Apple will never satisfy my lust for cheap, powerful hardware

Apple set to shut down iTunes.

As my entire collection is in the iTunes Match cloud as of this writing, I'd best set to redownloading everything and reconverting from AAC back to mp3.
For technical reasons, please just choose something other than MP3. Like, just about anything else. MP3 is really old, and there's lots that's both better quality, and smaller size at the same time than MP3.
 
For technical reasons, please just choose something other than MP3. Like, just about anything else. MP3 is really old, and there's lots that's both better quality, and smaller size at the same time than MP3.
I may at least keep a few tracks around as mp3 to use as custom music for some games (okay, Sims 4) that only like mp3.
 

Zappit

Staff member
It looks like they’re just using the Music app for music files. It shouldn’t ruin everything.
 
reconverting from AAC back to mp3.
Huh. You struck me as more of an Apple Lossless/FLAC kinda person.
For technical reasons, please just choose something other than MP3. Like, just about anything else. MP3 is really old, and there's lots that's both better quality, and smaller size at the same time than MP3.
This. SO much this.

If they do shut it down, I hope it’s not because of some stupid “piracy” lawsuit, one where “lets you import CDs” was being portrayed as “aiding and abetting piracy.”

—Patrick
 
I like iTunes. I like this news a lot.
The rumor game me the motivation to download my collection back off of the cloud. Only four bad files out of ~25K tracks/150+GB. :) Now to go in and retag everything with Musicbrainz Picard then resubmit the old uploaded tracks to see what iTunes Match has to say this time.
 
Buncha stuff announced today, including the (finally!) new Mac Pro. It's legitimately a beast.
It also looks even more like a giant box grater than the old models did. Talk about leaning into it.

--Patrick
 
What, no five pages of memes about the new $999 monitor stand yet? You disappoint me.

I understand some people who say the extra cost is worth it for video editing, the support, longer life expectancy, what-have-you. If you think the stability and usability is worth a mark-up, hey, I won't stop you.
Something like this , though? A monitor stand that has absolutely no special features, other than "holds up your screen"? It'd be overpriced but Apple-priced at $99. $999 for a piece of aluminium and a magnet is just...Mocking the consumer? Knowing the fanboys will buy it anyway no matter what and making sure to pad the bottom line?
 
What, no five pages of memes about the new $999 monitor stand yet? You disappoint me.
Someone go back in time and break the silence with a loud FUCK YOU, TIM! when he announces that price.

Because seriously. Fuck you, Tim. And fuck your dumbass "alternative medicine" rotting corpse, Steve.
 
What, no five pages of memes about the new $999 monitor stand yet? You disappoint me.
I worked 12-11 last night and had to leave this morning by 10! I haven’t had a chance to watch the video (or do much of anything else online) yet!

—Patrick
 
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The rumor game me the motivation to download my collection back off of the cloud. Only four bad files out of ~25K tracks/150+GB. :) Now to go in and retag everything with Musicbrainz Picard then resubmit the old uploaded tracks to see what iTunes Match has to say this time.
I saw someone else complaining about having to mess with their music, and someone else replied, "Eh, these days the biggest problems are with the metadata," and I had never heard that before.
And then today, I see this: Metadata is the Biggest Little Problem Plaguing the Music Industry

--Patrick
 
I saw someone else complaining about having to mess with their music, and someone else replied, "Eh, these days the biggest problems are with the metadata," and I had never heard that before.
And then today, I see this: Metadata is the Biggest Little Problem Plaguing the Music Industry

--Patrick
My tags are years out of date, and Musicbrainz has added all sorts of new info. Additionally, once upon a time, I used an app called TuneUp, and it started out fine, then turned into this wretched thing that would not only slow the strongest of systems to a crawl, it was often just plain WRONG. All its work needs to be found and purged.
 

Dave

Staff member
It's Apple. What do you think?

Overpriced shit that does less than cheaper stuff you can get somewhere else.
 
