mainyehc

DECO (from Associação de DEfesa do COnsumidor, i.e. Consumers’ Defense Association), originally created as a sort of institutional ombudsman, publishes Proteste (from proTESTE, as in testing, it has nothing to do with protest), a mostly decent magazine equivalent to Consumer Reports, but eventually devolved into this sad peddler of junkware to their members.

How can anyone take them seriously when they always pester people with offers of “great” products such as really janky Android tablets and useless plastic gadgets in exchange for attracting more members? Products that, mind you, would be completely destroyed under their own testing parameters? My mom used to be a subscriber, and the previous owners of my flat are at least members and never got around to update their address, so I always knew of and keep getting their stupid advertising in the mail. While their recent work regarding electrical bills is commendable, when it comes to consumer products they completely lost their way and should be ashamed of themselves.

MagSafe Duo is looking to be one of the stupidest, most quickly outdated Apple products in history. It's now both a bad fit for the flagship iPhone 13 *and* a bad choice for the flagship Apple Watch Series 7.

Why couldn't they release an updated MagSafe Duo 2 version alongside these two products? Maybe it's not selling that well but, honestly, if that was the case, they should've discontinued it altogether. Keeping ill-fitting but premium-priced products in their line-up is just one of the most un-Apple moves they have made in a looong time.

Objectively and geometrically speaking, the leaf design is way too similar and it’s on the same side. Also, its angle is similar, only mirrored. Apple does have a bit of a leg to stand on here, I’m afraid.

And no, I’m not (just) a fanboy, but a future PhD in design, and even an undergrad with a keen eye would spot the similarities right away… This isn’t much different from spotting plagiarism in typography, you just have to overlay the curves and see how well they match. Do you want me to?

I will just say this: what tf are Apple engineers doing when they release several new M1 Macs and can't implement an amber LED on them, opposite to or even in the same well as the green LED next to the iSight camera?

As a matter of fact, all they had to do was add a red element and activate both of them at the same time to get the amber colour. That way, whenever the microphone was on, even if somehow the red or the green element failed for some reason, the other one would still show up, making the system extra resilient even against hardware issues.

As for the Mac mini and Mac pro, ffs, just add an amber element to the same well where the white LED power indicator is and have it turn on, and allow those users who have their machines on their desks to toggle the yellow dot from the menu bar. Boom, problem solved.

And the same goes for the iPhone. Even if has to stay permanently on for those who have always-on “Hey Siri”, put an actual LED on the thing (a subtle one that doesn't illuminate an entire dark room, of course). Again, a two green+red LED system would work great: green+red (i.e. amber) for microphone on, red for an actual recording or on-line transmission, and green for webcam on (especially useful for floating, Picture-in-Picture FaceTime calls where you can't see your own thumbnail).

elijahg said:

godofbiscuits said:

A conservative politician who cares more about corporate profit than actual people.  Shocker.

He's actually a Liberal Democrat. Or was. David Cameron's whipping boy.

Potayto, potahto. Kind of like trying to distinguish our local (and now collapsing) CDS (Christian Democrats) from PSD (Social-Democrats). It’s all “Tory-like” toffs, the entire lot.

For context, those are Portuguese parties, and it’s kind of appropriate, seeing how our new mayor (a PSD leader-in-the-making, supported by a coalition including – you guessed it – CDS and other gems such as PPM, a monarchist party in a country that’s been a republic for 111 years now) is a class-A hypocrite, who used to parade himself on a bike while being a EU commissioner in Brussels, and hinged his entire mayoral campaign on suppressing a controversial (but increasingly popular) central bike lane. Either he goes forth with his plan, which will make him objectively a terrible politician as he’ll eventually end up with literal blood on his hands, or quietly shelves it, which all but confirms how much of a hypocrite and a liar he is.

And now it feels very fitting that he should host an also controversial event (for added context, that Paddy Cosgrave bloke has acted towards us, the actual citizens of this city and this country, as a weapons-grade insensitive idiot, by having the gall of even entertaining the thought of inviting the neo-fascist Marine Le Pen to WebSummit a few years ago), and that we should be graced with the presence of such a fine LibDem specimen because of it.

