lotones

'Severance,' the biggest success on Apple TV+, will be back for a third season

lotones

March 21

I watched the second season finale last night, and while I've called it, "the corporate Twin Peaks", last night I was getting strong "peak X-files" vibes (guy in a suit and a redhead fighting the future? C'mon...), and I mean both references as the highest of compliments. Really excellent television.

But season 2, ep 7 "Chikhai Bardo" is one of the most unique, creative, innovative, incredibly shot, edited, directed, and acted 50 minutes of television ever made, imho. Hopefully it will get the recognition it deserves.

EU will force Apple to totally expose its iPhone features to all who ask

lotones

March 20

I'm especially flabbergasted why Americans are so hung up on what the EU demands. It is non of your business, but for some reason Americans think they are at the center of the world and the rest needs to adhere to their values. America is by far the most corrupt nation in the world, morally and financially, and we do not have to play by your rules.
So far nothing of what the EU has demanded has impacted you in the US when using your phone or its software.
Perhaps rather worry about the rapid dismantling of what is left of your democracy?

Really? My flabber is equally gasted that you think it's ok to force Apple, or any company, to design their products to work with other companies' products.

"• Apple must grant third-party device manufacturers access to specific iOS features to facilitate seamless integration. This includes functionalities such as notifications, background processes, and various wireless technologies (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC)."

Look, I am not anti-EU. This specific issue has nothing to do with App Store fees or steering. I could see the point of that. But it's not like you can't buy products that work with Apple's products. Do Apple's products work better with Apple products, with more features? Sure, and what's wrong with that? But forcing Apple to conform to every third party vendor, and their potential third party security risks, is just stupid. And why? Who is being harmed here? Apple's EU customers have not complained. Plenty of third party vendors already design their products to fit Apple's ecosystem. Those who are complaining just don't want to play by the rules, and why not? It's people who want to exploit Apple's customer base, but for *some reason* want to bypass Apple's protocols. Yeah... no. And I'm not at all buying the "interoperability" noise.

Inside Apple Music: how you can get the most out of Apple's music streaming service

lotones

March 14

Appleish said:

pdnoble said:

Hello, Apple! We can stream Apple Music losslessly to a HomePod but not to our high end audio systems where we can actually hear and appreciate hi res audio!

The magic of "Apple Digital Mastering" makes AAC 256k streaming indistinguishable from high resolution for most people.

Then there is their lossless vs. hi-res lossless. Almost nobody can really hear the difference. I have my Apple TV 4K hooked up to my high end receiver via HDMI. It plays through at lossless, limited to 24-bit/48 kHz. I doubt even my skilled ears could tell much difference between that and hi-res lossless.

Your "skilled ears"aside, that is just not true. Anyone with a decent sound system can tell the difference if you know what to listen for. Sure 48/24 sounds great, but the difference is in detail. For example, if you're listening to the sound of a violin, the difference is in hearing the notes played, as opposed to hearing the sound of the bow on the strings. Some of us want to hear that realism. Why should we be denied just because "most people" can't tell the difference?

Let me put it another way: why even bother with 4K televisions, when most people can't tell the difference between that and 1080p? Why bother with high-resolution photographs, or even the retina screen on your iPhone, when most people can't tell the difference? Why are people wanting 120mHz refresh rates on their screens when most people can't tell the difference?

Lastly, not being able to stream high-res audio from Apple Music is bad enough, but not being able to stream high-resolution audio files from my Mac is just stupid. Why does my Apple TV take the extra step of down-sampling those files instead of just passing the audio full-resolution, like my 9 year old Blu-ray player does? It's just lame.