Dissecting the app into three separate media categories, I think? I still haven't sat down to watch the video.
...Hell, I've barely had the chance to sit down!

--Patrick
 
I’m still waiting for the, “And here are the other things you can attach to your stand” that would (supposedly) justify that price, but I’m not exactly holding my breath.

Maybe the stand will be the next IIvx?

—Patrick
 
Just FYI, Forbes is a known Apple-hater (Now. They didn’t used to be), so the stories they print tend to be ones which deliberately paint Apple in the worst light possible. They’re becoming the Breitbart of Apple news. The vulnerability in question is with SQLite, which is what Apple uses for the Contacts app and which is also used by virtually every other (mainstream) operating system in existence.
"SQLite is the most wides-spread [sic] database engine in the world," said the company in a statement. "It is available in every operating system, desktop and mobile phone. Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Android are popular users of SQLite. [...] In short, we can gain control over anyone who queries our SQLite-controlled database,"
EDIT: In fact, @Pez, if you want to read an editorial by someone who is just plain fed up with all the bashing, here you go:
Stop sensationalizing doom for Apple, it makes you look incompetent

—Patrick
 
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I worked 12-11 last night and had to leave this morning by 10! I haven’t had a chance to watch the video (or do much of anything else online) yet!
Ok, since Gas reminded me, here's my notes from watching the presentation that I typed up AHEM ...two months ago:
  • Apple TV is getting Netflix-like multi-user "Who's Watching?" support. About time.
  • Apple Watch is gaining noise and menstrual/period tracking. While I can't speak to how useful the period tracking will be (though I applaud the decision to keep it local), there have been at least two jobs where I wished I could have a record of not only how loud it was but also how long it was that loud, especially since they told me I wasn't allowed to wear earmuffs because then I wouldn't be able to hear if there was an emergency. My response was, "I can hear the machinery just fine while wearing the muffs. If an emergency isn't loud enough for me to hear over the machinery, I ain't gonna be able to hear it anyway even without the muffs." But they're out of business now anyway, so...
  • iOS finally gets swipe to type. About time.
  • Maps get street view. About time.
  • email gets BugMeNot functionality. About time.
  • Live Radio lets you listen to radio stations online. No more antenna! Looks like @GasBandit got out just in time.
  • Unknown callers can be sent directly to voicemail without ever ringing. About time.
  • New iPad iOS fork "iPad OS" allows USB flash drives, SMB file sharing, file downloads to be used directly with iPads. About time.
  • 10.15 Catalina will be 64-bit only, no more 32-bit apps allowed. It had to happen sometime. It already happened to iOS in Sept 2017 when iOS 11 came out, now the desktop is following. And yeah, the iTunes app is leaving the desktop.
  • SIDECAR - Use an iPad as a secondary screen to a desktop OR as a drawing tablet input for a desktop. I've been wondering why this took so long, actually. I shit you not I checked Wacom's stock price and it had fallen twenty-five percent just one day after the Sidecar announcement. Yeesh.
  • And of course the new Mac Pro and its new display. It's unequivocally a Beast with a capital "B." When they said they hadn't forgotten about Pro Users, they weren't kidding. In fact, it's so much computer that I don't want one, because really I have no idea what I'd even do with one. 1400W PSU? 4x5k displays? 1.5TB RAM? Four PCIe x16, 3 PCIe x8, and 1 PCIe x4 slots? It's basically a tiny little 5U server rack that you can wheel around your office. Shame it's limited to PCIe v3, though, especially since PCIe v5 devices/boards were originally supposed to start seeing the light of day in 2019. If this design survives long enough to get updated with PCIe v5-capable CPU and innards, It's gonna be like kicking in an afterburner. But of course the Mac Pro has its own troubles it needs to face.
  • And of course there's that thousand-dollar stand. I have no idea why they would charge a grand for a stand. I mean, if the screen's as good as they say it is, then it's going to be a literal game-changer, and they could jack up the price of the screen by $1k and throw the stand in for free, and it would still all be less than a traditional reference monitor. So again, I have no idea why the stand is $1k unless they want to call it "the grand stand" or something equally silly.
  • What's up with NVIDIA? How come they're still not invited? What's going on? Inquiring minds want to know.
These are just my personal opinions as a tech nut and IT person, BTW. I have no inside info on any of this stuff. I'm just prognosticating based on what I know from publicly available information and my habit of obsessively crawling through tech sites looking for what's coming up/out.

