I HATE APPLE

Wire cutter recommendation + chicklet keys = hard pass

I would enjoy a logistical beatdown of Wirecutter, somebody do this please. i have been suspicious of their recommendations for awhile but have not been sure why

wirecutter has perennially been panned by enthusiasts/gear-heads
https://randomfoo.net/2014/03/22/the-wirecutter-is-always-wrong

but this one's been trending recently for whatever reason:
https://dynomight.net/ikea-purifier/

Fundamentally, I think the trap product review establishments fall into is it's very difficult to pick the best of an often subjective criteria (and keyboards are especially subjective unless they're literally not working which plagued macbook keyboards for awhile, but there are people who still love those objectively awful ones!), and numbers/stats offer an objective way out, so that's the route they take, but they don't always, or pretty much never settle on what ends up being the relevant numbers/stats for people who actually care about "the best" whatever the best means.

My guess is Wirecutter folks are on a deadline, would like to do better roundups but are doing well enough traffic-wise that it's hard for them to make the case to Times management that their content should be more expensive.

my guess is that Wirecutter is one of the most successful affiliate link sites ever. you’d think they could afford to up their game

To be fair, people have been complaining about the wirecutter since way before the NYT buyout -- I'm surprised Amazon doesn't beat them by making their own list of products with highest customer satisfaction and the fewest percentage of returns -- returns are really expensive to Amazon! you'd think they'd have an incentive to promote products that don't trigger them, but they seem to just go by "best seller" instead.

amazon's in the advertising game way too much to want to try to suggest actually good products

See also all the promoted books at the top of the search instead of the one you actually searched.

solving the user problem of not giving enough money to amazon's promo partners

In a roundabout way, I guess you could say their basics line is cobbled from data showing which products people want, then making/ripping off that product, so in that sense you're probably not going to do much better than an amazon keyboard at that price, from an aggregate customer POV.

If you are getting into the $20-$30 range though it might be worth the gamble in snagging that entry mechanical keyboard (I'm shocked by younger typers preferring the experience of typing on a tablet but also the same generation getting sucked into vintage keyboards that sound like thunderclaps), but that could also be a gateway into a very expensive and often ridiculous hobby, and also you might find it annoyingly loud in a lot of senses.

i dunno guys, the revive was about a cheap external keyboard that'll hold out until a replacement macbook can be bought. the keychron is not that. the apple bluetooth keyboard is not that. the logitech costs $40 (closer to $30 on sale), is wireless, and is tailored to macos.

i agree that the wirecutter is pretty sus but i think this is the wrong product category to be fighting this fight

otm

Back on topic , I hate that apple is now a media studio and producer

I miss iMessage notifications multiple times a week. I hate the notification center.

while we’re on the subject, how come the “Reminders” app, yknow that thing that’s supposed to remind you about stuff, has so few notification options? I need it to blare shit at me loudly even when my ringer is turned off or down, i need it to give me two extra reminders beforehand, etc. what else is a phone for than to fave you from yourself

(i realise someone is about to tell me how to do these things and that they are in fact very easy to do, and i am steeling myself for it)

fave = save

apple whines from the 1600s

the Vision seems devoid of any creative tools. It’s just another device to facilitate media delivery and consumption. Dud

eh, it’ll be interesting to see what developers do with it. apple’s got a fair number of first-party apps in house now and you can definitely use a mac or iphone to create things out of the box, but they still position their products as a platform for developers

sticking it in the pro market makes sense and I’d guess a lot of the spatial tools (design, architecture, etc) that let you create interactive mixed reality things on a phone would play a lot better on a headset. seeing what furniture would look like in a room in your house is a neat trick on a phone. in AR, it’s a different game. throw in tools like Autodesk’s or w/e and you have mechanical building walkthroughs

Probably more people will end up using these things to watch basketball games from courtside than to sculpt 3d models, so I get it financially. Apple used to prioritize creatives, though. Used to be a child could kick a ball in the street in Cupertino

It’s a commentary in itself that this lack of creative facilitation has gone entirely without note in the press. It’s not expected and apparently not missed.

