redefiler

macgui said:

Fucking idiots on parade.

Of course people are going to complain when a characteristic is significantly changed, as they should. Frequency response is not subjective. Alter it and the resulting audio is altered. Whether it's argued to be good or bad is subjective. Whether it's there or not isn't. Some of you a) don't own a HomePod so don't care or b) are tone deaf and audio fidelity is lost on you.

Those of you complaining about users being upset would whine like little bitches if Apple put out a firmware update that gave a purple tint to your display. Or if it changed your monitor's resolution from 2560x1440 to 1920x1080. But not to worry as 'it's subjective'. 

I haven't heard either version of the HP yet. But while most people lauded the audio quality, a few people who took the time to critique the sound said that it lacked presence and the mid-bass crept up into the mid-range. This is common problem for a lot of modern small speakers— tailoring the sound to be bass-heavy at the expense of balanced frequency response.

Regardless of which version is preferred, anybody should be ticked if a change to their purchase, after the fact, negatively affected them. 

Uh... small, even medium range speakers cannot offer a balance frequency response.   They lack the physical ability to reproduce bass frequencies.  All of these little jive speaker systems use psycho-acoustical filters (tricks)  to make non-deiscerning ears think everything is ‘bumpin’.  It’s not.  This goes for all headphones as well, you need something 8” or larger to even play effectively in the bass range.  Hint: feeling bass is not the same as hearing it.

There’s a separate issue of almost universally hyped speech critical frequencies around 1.5-4khz.  Basically after years of collective heavy headphone usage  and resulting escalation of conversation volume/environmental noise, most of you have hearing damage in those areas.  Manufactures designing their systems to boost these frequencies is the same phenomena as Costco cranking the color saturation and brightness of their TVs at the door to compensate for extreme outside glare and catch the attention of even the most blind customers passing.  This has been happening since the 90’s for all major brand consumer audio systems.  Trusting people to parse this stuff is impossible thanks to decades of marketing hype, including anything from the  ‘audiophile’ community.

As for consumers splitting hairs over perceived bass response on these plastic ‘convenience’ speakers, based entirely on artificially boosted harmonics in the 180 to 300Hz range... that’s just Dungeons & Dragons level acoustic roleplaying fantasy. 

Always been a crap platform, from a crap company, founded by crappy people, with really crappy skin. 

80s_Apple_Guy said:

redefiler said:

80s_Apple_Guy said:

So instead of being able to touch type and keep looking at the screen or looking at the screen and touching what I want, I now have to keep looking down at the thin touch strip on the keyboard to work? That seems very inefficient

Pretty sure the screen and the top of the keyboard area on a laptop are well within the field of vision for everyone who doesn't have eyes on the sides of their head.  You'll even be fine with those 5" thick bifocals.

Maybe, but without any tactile feedback or set positioning of the icons I can see this being difficult to work with.  I use a work laptop every day and you still have look down at the top of the keyboard to s that area. Have to wait and see. 

I'm pretty sure exactly 3 people in the world can use their function keys without looking.
I'm going to make a huge bet that you currently have to bird dog that F6 too.

Having customizable area for shortcuts and other secondary function keys saves precious screen real estate, more space for content.  Huge for pro apps.  

Bummed there wasn't an external keyboard to go along with it, but suspect that will come as more apps get hip to the touchbar.

I think Apple's resistance to the FBI's backdooring demands in the San Bernardino terror case will serve them well in this scandal.

In light of this information about serious intelligence agency malfeasance they were right to take the high moral stance.  The government can't be trusted not to create and foster exploits, much less maintain security on their secret hacking methods and personnel.

I really hope there has been no collusion between Apple and this illegal CIA hacking group. 

Touchbar looks awesome for pro apps.  Can't wait for audio apps to get on board.  Hot configurable touch controls will be amazing for mixing, fader and expression controls.

Crossing my fingers for a new external keyboard with the touchbar.

dysamoria said:

wizard69 said:

You do realize that the vast majority of the country disagrees with you. Trump was the best choice to avoid the police state mentality of Clinton

50% is hardly a "vast majority".

There's more red on that map than blue.  The electoral college is there to make sure that a few bigger population states can't screw over the smaller ones.  Ironic that Democrats are only for minorities and welfare when they get $omething out of it.  When they don't, and the little guy is given a 'level playing field' (in this case protection from tiny, wealthier urban bubbles) it's nothing but hysteria, cries of unfairness, and unwillingness to compromise.   There's plenty of reason to dislike Republicans, but this basic hypocrisy on the left, is why rational independents despise Democrats/progressives/whatever-they-are-self-branding-as-now. You're total hypocrites, and completely blinded by your own ignorance and hatred.

