Be Excellent To Each Other

TBH, I think it is more the latter than the former. Apple, to my memory, have never competed on specs. The iPhone has - again, IIRC - never been the most powerful phone and I couldn't tell you how much memory or what the CPU is in my iPad.

The iPad mini really strikes me as following the pack rather than leading it as well as pandering to analysts and commentators rather than users. Both of which are unusual for Apple.

Went and had a play with an ipad mini today. Cor... it's lovely, it's definitely more than the sum of its parts. However I have problems with hitting the right bits of webpages on the current bigger version, so i'm not sure just having everything smaller will be a good idea. Plus it is still fucking expensive, especially for the 32gb 3G version, which is the one I would need.

How many Apple users does it take to change a lightbulb?

None, you have to replace the whole house.

I went to the Birmingham Apple store yesterday to have a look at one and to buy an iPod Nano as a present, and agree that it is *very* nicely assembled, and had I never had a full size iPad I'd have been more tempted but as it is I wouldn't want to lose the screen size.

More annoyingly, the store was much quieter than normal because they had several staff outside asking people to queue despite it being empty, then they were asking you what you were there to look at before deciding how long to make you wait! One chap said he was there to buy a macbook and was let straight in.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers! I refused to answer and just asked if they were going to let me in or not, which threw them a bit. While they were thinking about it, I just walked past them, had a quick nose then fucked off to the Currys Black store nearby and bought something from them instead.
It's pretty bad when they have better service than Apple.

Although if it's under a year old, you can pop into any Apple Store and they'll just give you a new house; two years old if you argue a lot.

Couldn't find a generic Apple thread, we seem to have a million of them all with slightly different focus, so i'll post this is here and rename the thread I think.

I've bitten the bullet and ordered an internal SSD caddy, an SSD drive and an external optical caddy for the iMac. Unfortunately mine is a late 2009 model so I can't add an extra SSD drive into it without removing the optical drive, but needs must. It's £150 to do all that, compared to the £1000+ it would cost for a new iMac, and should give me all the performance upgrade I need (plus let me keep the iMac as the display for my windows PC, can't do that with the new iMacs as I understand it!)

Doesn't seem too fiddly to do when you actually look at it, regardless of the instructions online.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp7_AP0wc7s

Now, do I set the SSD and internal drive up as a Fusion drive or not? I'm saying no at this point, early days for that hack and i'm concerned what happens if one of the drives fail. Seems like doubling up the possibility of issues if you hard link the drives that way, at least if they are separate and I manage what I put on each drive myself, then if one goes it isn't a major hassle to get back up and running again.

Given Apple's erratic QA right now, I'd strongly recommend a wait-and-see approach to the Fusion Drive thing. I'd sooner control it myself until the quirks are more widely known, and until back-up software beyond Time Machine is confirmed fully working with it.

Aye, that's my thought too at the moment

Dear Apple

Let me have a fucking 27" iMac now.

For fucks sake.

I'll sell you mine for a grand.

LOL the old one is SO THICK!!!!!111111111

I KNOW!!!! It constantly pisses me off when i'm looking at it from the front and can't see the sides...

I hear the new iMac uses its FaceTime camera to check your location and the computer's orientation. Unless you have the Mac at a 30-degree angle to you, a video of a sobbing Jony Ive and angry Phil Schiller ("LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE!") fills the screen.

http://lifehacker.com/5964613/how-to-us ... tunes-look

For people like me who installed iTunes 11 yesterday and wondered what the fuck happened.

Apart from the fact iTunes 10 not only had a list view but optionally enabled you to load icons into it, which made app trimming significantly easier than in iTunes 11. Still, good to see that website obviously got someone to write the article who was familiar with what they were talking about. *seethes*

Why would you wonder what happened? You downloaded a new version of a programme; it was new.

Walked past the local Apple retailer on the way home earlier, my goodness the new iMacs are so thin it's unbelievable.

Ooooh they're available to order on the site now.

And interest free for 10 months too.

Because although my old settings were still possible, the new version changed away from them.

So, I can't seem to find a way to display the album artwork in a 'now playing/currently selected' window in the sidebar.

The 'amazing new' feature to have it play the selected song after the current one finishes is only a decade and a half behind Winamp letting you do that. Maybe in 2027 they'll catch up again and add Winamp's 'stop playing after current song' option too.

The new search function is shit... before it would narrow your song list based on what you entered... now it appears in a separate search window and it just doesn't work as well. If you rightclick it and choose Play Next, it plays it next all right - and then stops without resuming the rest of your library or playlist. If you actually go into it and choose the song, it plays it but sometimes decides to turn the shuffle mode off.

It seems the nearest way to get it to work is to type in what you want and then click at the top to 'show in music' and then it kinda does what it did before.

Bleh.

You can't. Apple killed that feature. As far as I can tell, the closest equivalent, bar the current art showing in the main bit at the top, is clicking said art to get a cover art window. Curious point about the search, too, which I'd not noticed. Live filtering was really useful, so getting rid of that for a sub-Spotlight 'here are a few things that might represent what you want' is a bit annoying.

I do like aspects of iTunes 11, and it's a hell of a lot faster and more responsive, but it does oddly feel a bit 1.0.

I think the expand view is miles better than cover in sidebar, so I'm happy.

Was amused at the play next/cue feature. I used that in Windows Media Player in... 1999? So yeah, happy it fixed an omission rather than grateful at Apple's awesomeness.

In fairness, it is the first version of Itunes I've used that doesn't turn my 21st Century computer rig that's on paper 2700 times faster than my BBC Micro into an expensive ice cube simply because I tried to scroll down a list of songs.

