jdiamond

maltz said:

I've never really understood the popularity of wireless mice and keyboards, but especially keyboards.  Mice, ok, the cord can be annoying if it tends to get hung up on something, but rearranging the cord or desk layout has always fixed that for me.  But keyboards are stationary.  What's the point of it being wireless?  And having to mess with charging and/or changing batteries is a hassle.

That's not to say there aren't ANY use cases - I have a wireless keyboard/trackpad combo for my HTPC for when the IR remote doesn't suffice, for example.  And our conference room at work has wireless so the computer driving the large display there can be used by anyone at the table.  But the typical "sitting at your desk using your computer" case I don't really get.

I'm guessing most of the time this isn't by choice.  For example, there was a long era where Apple devices didn't have enough ports, and splitters can only do so much.  And then there's iPads - AFAIK, most third party keyboards must be wireless, although now that iPads have USB-c ports, maybe a wireless keyboard would work.

Honestly, for me, the worst thing about wireless stuff is you have to always wonder if it's charged enough.  

I'd prefer they call it the "Mac Studio Mini."

An easy misstep, but no excuse for Siri.  A typical leading foundation model takes about 2 months to train on ~16,000 GPUs.  I don't know where Apple was on that scale, but let's say as a result of stinginess, Apple took 4 months instead of 2 months to train a model.  Doesn't explain why 2 years later they have nothing.  Or why they didn't have something already back in 2023.

Kinda ironic, given that when I need to type, I use a keyboard cover with my iPads. . Maybe they could find a way to integrate a keyboard cover, then the entire foldable thing would just be about a more compact way to carry it around.

Personally, I love the ATH-M50x headphones, and have a pair myself, but they aren't wireless, so I'm not sure why they're included in this article.

I also did many tests on my awesome car stereo and iPhone of wired vs bluetooth, and the bluetooth quality was horrible!  It was like throwing away the entire stereo and replacing it by a small boom box.  So I did some Googling and found out that there are many reasons you won't even get the 350 kbit/sec max of bluetooth 4.  First, the receiver and sender must support identical codecs.  And second, they must negotiate a minimum compatible transfer rate.  Some receivers, even if they could support the full rate, may just default to the 50 kbit/sec transfer rate.  And finally, there is the quality of the codec itself, which can be extremely lossy.

I really think Woz said it best - don't FORCE people into wireless until a standard exists that has quality comparable to wired.  That's why people throwing around the floppy disk analogy are wrong - when Steve ditched the floppy disk, there were new storage mediums that had higher capacity and were faster than flash.  What bluetooth needs is a STANDARD, LOSSLESS codec that can be supported across the board.

Also ignored the part where he claimed they were all clear because the texting group had been vetted. 

I can relate - something weird about iOS 18 - it's been giving me all kinds of incorrect suggestions of who it thinks someone is.

nolamacguy said:

who's "forcing" anybody? sounds like you and Woz need to look that word up. 

Apple removed the choice of wired audio.  The lightning adapter is acceptable, but then you can't charge.  Sure, we can choose to stop using Apple devices instead, but that's asking a lot.  So we are being "forced" to (1) give up on high quality audio, or (2) leave the Apple eco-system.  That sounds like a force to me.  In fact, modern Apple is acting like Microsoft - changing their products in a way that further's their own ambitions instead of actually making life better for users.  Steve Jobs didn't have to think that way - he knew that if you make a good product that people like, it sells well and you make profits.

Your arguement is like saying US laws don't "force" anyone to do anything because in theory you can always leave the US and go somewhere else.  Well, the "force" is saying "if you want to stay in the US, you HAVE to do this."

I really don't understand the people rushing to defend Apple in this - how is getting a device with no headphone jack improving your life?  Every poll I've seen online shows around 70% of iPhone owners have an issue with this.  Just because you don't care about audio quality doesn't mean that no one does.

I'm perfectly willing to turn my habits upside and buy all new equipment just to stay in the Apple Eco-system, but only when Apple can provide something that isn't a step down in quality or convenience.