That's why you'll forever be locked into these false dichotomies with the other side.  Guess what?  In return for your hate, rural America gave all 3 branches of government to your opposition.  Your can argue Clinton shoulda/coulda/woulda until you're blue in the face, but... All 3.  Probably time for some quiet, self reflection.

iantimmy123 said:

Just waiting now for the idiotic statements saying that more guns would have prevented this.

The rest of the world just looks in total bemusement at why Americans still think it's safe for guns to be so common and easily accessible. But then if the country didn't learn from mass shootings in schools, they never will. 

Oh cool, because I was waiting for some simpleton to bring up the same old ignorant, quivering gun fears.  Might want to read up on how well French (or even California) gun laws have helped with preventing shootings and terror.  Not even waiting for the bodies to cool, before 'firing up' your political agenda, stay classy Timmy.

But we get it, you're a wimp and you just keep on waving that little yellow flag, tiger.

leavingthebigg said:

Hey Mike Wuerthele, here is the Twitter link to Marco Arment's tweets about why Google apps are no longer supported by Workflow: 

https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/844918589803184129

If I had not read Marco's tweets nearly two weeks ago I would have thought Apple dropped Google app support because it was Google as you had written. Others will just take your writing as truth and blame Apple due to not having a clearer understanding of why app support was dropped. Maybe an update to this article could be provided to clear up what occurred.

I agree.  The false negativity Mike cast on Apple has already spawned several cliché 'monkey-see, monkey-do' pile-ons here in the comments. 

Sloppy.

Mike Wuerthele said:

Soli said:

StillWilling said:

Tiring this is, your incessant desire to politicize this website.  You will lose us if you keep this up.  If we want politics and fake news and such, we can watch CNN or Fox or whatever.  Please, make this a pleasant site for dedicated Apple users.  Thank you for your hard work in the past, and, I hope for the future.

The man has an iPhone. This is an Apple-focused website. He's the first POTUS to use one. He did call for a ban of Apple products not too long ago. This article makes perfect sense, and it's not a political statement.

For those members complaining about articles like this, copy this and put it on a sticky.

Once more, Apple being as large as it is and as socially and politically involved as it is will by definition draw articles involving politics. The POTUS, calling for an Apple ban during the election period, and using an Apple phone is notable for an Apple-centric publication.

We don't write stories to offend the readers. If you're offended by what we write based on your political affiliation because of what you are interpreting from an article that isn't an editorial, then that is on you.

If it forces you away from perhaps the LEAST political-oriented Apple publication, that is also on you -- but just go, and don't make a big scene about it.

Regardless of what party is in power, the President's office can be respected, while perhaps still not respecting the man. If you're screaming now about respecting the office AND the man, were you doing so a year ago? 

There's a very old saying, that Band of Brothers on HBO repeated: "Salute the uniform, not the man." Regardless of how you fall, he is the legally elected American President. But, that doesn't, and has never, put his conduct or behavior above reproach.

We kept this thread open as an experiment, to see how well our commenters would stick to the commenting guidelines. How well do you all think it's going, hm? 

I'm a reasonable guy. I've never locked a thread here. I'm getting close. Keep it civil.

This is the same Appleinsider that featured several Daniel Eran Dilger articles with unnecessary biased partisan political content?  And during this last presidential election cycle?  Comparing Steve Jobs to Hillary Clinton a month before the vote... seriously?  

There's a time to get off your high horse, and there's also a time to face the reality that you've been riding a miniature pony all along. 

It's completely disingenuous to put this all on your readers now.  Your editorial staff cultivated this, and turned off a lot of people with your site's petty and unrelated political content.  You lost the moral high ground long ago, Appleinsider squandered its ability to be non-partisan when you started trading in this garbage yourselves.   Your 'editorial' cloak of invisibility is pretty ineffective when you can't manage to find one picture of Trump with a phone to pair with your article.  Your reply about the photo further betrays a petty, shallow team pol bias.

And yet here you are still engaging in more of the same within your response "if you're screaming now about respecting the office AND the man, were you doing so a year ago?"  Why are you even trying to go tit for tat in a political team comparison?  This kinda crap is why YOU and APPLEINSIDER have lost respect and benefit of doubt. 

Further who are you to judge people's behavior?  Where do you get off with the moralizing about anyone?  This is the site people go to for Apple product news and development rumors.  The lazy politician content is one less article you could have written about something tangibly Mac or iOS related.  This kind of click bait garbage is beyond boring, and that's an even worse condemnation than the blatant partisanship.

I suggest readers use an ad blocker on this site, there's no reason to reward Appleinsider with more ad revenue until something changes. And I suggest you clean up your editorial practices, seriously check your political bias (it's clearly showing), and print a prominent apology to readers explaining how you're going to prevent this in future.  Because now you're stuck, you've got a bad rep and it will continue to taint any related content you post.  The work of washing this stink of hack political partisanship is entirely on you and Appleinsider.

That bulky Otterbox case added enough weight to insure a speedy descent and sinkage into sedementary layers that effectively sealed the phone against moisture.