The #1 thing everyone is yelling at Apple about (among many) is what their AI plans are... it has sucked out much of the oxygen needed for Apple to explain itself better as to the possibilities of Vision as something other than a monitor you wear on your face. I'm reminded a lot of the introduction of the iPad - a grim "look, you can use office programs" trudge that only confirmed those of us in the "hurm. it's a big phone" camp. Never expected an iPad would become one of my main synths. I dutifully downloaded the visionOS SDK and after a couple of looks I think that a year from now there will be some interesting tools in the vertical markets esp. the spatial ones already mentioned. Curious to see if any tiny 1-2 software shops write stuff for it.

it definitely takes some traction in the market to get the more useful applications (in both senses) rolling

this headline seems like it’s defeatist if you’re rooting for apple or the vision pro’s success in any way, but it’s more like we’ve come full circle back to the original iphone’s app-less, browser-first launch. which wasn’t going to work because the ability to do things effectively in a browser wasn’t there, but we’ve gotten to the point where a lot of apps are written as web browser views and bundled: https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/20/24044343/apple-vision-pro-safari-killer-app

I want one, but I don’t really watch movies/tv shows, which seems like what it is best for right now.

so of course i’m a pro with the touch double-tap touch move now. and the corner swipe vs bottom swipe vs top swipe. no sweat.

here’s my current beef: on a facetime audio call, when i want to hang up, i need to 1) tap the “dynamic island” 2) hang up. this always leads to like 2-3 seconds of delay, where i hope i’m not breathing weird or something

trying to be the first to hang up a call / leave a zoom meeting is one of the great anxieties of modern life

have you considered not breathing weird

i just don’t breathe for a few seconds, it’s fine

I’ll give that a try

ahhh apparently you can hit the side button to end a Facetime Audio call! basically the place where your thumb is resting if you're right-handed.

imagine doing that and it doesn't work

lol
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GFQ-YLNbwAA_Qsg?format=jpg&name=large

https://i.redd.it/8ni53jbc71j21.jpg
https://i0.wp.com/bamfstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/OHMSS13-CX-GogglesHat.jpg?ssl=1
https://i0.wp.com/bamfstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/ThingChilds-CX-WinterGear.jpg?ssl=1
https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/robocop-1987-review-35-years-later-2-780x470.jpg

https://cdn.thewirecutter.com/wp-content/media/2021/02/sleep-mask-2048px-4631.jpg?auto=webp&quality=75&crop=1.91:1&width=1200

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPZWgCLMsW8

Douche chills

https://preview.redd.it/wwd3bw2dgf0b1.jpg?width=480&auto=webp&s=25bbe4b8b1dc0076cda2598d8cbe9e956855e459

https://i.imgur.com/FTrG7TC.jpg

Apple has had some questionable phone wallpaper in the past but this one for the 15 series may be the worst ever

Finally the time has come to buy a new laptop. Old one was 15”, flipping a coin between 14” and 16” now

Get the 14 - I got the 16 and the bulk is pointless

insanity. bigger is better (when it comes to screens.)

admittedly my 16 is rarely carried beyond my couch

This is kind of like a vim versus emacs debate, isn’t it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcL86UpqZc

I’ve used both. Going from the 15 to the 14 you’ll notice the deficit right away. The 16 will seem luxurious. Comes down to how much you can spend I guess

Get a 14 and use the leftover money to get a 27 external monitor.

Depending on how old your 15 is, the 14 might have more pixels and may be less than 1” smaller.

I went from a 15 intel MBP to a 14 M1 MBP. Default res on the 14 is 1512 x 982 which is less, but if I need the space I can switch to 1800 x 1169.

I switched from 2014 15” MBP to 2022 13” MBA and I slightly regret the loss of screen real estate. Keep switching between the default scaling and one size up, lamenting my ageing eyes. It weighs nothing, slips into several bags the old one didn’t and is otherwise great; I had a budget and a refurb 16/512 13-inch was the sweet spot.

for work i have a 13” air. i travel with it a lot eg take it into the office, take it on trips etc, and when i’m in the office i’m always plugging into a monitor anyway. if i had more space at home i’d be plugging it into a monitor there too. it’s fine and i like how light it is.