Indeed. Scrolling on a Windows machine is now an official thing that happens.

If you use it like I describe, you get most of the same functionality. So type 'dance' or 'prince' into the search box, click on "show 'prince' in Music" and you'll get the same result as if you'd typed it in in the old versions. It's an extra click, plus the initial confusion of not even realizing you could click on that option (as it looks completely different from all the others).

Play Next is really disappointing me. I like that it keeps track of which songs you play with a counter (not a new feature) but it only increases the play count when the song finishes and you move on to the next one. Because Play Next either doesn't resume the playlist or turns shuffle off or some other stupid shit, I'm still stuck doing my old 'wait with the one I want highlighted until the current one ends and then quickly hit enter, but not before hearing a second's worth of the next one in the shuffle' thang.

Don't forget to download the 12 days of christmas app, and get your free stuff. Starts on 26th December and is mostly shit, but with a couple of good things.

Hhhhhhnnnnngh.

Can't get a white 16gig iPad Mini anywhere!

It would be a superb prezzie for Mrs Z.

FFS Apple, sort your stock out.

The mini's selling crazily well, and yet the iPad 4 is in stock everywhere. Many tech pundits of course were predicting the mini would bomb horribly, but Apple's selling the things as fast as it can make them. Zardoz: do you have an Apple Store nearby? If so, maybe ask a manager when the things are delivered and see if you can make it there for opening on one of those days.

Nearest one is 50 miles away...

Also: Steve Jobs.

They really are lovely little things when you see one in the flesh and get your grubby little mitts on them.
Still too pricey for me, mind. Ironically, too big as well, it won't fit in my inside jacket pocket.

Yeah, the form factor is perfect for Mrs Z.

Had a play about with both the iPad and the iPad mini on Saturday and she much prefered the Mini.

Steve 'change my mind all the time' Jobs, you mean? I read something recently that suggested that was one of his best qualities. Given what's happening at some of the other large tech companies (and, indeed, the UK's economic policy), I'm rather inclined to agree. Of course, most tech pundits don't understand things change and evolve, hence them still taking the piss out of Gates for his comment about never needing 640k (which he never actually said anyway).


It really does look like we're moving towards a two-iPad system: big iPad will almost certainly remain better for creating stuff, but small iPad (like other smaller tablets) will be good for consuming media. I have to say, if the mini had a better screen, I'd have ordered one immediately.

Is there a market for bigger iPad, do you think?

What, bigger than the current Retina one? I doubt it, unless the thing could be a hell of a lot lighter. By 'big', I meant the existing bigger one.

Yeah, I meant bigger bigger.

I think an A3 sort of size one would be amazing for round the house. Wouldn't want to carry it round outside anywhere though.

How about a 22 inch tablet?

http://www.reghardware.com/2012/09/11/v ... on_review/

Just managed to order one from PC World. It's black rather than white but didn't want to risk not getting one at all.

OOOh 50" versions would be awesome.

It'd have to be a suppository.

"Apple pulls one more thing out of Jobs's ass"

Interesting call to move manufacturing to the US...

Some of the iMacs are apparently stamped 'made in USA', and various bits of the machines were already there anyway. There's speculation whatever the Mac Pro becomes will be made in the US, because its insane price-tag will be able to absorb the extra costs. Frankly, though, I bet if all manufacturing went to the US, and Apple prices shot through the roof, most of those people banging on about such things would happily start buying cheaper rival devices manufactured overseas.

The thing is, most rivals are already cheaper, substantially in some cases.. Moving manufacturing to the US is actually a reasonable further justification for the premium that they already charge for the perceived quality and design ethic.

The prices can't stand to "go through the roof" though, I agree.

My iMac is now without an optical drive, but with an SSD Very nice it is too, everything is just a lot snappier.

The install would have been extremely simple if one of the screws holding in the LCD hadn't been rounded off when I opened it up! My iMac was bought from the refurb store and I can only imagine it happened when they were fixing whatever it was that caused it to be a refurb in the first place. Shoddy work mr Apple fixer.

Drilling out a screw right next to the LCD is not for the faint hearted!

I assume we're talking assembly and not actual manufacturing? Will be interesting to see how much they do. Most probably just token assembly.

There was an import duty on VCR's into some European countries in the 1980's. Amstrad got around this by assembling the VCR's in Europe. They basically just came in kit form and were knocked together in a industrial unit somewhere. Got around the problem and meant they had a made in the UK/France/Wherever sticker on them.

The nasty bits (ie the components) will still be made in China I reckon due to not only cost but the pollution. Whole boards will probably arrive at the US factory ready to go.

The Commodore (MOS Technology) factory was one of the most polluting industrial sites in the whole of the USA and was eventually shut down by the USA Environmental Agency. That kind of stuff is messy and I reckon will still be done in China.

Phew, Mrs Z's iPad Mini turned up today. Now I don't have to run around like a dickhead thinking of a different prezzie.

At least the prezzie part is sorted.

Had enough of the truly shit Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. A year of ownership and it barely gets used other than for demos. Horrible delay on input, clumsy iOS rip off of an OS and a fucking mess of an app store (or rather several app stores).

Was in Tesco and happened to ask if they had any of the new iPads in stock. They did so I purchased one.

Time will tell if I use it more than the Galaxy. However at least iOS has the software available. Totally fed up with downloading buggy Android shit that crashes or doesn't work properly on a big screen. That is after wading through all the nude screensaver apps on their app store.

Yell if you want any app suggestions, obv.