By the way, I'm sorry for posting a duplicate comment, but the forum software would't let me commit to edits to my original one. I'm getting this at the end of the text input field instead of the regular “Cancel / Save Comment” buttons, maybe because I put an emoji at the end of it?

Oh, you wanted a showstopper? I'll give you a showstopper: Sonoma completely borked Time Machine for me, because of… some Cloud Files syncing bug, when all my cloud services are working fine and properly updated (and in always-available in offline mode instead of in on-demand/streaming mode, no less)…?

Completely ridiculous. I've been using Time Machine continuously for EIGHTEEN YEARS now, and I had never seen anything like this. I've seen reports of this bug on Reddit and over on the competition's forums (MacRumors, you can go and check my posts there if you want), and just spent more than half an hour on the phone with an Apple Care representative who confirmed that they're also getting internal reports of this through the official feedback channels.

I think that an update to this article, and maybe to the one about the 14.1 developer beta, is in order.

For reference, here's what it looks like: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOSBeta/comments/15pb8x8/sonoma_time_machine_some_of_the_files_on_your_mac/

I mean, what kind of stupid behaviour is this? Even if one of my cloud services was acting up, an incomplete backup is better than NO backup. Ffs 🤦‍♂️

CortoMaltese said:

It's just bad politics, the side of good against the side of evil not aligned, as always. I bet with anyone that the apps for the rugby world cup in 2023 and the soccer world cup in 2024 which will take place in France will not be subject to the same warning, as France is getting closer day by day of an undeclared dictatorship.

Are you referring to Marine Le Pen potentially winning an election, or are you just being hyperbolic?

I mean, I'm not a fan of Emmanuel Macron, but to call him a dictator is a bit of a stretch. Also, considering how this débâcle in Qatar is very much also the responsibility of Sarkozy and Platini, you throwing shade at Renaissance politicians, which are actually a little bit to the left of Sarko, is extremely rich. So rich, in fact, I'm surprised you're not telling us to eat de la brioche. 

killroy said:

Should've had a sticker on the phone for each country it went to.

On top of a vintage suitcase-styled case. :P

ElianGonzález said:

The only individuals who are maligning Apple’s case are techie man-children, who are offended that the case looks “gay”, only they cannot bring themselves to say that word at all. And they all want to insist that their personal revulsion must be universal. I have never seen any guy carrying his expensive headphones in their cases in public: they’re either wearing them on the head or around the neck, and then they’re on the desk in prominent view while filming useless 4K unboxing videos. It’s also instructive that no one is balking at the $99 price tag, but perhaps there is no price too high to protect fragile manhood.

Or maybe they’ve just owned enough Apple products made of that material to know that it looks like total shit after only a few months of use?

I should know that, as own an iPad 3 with a very much “gay-looking” pastel-blue smart cover, and it was never its colour (which, mind you, it shares with the knockoff I’m now using) that bothered me (again, I’m as cishet, and supposedly heteronormative, as they get, but I don’t give a flying fsck about what people think of my colour preferences and if those aren’t deemed “heteronormative” enough by their standards, offend their delicate conservative snowflake sensibilities or otherwise give them a different impression, that’s not my problem and I couldn’t care less either way), but the fact that it got dirty af and pretty much self-destructed even while having been used mostly indoors.



That is something most people, save for some crust punks or otherwise sloppy individuals, would be ashamed of carrying around regardless of their sexuality, I can assure you. And sure, maybe us Apple users could regularly wipe that crappy polymer down with IPA and whatnot, but seriously, couldn’t Apple just switch materials already? They nailed polycarbonate, aluminium and even those Apple Watch straps, but they still haven’t figured out something more durable and washable than that pressed-on microfibre+plastic+leaf-thin matte elastomer sandwich bs.

That a $500+ piece of kit comes with a case that not only WILL suffer that fate, but also doesn’t even provide full protection when it’s brand new and in one piece is just egregious, IMHO. Either go big, or go bust.

Translation: “Apple will turn its internal search and AI algorithm tech into a search engine at some point and you’ll gonna love it” 😂