I HATE APPLE

Re Dell, if you can afford it spend a little extra and get the Ultrasharp model. That’s their higher quality line.

Absolutely, but I am reading this on their "standard" IPS 4K model, having used Ultrasharps for many years, and with just a few tweaks I have no issues with image quality at all.

there is this bjango link that gets passed around a lot: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays2/

according to that a 27" 4k is in the 'bad zone'

i used to use a 32" 4k display with my mac, it was bad. the studio display is much better.

samsung currently sells a 5k 27" display at an "all time low" of $850: https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/monitors/5k/27-viewfinity-s9-5k-monitor-with-thunderbolt-4-matte-display-and-smart-features-ls27c900panxza/

there is also the dell 6k XDR competitor, i haven't heard much about it since it first came out.

still hoping one day they'll bring back an updated 27" iMac but maybe they weren't profitable anymore judging how much all these 5K monitors cost

I have a 27” 4K. It’s fine. I’m old btw.

i know I always boast that I shelled out for an Eizo. It's 4k but the benefits outweigh any negatives, especially having hardware calibration and the ability to switch calibrations on the fly. If you're a photographer, printer or print designer, you can't get any better. BenQ has similar models that a bit cheaper but not quite as good.

I'm seldom going to run everything in native/unscaled resolution so it's kind of a crapshoot about whether I'm getting the nicest display quality. I mostly do stuff that involves text editing and a web browser so I'm also at the whims of whatever rendering tricks they're doing.

Just switched my work MBP 16" to it's native resolution (1728x1117 w/pixel doubling) and that's just not a bunch of real estate, so I either swap the Display scaling or crank the font size up and down in every app individually. idk.

My 140 song master iTunes playlist of dope music was reduced to 4 songs today. Wff?

Rights holder crackdown?

all local files

itunes is a dying star

according to that a 27" 4k is in the 'bad zone'

which one is that? resolution-wise, I mean

it's weird, they used to hide the actual resolution behind holding down a key while selecting the scaling and now you can just click "Advanced" and boom, you get a list of about a dozen different resolution options

looks like in the simplified view, 3360x1890 is the second from the right for me (4k, 27")

the crazy thing is that in the extended list, 1920x1080 is default. which is their preferred pixel doubling res, but it's just ridiculous

So I just bought a third-party-refurbished iPhone 12 mini in "excellent" condition from this outfit, whose stated definition of "excellent condition" is 85% or higher battery health. But the iPhone that was delivered shows "Unknown Part" under Battery Health and refuses to show its condition - it could be 70% or 50% as far as I know. (Display is shown as "unknown part" as well). As a result the phone constantly flags "Important Battery Messsage" as an error under the Settings menu and the Settings app on the home screen always is badged with "2" for the battery and screen situation.

Looking online I see Apple adopted these warnings a few years back on their newer phones, flagging anything installed by a non-Apple-authorized repair person - only official Apple people have the right codes to punch in. Even if you pull a genuine Apple battery from another phone, you'll get this message if you install it yourself. Apparently the badges and warnings go away by themselves after 15 days, but my phone still won't ever tell me how healthy the battery is.

My question: is this so normal now that I shouldn't complain about it to the eBay vendor? Also, is there a workaround? Some commenters said a factory reset will restore the battery health meter. I would have thought the vendor had already done that, but i'm not sure - in one screen where it showed all the names I gave previous iPhones I owned years ago, it also showed phones the previous owner used that had unfamiliar names to me.

Sorry to say but you’re going to have a hard time with the battery life overall, the 12 mini was shit in that regard even factory fresh a few years ago

Then again maybe you’re coming from an phone 5, in which case it will be an improvement

Dunno whether it's "normal" or worth complaining about. The most reliable workaround is probably get the battery replaced in an Apple Store, which is $89. I'm not 100% sure they'll do it if it's been serviced with grey market parts though.

minis do have relatively poor battery life, but I have a 13 mini (i.e. a 2 year old battery) and I get through the day fine fwiw.

I'm coming from an archaic iPhone 8 which also had a "service"-condition battery, so even the mini's battery will be better than what i'm used to, to say nothing of the rest of the phone. The 12 mini recharges quickly if you use a wired 18W+ charger or a magsafe stick-on, one of which I usually have access to during the day if the battery's getting low. I like the small phones for their light weight; the 13 mini was somewhat more expensive and didn't have any crucial improvements.