Oh, and Apple finally updated their USB-C->HDMI adapter last week to support 4k/60* video. Thing is, it looks pretty much exactly like the old one, so make sure to check out which one you're actually buying (old one or new one) if you're getting it secondhand.

--Patrick
*4k/30 on 2018 Mac Mini and most devices released in or before early 2017.
 
As someone who has had to repeatedly deal with people who keep their cards in a wallet with a magnetic clasp, or who store cards back-to-back with their magnetic stripes touching, and then wonder why they won't work when swiped, I think this is the sort of info that should be included with every credit card.

--Patrick
 
Chicago Tribune discovers iPhones emit levels of RF radiation above FCC limits

Law firm already jumping on reports of high RF emissions in iPhone 7
Beth Fegan, managing partner of Fegan Scott [says,] "This could be the Chernobyl of the cell phone industry, cover-up and all."
Ok, but:
1) RF (Radio Frequency) radiation and ionizing (Chernobyl) radiation are not the same thing.
2) The Chicago Tribune also tested multiple Samsung Galaxy, Moto, and BLU phones, and found that they also exceeded the expected output levels. But are these brands in the headlines? Nope.
3) The Galaxy phones tested lower in some tests... but that's probably because they were measured at double and triple the distance as the iPhones.

A newspaper tested some phones, got some concerning results, and the FCC is reevaluating things in light of this testing, but do the headlines say "Cell Phones emissions stronger than originally thought?" No, they say things like, "TIM COOK SECRETLY COOKING YOUR BRAIN WITH IPHONE 7."

...okay, maybe not that extreme, but still: What the actual FUD.

--Patrick
 
Chicago Tribune discovers iPhones emit levels of RF radiation above FCC limits

Law firm already jumping on reports of high RF emissions in iPhone 7


Ok, but:
1) RF (Radio Frequency) radiation and ionizing (Chernobyl) radiation are not the same thing.
2) The Chicago Tribune also tested multiple Samsung Galaxy, Moto, and BLU phones, and found that they also exceeded the expected output levels. But are these brands in the headlines? Nope.
3) The Galaxy phones tested lower in some tests... but that's probably because they were measured at double and triple the distance as the iPhones.

A newspaper tested some phones, got some concerning results, and the FCC is reevaluating things in light of this testing, but do the headlines say "Cell Phones emissions stronger than originally thought?" No, they say things like, "TIM COOK SECRETLY COOKING YOUR BRAIN WITH IPHONE 7."

...okay, maybe not that extreme, but still: What the actual FUD.

--Patrick
Further to this the US Gov't sets a safe limit on RF exposure. That's not everything below this level is safe & anything above it will KILL YOU INSTANTLY! It's everything below this level is definitely safe & it might start to become dangerous above that level, but we don't know how much more powerful the signal needs to get first because we haven't tested it that far yet.

The FCC sets it's own limit based on the safe limit set by the Government. Specifically your phone isn't allowed to go over 2% of the safe limit. Which means even if these tests are right (and there are questions about whether they were performed properly) then your iPhone 7 is still only at 3% of the safe limit. So worst case scenario you need to have more than 33 iPhones within 5mm of your body, all receiving calls simultaneously before this might start to become dangerous.

Hardly a Chernobyl moment.
 
You want to know the real reason Apple will never satisfy your lust for cheap, powerful hardware? They don't want to. They're too busy inspiring new lusts in a Russian iPhone user. Homosexual lust. :unibrow:
 
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