e5cd8-5a51-4948-9537-0de8281a748a&post_fullname=t3_un9c9p&post_index=1&ref=email_digest&ref_campaign=email_digest&ref_source=email&utm_content=post_body&%243p=e_as&_branch_match_id=1044604750058356520&utm_medium=Email%20Amazon%20SES&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA22Q60rEMBCFnyb%2Ba%2Bs2rdsKiwjiawwxmbbD5kYuVN%2FeqeviHyGBw3cyZ2aylRLzc9clNIZKq2JsLflrJ%2BOL6AcZLwgqP7AMiVbyykJN9rIdVUK%2Biv6dz77v7W%2B9Do5B4qsoxWAyK2YOfTlk9bOe458LMQW4IsYMhrIO3qMu5FdYUnBAcQue%2By8Fj0Qhudlg%2BDUcIwr5VlJF0T%2FpkBJaVSh4IMMcpcRRm6kZ1XhqhnmYmnmU5%2BbR4NRPJ3UeJsV1MeQCS7XWK4dHnIT7gDePvMFPNk4MEi5HslNkedYVc7lB0MpFRav%2F382hJo13j2EtDnjRwj%2FC9KfNRzBf39j6pEyIAQAA

Just plug them in. Arf.

sorry if I'm misreading an attempt at a snappy response, but that doesn't make any sense.

I don’t have an answer for you arf but I sympathize , I don’t think the tech is quite there yet for seemless operation 100 pct of the time for the air pods. Hurts even more when you consider the cost.

Sorry I’m from the old school that thinks wireless for something like this is a bit of a silly idea. Boomer out.

yes earbuds that you plug in work fine. this isn't a point about ones with a cord. airpods do not have a cord. thanks for playing.

Ngl, agree with Chewshabadoo— this sort of tech is inherently unreliable and the Pods seem to take a shit after several months of even gentle use, from what friends have told me. Not trying to be snide, just don’t really get why you need AirPods. Is a cord really such an encumbrance?

I've had my airpods for a few years and they work great. There was one spell where they were having trouble connecting and I thought maybe they were dead but I put them in the charger and reset everything and now they're fine again.

tips i give new parents that are not obvious but turn out to be incredibly valuable:

get a grabber for picking things up/recovering things from under furniture

get massive s-biners for hanging stuff off the stroller like a pack mule (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nite-Ize-S-Biner-SBP8-Charm-01BG/dp/B0056NNVXO/)

get wireless earbuds because you're going to be stuck in place under a baby a lot, audiobooks and podcasts will keep you sane, and wired headphones will make keeping the baby calm impossible.

personally though i just get cheap "earfun" brand buds for lke $30. don't listen to music on them so don't care about sound quality.

i bought a $50 pair a couple years ago and they are honestly one of the most unexpectedly life-improving things I've ever purchased because untangling headphones is something that would be assigned to me in hell

same. was skeptical but cannot imagine going back.

My “damn, they actually are worth it” transition was from other Bluetooth (inc. some true wireless JBL ones) headphones. Pairing and swapping between different devices (Apple ones at least) is just so much smoother, as is charging. Wired headphones are great too depending on the context, sure.

Who cheapo wireless earbuds do people recommend?

Which? #AtLeastOneTypoPerPostGuaranteed

my wife has these and is fine with them but she's easily impressed (she is my wife) https://smile.amazon.com/EarFun-Bluetooth-Waterproof-Earphones-Headphones/dp/B07R5MKX3K?th=1

i stepped up to these because the mic on those cheaper ones is terrible and i take a call on them once every couple of months. but never use the noise cancelling feature https://smile.amazon.com/Cancelling-EarFun-Bluetooth-Transparent-Waterproof/dp/B08LYXGB89/.

the cheap ones are one of the wirecutter "under $50" recommendations

untangling headphones?

<blockquote>Pairing and swapping between different devices (Apple ones at least) is just so much smoother</blockquote>

right. definitely don't get the ones i recommend if you plan to connect them to more than just your phone.

lol <blockquote>

i bought the fancy wirecutter recommendations (jabra 75t) and they work but kinda suck, like they sound bad and i had to superglue the tips on b/c they kept getting lodged in my ear and i would have to fish em out with tweezers, thanks wirecutter

gonna try the cheap ones, noise cancelling is fucking stupid

On my walks I often see lonely single ear buds laying on the ground... such a waste

I've never owned Apple's version, but wireless headphones/earbuds has been a game changer for me - I'll never willingly go back to wired.

guess it’s just mw and Chewshabadoo backing the Ludd Gang then