Send it back - undisclosed major factor in the condition. Don’t adapt yourself to deal with it, to the seller’s benefit.
You will find most sellers snap to attention when you open a return request. Take a couple pictures of the “unknown screen” and “important battery notice” and attach to the request. They won’t have a case and you will.

in one screen where it showed all the names I gave previous iPhones I owned years ago, it also showed phones the previous owner used that had unfamiliar names to me

What screen/setting is that?I don't think I've ever seen that. The closest I can think of is the "device info" list in iCloud - but that shouldn't include the previous owner's devices?

Yeah you should not be seeing his old devices . You should sign out of iCloud and sign into your own account asap.

Better home find my is not active. You can’t sign out of iCloud without a password if so.

apple should release a new ipod

release an ipod cowards

and an iphone 15 mini while they’re at it

I’m afraid I can’t do that, |||||||

What screen/setting is that?I don't think I've ever seen that. The closest I can think of is the "device info" list in iCloud - but that shouldn't include the previous owner's devices?

― Dr Drudge (Bob Six), Saturday, March 16, 2024 6:05 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

May have been that (Settings-->your name-->(scroll down)), or something that looked similar. Had an unfamiliar name show up with three of their devices. I simply deleted them.

What little marked there was for an iPod touch was better served by a used iPhone that cost the same or less; it's no wonder they stopped selling. By the time the 13 mini is no longer supported, my ever-blurrying vision will require a bigger screen anyway.

Send it back - undisclosed major factor in the condition. Don’t adapt yourself to deal with it, to the seller’s benefit.
You will find most sellers snap to attention when you open a return request. Take a couple pictures of the “unknown screen” and “important battery notice” and attach to the request. They won’t have a case and you will.

― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, March 16, 2024 5:14 PM (yesterday)

agree with this. return it, and get one from swappa instead

https://swappa.com/listings/apple-iphone-12-mini?carrier=unlocked&color=&storage=&modeln=&condition=mint&sort=

Best Mac ever made on sale at Walmart for a nice price

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/walmart-resurrects-the-m1-macbook-air-as-an-entry-level-699-laptop/

although i see that supplytronics is a seller on swappa too :|

xp

I see though that most of the 12 Minis on Swappa have a battery health rating of high 70s to 80 percentage, with some not showing it. Given the age of the phone I assume those have the original factory battery which probably will need replacement soon, and those with a "--" in the battery health column are on their second, non-Apple battery. I'm not sure a known old Apple battery is better than a supposedly new non-Apple battery with mystery condition. In my first few days of use the battery life on my 12 mini is a bit disappointing, but as calstars mentioned iPhone minis have notoriously poor battery life so many it's normal for this phone.

What do youse recommend for iPhone battery replacements in general? An expensive Apple-authorized replacement or a cheaper third-party replacement from a reputable place that won't tell you about battery health?

Whoo, that M1 Air is seriously tempting. It would be more of a toy than a work computer, but I can almost see my way clear to it.

Def send it to apple and get their battery

the m1 air is even cheaper at best buy at the moment

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/macbook-air-13-3-laptop-apple-m1-chip-8gb-memory-256gb-ssd-gold-gold/6418599.p?skuId=6418599

xp

lee, i'd go with the apple replacement battery - the 3rd party ones don't have nearly the capacity

seems even ifixit acknowledges that a 3rd party battery will trigger the warning: https://www.ifixit.com/products/iphone-12-mini-replacement-battery

guess the concerning part to me then isn't the warning but the fact that it seems the previous owner never really logged out of the phone. if the previous owner still has the phone listed in their icloud account they can do you some serious pain by remotely locking it if they so choose. how did the phone come to you - did you go through a setup procedure when you first turned it on?

fwiw what kills the iphone mini battery is heat. my 12 mini's battery is at 84% but it's been stable for a while now because i don't use it to gps in the car anymore. gps + charging + sun beating down on it thru the windshield can really kill the mini's battery fast.

> how did the phone come to you - did you go through a setup procedure when you first turned it on?

