dewme

I don’t really care either way as long as touch interaction is an optional method. I definitely can see where certain UI control elements like sliders, faders, rotary knobs, pinch & zoom controls, etc., would be interesting and more natural to manipulate via touch. Pretty much anything that Apple stuffed into the Touch Bar thingy on the previous generation of MacBook Pros could now be placed anywhere in the UI where it makes sense to do so.

Really, this is not a big deal and follows in the footsteps of other “we will never do that” things that Apple has in-fact, gone on to do, like the iPad mini and stylus’s. Ability to adapt is one of the three most important attributes I look for when hiring people, especially for software development and other technologies that evolve frequently and rapidly.

I never thought that iPads and physical keyboards/pointing devices were a logical match. But the iPad Pro and the Magic Keyboard w/trackpad are a match made in heaven as well as being an excellent prototype for how touch + keyboard + pointing device can work extremely well together. When my iPad Pro is on the Magic Keyboard I’d say that at least 90% of my interactions are done using the Magic Keyboard. I’d expect about the same 90/10 kb/touch percentage on a touch enabled MacBook Pro, which is perfectly fine to me.

Native touch support would also make it easier (and seamless) to bring iOS/iPadOS apps over to the Apple Silicon MacBooks.

If running cherry picked benchmarks was my primary source of income, I would be interested. Otherwise, if you use Apple products you are locked into Apple Silicon forever. Likewise you’ll never see Apple Silicon in a non-Apple product. So it’s all about bragging rights with no way for end users to pick & choose best of the best anyway. It’s a package deal.

I’ve found that the interoperability issues between Macs and 3rd party monitors tend to vary based on the connection type, whether a conversion is involved (e.g., TB to HDMI), and whether the 3rd party monitor is the primary or secondary monitor. In my experience I’ve seen far fewer issues when everything is directly matched and the 3rd party monitor is the primary. I have a Dell monitor that I used as a secondary display on my iMac, TB to DP, and it started off with a few issues like requiring a one-time unplug-plug video connection trick whenever macOS was updated. It would also forget the portrait orientation at such times. Over the years it actually got somewhat better with later macOS updates. When I moved the same monitor to the primary on my Mac mini it has been perfect. I also use a Dell 4K monitor as a secondary display for my Mac Studio, connected TB3 to DP with USB-C on both ends - zero problems whatsoever. 

Unlike Windows, which allows the installation of 3rd party display drivers that can sometimes address interoperability issues, if you run into an issue with a 3rd party monitor with your Mac you’re at the mercy of Apple to eventually provide a fix. The upside of course is that allowing 3rd party drivers in the OS can totally destabilize your system, so I prefer Apple’s model. 

The one thing that I would like to see Apple adopt from several 3rd party monitors is to design its native stand mounting mechanism so it’s VESA compatible. Apple’s stands are lovely, but they’d be even lovelier if they were coupled to the monitor via a VESA mount, like on the higher end Dell models and the Samsung model featured in this article. This applies to both Apple’s standalone monitors and the iMacs. The slight tradeoff in aesthetics would be overshadowed by the huge improvement in mounting and viewing flexibility and ergonomics, plus being able to change the mount type post-purchase.

Yes, Apple allows buyers to choose a VESA option at the time of purchase, but there’s no easy/clean way to convert a standard mount to a VESA mount post-purchase. The standard non-height-adjustable stand on the Studio Display is something that I would learn to loath almost immediately. Luckily I got the VESA model so I don’t have to prop it up on the massive Programming Windows (Petzold) hardcover book like I do my iMac. Who ever said that having Windows programming experience had no residual value in the Mac world? 

New123 said:

My upgrade went fine, but then adding devices wouldn't work unless I turn off 5GHZ on my router, as requests are now made from the HomePod mini rather than your phone to any new device.

Interesting ... 

As far as I know HomePod mini only supports 2.4 GHz. When I originally configured my 2 minis (as a stereo pair) I did it from my iPhone Xs Max, which I keep on my 5 GHz radio since I have my SSIDs partitioned (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz use different SSIDs). Everything was fine until I upgraded everything to 16.2 at which point I could never get back into the Home app from any of my Apple devices whether they were on the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz radio or connected via Ethernet. I reset everything to get past the infinite spin on the attempts to get into the Home app from any device.

After blowing away my Home app configuration the Home app would open but everything was gone. Total emptiness. I had to unplug the minis and run through the initial setup again. The first attempt failed, so I started over after setting up my iPhone set to use the 2.4 GHz WiFi. Whether coincidental or not everything worked the second try and I got both minis configured and configured as stereo pair. Once I got this point the Home app on all of my COMPATIBLE devices worked regardless of how they were accessing the network.

Digging a little deeper I discovered that my Late 2012 iMac 27" (Catalina) and 2013 MacBook Pro 13 Retina (Big Sur) no longer supports Home. The app loads but it doesn't populate with any scenes or devices. Lastly, I tried a 2014 Mac mini with Monterey. The app loads but displays a warning that the "hardware" does not support the Home app. At least it tells you. Since none of these devices are now compatible with Home I disabled the Home checkbox in the iCloud settings on these devices.

I didn't realize that the latest version of Home had a hardware dependency that older Macs could not support, especially since straight WiFi is a fully supported protocol under the Matter standard. Thread support is not a requirement as far as I know. But we've seen other cases where Apple deviates from standards, albeit usually for greater support of Apple devices. Earlier versions of Home only supported Thread compatible devices from Apple. All of these older Macs worked perfectly fine with Home prior to the 16.2 rollout. Of course none of this should be related to the failure linked to the new Home architecture, unless I missed the release notes that said that all of these older Macs were no longer compatible, and by the way, your current Home configuration is going to be nuked. 

Something smells like it escaped Apple's dev process without being fully tested, part of which should include backward compatibility testing and clearly documenting all breaking changes. No way to spin this one.
 

Yeah, Apple really screwed the pooch on this one. My Home configuration is totally trashed.