It looked like a new phone when I received it - powering on showed "hello" in different languages, then asks to set country and decide whether to set up as new phone or transfer from an old one. After having issues, I did my own factory reset and transferred everything over again (or at least *think* I did a factory reset; not clear on difference between "Reset" and "Erase All Content and Settings), but I thought that was supposed to clear out anything a previous owner may have done. I transferred directly from the old phone rather than using iCloud (it gives you that option).

I use my phone as a GPS navigator when driving, but it stays in my pocket or on the seat or console, not on the dash baking in the sun. That's because my five-year-old car has Apple CarPlay, so I just beams the maps (and music, etc.) to the car's built-in screen. It's the old style CarPlay that requires plugging a cable between the phone and the car's USB port rather than working wirelessly as on most new cars. There are adapters though that plug into the car's USB jack and transform it into modern wireless CarPlay, and I have one. These have been around for a few years and the early ones were buggy, quirky, laggy, and slow. The better new ones though have largely fixed all of those issues and feel like the car really has wireless CarPlay. My adapter is from a company with the catchy name MSXTTLY and it works great and is cheap to boot. Only real issue (for some people) is that they make one for iPhones and a different one for Android phones; it you need one that works for both (like if the car is shared between an iPhone and Android user) you'll need a different brand.

M1 Air looks tempting, but I suspect the reason these prices are so low is that it's the 8MB ram model. I'd prefer 16, esp. for a now discontinued model that you can't easily open up and upgrade yourself.

In terms of what you can get direct from Apple, I guess they’ve retired the M1 Air (and the 15” M2 Air), and dropped the 13” M2 Air into that entry level spot. (M3 Airs of both sizes launched in the last couple of weeks?) So I picked a bad time to buy a 13” M2! For the same price I paid for a refurb in Jan I could get a brand new model with 10-core GPU and a nominally better charger now. Impatience.

FWIW, I was in hating Apple mode when my (8GB) M1 Macbook Air performed like a dog with Lightroom and Photos (photos hosted on external drive, though not the Lightroom library itself). But switching the drive to an SSD has completely transformed the performance, it's all snappy as you like, so am no longer full of hate.

i have a m1 macbook air for work, it's fine but i can make it sluggish. i'm also pushing it beyond its design specs by using displaylink to drive two 27" monitors with it so that may explain part of it.

boooooo displaylink

well until i can convince work to upgrade me to a 15" m3 macbook air with native support for two monitors...

lee btw i wouldn't recommend using carplay wirelessly unless you're taking short trips. that is a recipe for overheating the phone as it'll have all its radios turned on, especially if you're charging it at the same time as wireless carplay will chew through the battery. my 12 mini used to go dim (i.e. the screen backlight would turn off) once a month from overheating (apple-designed failsafe). have also gotten the 'charging will resume when temperatures stabilize' message a bunch of times.

the iphone minis are great but thermal management is not their strong point!

that has never happened to my 13 mini fwiw

So anyone else here experiencing the absolutely insane battery drain on their Apple Watch since their phone updated to 17.4.1? Usually can get at least a full 24 hours, sometimes longer on a full charge. My phone updated last night and I fully charged the watch overnight? Today I got the 1% battery warning after barely 6 hours. It's also insanely slow to charge, just barely keeping ahead of the drain.

Googled it and the problem is all over Reddit, seems like the update broke something. Here's an Apple thread on it - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255572671

Annoyingly, Apple seems to be telling everyone there is no problem and they should schedule a Genius Bar appointment.

Anyway, thought I'd share to save you the hours of troubleshooting.

my watch hasn't been lasting very long lately so I haven't been wearing it much and didn't notice....however after this update 2 nights ago all kinds of stuff has gone wonky. I've never had issues like this. Just like, signed out of everything and needing to reconnect to icloud and fix some security thing and not recognizing my airpods twice and forgetting all of my apple tags so now I have to like, take the batteries out and put them back in to reconnect. Just every stupid little thing. Good job with this one apple.

I recommend Oris

Yeah, the last update made things goofy for us too. Text messages coming in through the computer; problems that we had fixed before came unfixed.

I had one day when the watch drained noticeably faster after applying 17.4.1 on the phone and now it's fine. I assume it was just indexing.

yeah the text messages got screwy because icloud sync dropped off or something, so messages I had gotten on my computer didn't show up on my phone. Lots of restarting and turning things off and on again in the settings got it going again.